AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Before I had the chance to say anything, John Paul came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her midsection, and pulled her back against his chest.
“Ooo…Raine girl!” he called out. His hands rubbed against her hips. “You are one sexy little castaway!”
“Get your fucking hands off of her!” I screamed and launched myself at him. I grabbed both of his arms, still wrapped around Raine’s middle, with one of my hands, wrenched them up and over her head, then grabbed her with my other hand and spun her around until she was at my back. A second later, I shoved John Paul backwards and into one of the racks of clearance items.
“What the fuck is your problem?” John Paul growled back at me. He righted himself and took a swing at me. I ducked, evaded his shot, and kidney punched him. In the process I lost track of his other fist, which landed right under my jaw. I lost my balance and had to take a couple of steps backwards to regain it. At that point, Raine was shrieking at the top of her voice for us to stop and then started calling my name over and over again. I felt hands on my arms – Nick trying to hold me back. As if. He wasn’t holding me tightly, and I didn’t find the guy particularly threatening, which was a good thing for him. I chose to ignore the fact that he was touching me at all and yelled back at John Paul instead.
“Don’t you fucking touch her like that again!” I snarled. Nick’s hands on my upper arms gripped a little tighter, and I let him hold me back. The guy wasn’t scrawny by any means, but he wasn’t even close to the physical frames both John Paul and I possessed. “I’ll fucking gut you if you touch her like that again!”
“You haven’t the slightest fucking idea what you even want, do you?” John Paul smirked at me. “You stupid, masochistic little troll.”
“You!” Lindsay’s voice defied her size, and I suddenly found my arms full of clothing just as Nick let go of me – shirts, shorts, even a fucking pair of green lounge pants – and Lindsay’s hands were against my chest, shoving me backwards towards the men’s dressing rooms. “Go try these on!”
“What the fuck?”
“Best to do what she says,” Nick’s voice called out from behind me. “Honestly, it’s just a hell of a lot easier that way.”
I glared over t
he mountain of clothes in my arms at John Paul, who shrugged and took a step backwards, standing down. He winked at me, his mouth curved up in a sly little smile. The little fucker had done it all on purpose – just to get a rise out of me. Well, it fucking worked. Too taken off guard by Lindsay to do anything but listen to her, I stomped into the dressing room with whatever fucking clothes that half-sized maniac had shoved into my hands. I ignored the bitch who tried to get me to take a little number to show just how many fucking items I was taking into the fucking dressing room, stalked all the way to the last stall, even though it didn’t look like any of them were in use, and slammed the fucking door behind me. Before I had a chance to do anything but drop the pile of clothes on the little bench inside, the door burst open and Raine stood behind me.
“Do you want to tell me what in the hell is the matter with you?”
“I’m fucking fine,” I snarled. “Now get the fuck out of the men’s dressing room. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s wrong!” Raine yelled. She placed her tiny hands on her hips and scowled at me.
“Nothing is fucking wrong!” I screamed back at her. She took a step back and stood flush against the dressing room door. “What could possibly be fucking wrong? We’ve been rescued, for fuck’s sakes! Obviously everything is fucking perfect!”
“That’s what I’m asking you!” Raine yelled back at me. “Ever since John Paul and Nick landed, you’ve been snapping at everyone, and I have no idea why!”
“I don’t even know where you live!” I yelled at her. I wasn’t sure exactly what point that was supposed to make, but I made it anyway. “What the fuck is supposed to happen now? You go home, that’s what happens. You go home and I…I…fuck, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Raine’s eyes widened, and she tried to take a step back, but she was already up against the door of the dressing room. Her mouth opened and then closed again. Her eyes danced around my face, probably trying to figure out what the hell she thought she saw in me in the first place. I waited for her to tell me I could get lost because she didn’t have any more use for me and no one ever wanted me to hang around too long. The walls around me solidified.
“You get to go home, too,” Raine said under her breath.
“I just left home.” I didn’t mean to say it. I never meant to tell her that. I tore my eyes away from her, focusing on the pile of fabric that had slipped off the bench and fallen to the floor.
“You didn’t want to leave,” she said suddenly. When I glanced back to her face, her eyes brightened with understanding. “You wanted to stay there.”
I stared at her for a moment and then looked down to my hands, which seemed to be entertaining themselves by twiddling my fingers around. It didn’t matter. Staying there would have been pointless, if for no other reason than the lack of booze, smokes, and whores.
“Bastian…why?”
“You were mine there,” I said quietly. “Making that work – I could do that. Not now. Now you are…everyone’s.”
“What do you mean, ‘I’m everyone’s’?”
“John Paul, Nick, Lindsay – you belong to all of them.”
“Bastian, that doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Well, you fucking asked.”
Raine sighed and closed her eyes. I knew I didn’t make any sense – I couldn’t justify that shit to myself, let alone anyone else. I couldn’t deny her a real life just because I was too fucked up to function around people.
“Bastian…are you jealous?”
