Page 89 of Grave Love
Killing a stranger isn’t as important as making her see my point of view. Forcing her to understand the way things are supposed to be.
She pulls out of the parking space. The car drives like normal. That will change.
I follow her out, pulling onto the main road. At the stoplight before the highway, I check my phone: two missed calls from my brother. I dismiss the notifications, then dial her, giving her the chance to pick up. To stop this whole fucking mess before it gets worse.
The call goes straight to voicemail.
My vision tunnels on her tail lights. Red floods everything. Blood courses through me like a tidal wave.
She thinks she can ignore me. Acting like I don’t belong in her life.
I own her fucking life.
Dark woods and moonlit shores saddle each side of the highway, and her car swerves—her tire finally deflating enough to fuck with her ability to drive—and her car limps along.
She finds a safe pullout to the side of the road.
I park too.
My phone vibrates; Brody again. I ignore it.
I jump out of my car. Stride toward her. Cuffs in my pocket, a black canvas bag in my hand. She bends down, checking the tire. Her chin drops as she sees its wobbly shape—another damned hole in her plans. Plenty of people can see us. For all they know, I’m a civilian helping out some poor, stranded woman.
And it truly is like that. Ren was supposed to be my lost victim, an aspiring dead girl who found refuge inme.Who found her eternal resting place inme.Not Brody. Not herself. Not anyone, but fuckingme.
And I refuse to give that to her now.
My boots crash on the ground. Ren spins, facing me.
“Blaze,” she snaps. “What are you—”
I slam the bag over her head, obstructing her view, hooding her like one of those tortured prisoners she dreams of becoming. The fucking irony of it squeezes my chest with a death grip as she struggles against me, fighting me with fire. A mixed message. Her will to fight—to fightme—competing against her will to die.
I drop her in the trunk of my car. Use my strength to hold her down, locking the handcuffs over her wrists. She curses at me. Screams. Even sobs. As if that will stop me. As if that will make me question what I’m doing for a second. But I laugh. I laugh like a fucking maniac. Proving to her that I don’t give a shit what she says or does to me.She’s still mine.
Then she stills. I can’t see her expression, but I know the look on her face by her languid body language.
She’s smug. Too confident in her safety with me.
She thinks I’m doing this to protect her.
My scalp overheats. I’mnotprotecting her. I’m forcing her to understand that I own her.
I shut the trunk, my nostrils flaring as I concentrate on what I need to do. We drive. Ren doesn’t make a sound, and that irritates me even more. Like she’s taunting me.
My phone vibrates.
A text from Brody:Where the fuck are you?
I close the message. The rage boils over inside of me, bubbles over the edges. I can’t think about anything but her. She thinks she’s safe with me, and maybe she is. Maybe this is some bullshit excuse I’m telling to myself to make it seem okay. What the fuck am I trying to make her understand, anyway? It’s like I’m in a competition where I don’t know the rules, but I want my fucking prize. I want Ren.
Just Ren.
At my house, I scoop her up from the trunk, bringing her inside, not giving a shit if any of the neighbors see me carrying a hooded woman. I don’t even lock the front door. Daring them to see us, to question what this is.
Because if someone finds out, I might go to prison, but Ren won’t be able to escape. They’ll keep her alive.
I tear through the hallway. Rip the canvas bag from her head and drag her across the hardwood floor by her hair. She screams, and those screams transform into mournful sobs, like the noises she made the first night I saw her in the crematory. I want to punch her for being so stupid and kiss her for the simple fact that she’salive.For the fact that she can scream. That she can cry. That there is still air in her lungs. That her pulse still races.
