Page 104 of Running on Empty

But when I went to grab another forkful of crap, I stabbed and the fork slid through the top of the hay rather than digging deep, smearing pungent shit all over the tines. I hissed in frustration, trying again, then again, to get the bulk of the hay on the fork.

“Struggling, omega?” Scarlett appeared at the door of my stall and the amused look in her eyes had me straightening up. “Can’t you do it?”

She was fucking taunting me, somehow I knew that, but right now my brain was primed to be baited. I felt the wolf stretch inside me for the first time in god knows how long, her fangs becoming mine.

“Scar—” Ash said, but I threw up a hand to silence him.

“Of course, I can fucking do it,” I snapped. “Haven’t I shown all of you just what I’m capable of?” I stabbed the fork into the hay and then deliberately stepped away from it so I wasn’t tempted to continue. “Do you need me to show you again?”

Scarlett didn’t reply, one perfectly manicured eyebrow arching slowly, questioning every statement I’d just made.

“I killed…” My mouth went dry, my mouth closed up and I just stared at her for a moment, my whole body quivering. “I killed them.” I cleared my throat, turning my head to spit a gob of phlegm into the hay. “I killed every fucking one of the men who hurt me, so I don’t have anything to prove to you.” I threw my hands up in the air and made a show of walking away from the fork. “I’m done.”

“But you’re not, not really.”

“For fuck’s sake, Scar—” Ash snarled, but Ronan was there, intervening seconds later. A knife had been produced from somewhere and he placed the blade of it under her chin.

“When my girl says she’s done, she’s done,” he said with complete certainty.

“Ask her,” Scarlett said, people starting to filter into the stables, looking on in concern. I didn’t want an audience for this, my muscles locking down tighter. “Ask her if what I said is true.”

And that’s when my three mates turned to me.

“Are you…?” Jax’s question was thin, anaemic, able to be brushed away without a thought, but then his brothers asked the same thing.

“Are you done?” Ash asked, a small frown forming.

That fucking line on his forehead. I was sick to death of seeing it, knowing it meant yet more judgement from him, so my hands formed fists as I let out a low growl.

“Stevie?” Before I could snap at Ash, Ronan turned to me, knife pocketed and it was then I saw Scarlett suck in a breath. “Love, are you done? I got rid of Jonesy for you already—”

“You what?”

I blinked as I stared at Ronan.

“That little cunt? I had been itching to take him out for ages and what he did to you? You had to know that needed an answer. He won’t leer at any other woman now, ever.”

The perfectly matter-of-fact tone Ronan used just had me staring, but not for long.

“Are you done?” Jax asked much more confidently now, stepping closer and that had my feet shifting, ready to run. “If there’s anyone else, anything else—”

“No,” I said, holding out a hand to ward him off. “No one.”

“If there’s anything else you need—?” he started to ask, but I shook my head sharply.

“You know what I need. I need sleep.” My voice cracked on those words, my hands dropping limply by my side. Exhaustion felt like a fighter, one that was pummelling me mercilessly, pushing me against the ropes. “I need to rest.”

“If that’s what worked, you’d be better.” My eyes jerked up to meet Jax’s, feeling a rush of hot, hot betrayal. He moved closer but I stepped back. “I’ll stay in bed with you for a month if that’s what it takes, watch you take every damn breath—”

“Maybe you’re not what I need.” That wasn’t my voice, my words, but they came from my lips anyway. “Maybe you were never what I needed.”

“Stevie—” Ronan said, the heartbreak evident in his voice, but somehow that had me doubling down.

“I don’t need to kill anyone anymore, so why would I need you, Ronan?” My heart was breaking at what I was saying, so fuck knows what was happening to his. It was like there was a poison in me and it wasn’t content until it was tainting everyone.

“So what’re you gonna say to me then, Stevie?” Ash said, stepping forward. “How are you gonna cut me down?”

“I don’t need to.” My eyes felt like they were as flat and as hard as his. “Because you don’t matter enough. I’ve got nothing to say, Ash, nothing for you—”

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