Hearing her say that causes me to turn my gaze towards her. And fuck, the first second I see her face guts me because I see the fear in her eyes.
Not fear of him.
Fear of me.
It’s quick. Buried beneath shock and the stubborn set of her mouth, but I recognize it. I have seen it before, in that alley when everything went to shit. When three assholes put their hands on her and I stopped being a person with choices and became a weapon with a heartbeat.
That day cost me years. It cost her even more. And now she is looking at me as if some part of her has been dragged right back there.
My grip loosens before I decide to let go, because I can’t survive Skylar looking at me like she’s scared of what I might do next.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” the asshole against the brick wall manages, now that my grip has eased by half an inch and he has just found his courage.
I let him go.
Not because he deserves the air I give him back. I let him go because, once again, I have managed to show up in her life with murder in my head and violence in my hands.
He drops hard, coughing, one hand flying to his throat as he bends forward, gasping for air.
I step back.
The space doesn’t feel like a victory. It’s more like failure, because I promised myself I would never be that man in front of her again. I stood in that workshop and meant it, and it took only one corner and one wrong pair of hands on her arm for every promise I made to dissolve into the same old ugly instinct.
Same fists. Same fury. Same fucking mistake, dressed as protection.
He stays bent over for a second, coughing hard into the pavement, one hand clamped around his throat as if I have left my fingers there.
Good. I hope he feels them for days.
The prick straightens slowly, his face flushed and eyes watering, as he pulls himself back together. His gaze flicks from me to Skylar, then back again before something ugly twists across his mouth.
“So that’s it?” he says, voice rough from my hand. “You’ve been playing the broken little victim while fucking this asshole?”
Skylar goes still beside me.
“Jesus, Skylar,” he says, rubbing his hand over the front of his throat as if I have wronged him personally. “You’ve been a slutfucking this asshole and still had the nerve to act like I was the problem?”
My fist curls.
Yeah, I’m going back to prison because I’m going to kill this fucker.
One punch. That is all it would take. One clean hit to that fucking smug mouth, and I could put him on the ground right here on this pavement, in front of whoever wants to watch. Split his lip. Crack his teeth. Make him swallow every word he just spat at Skylar and choke on the ones still sitting in his throat.
My body wants it. My bones want it. The old version of me is already stepping forward, already calculating the distance, the angle, and the damage. Already entirely certain it would be worth whatever came after.
He is close enough. My shoulder shifts.
Skylar’s fingers clench around my arm.
That small, specific pressure drags me back harder than anything else on this street could have. Just her fingers on my forearm and the whole ugly momentum of the last thirty seconds stops dead in its tracks.
I remember prison walls. Metal doors. The sound of years closing behind me because I didn’t know how to stop once I had started.
I know how to stop. I just have to choose it.
I unclench my fist slowly.
I glance at Skylar. She is holding only one bag now. The other is somewhere around my feet, split open like a crime scene nobody gives a shit about. I didn’t even hear it drop.
