An apology. I need to apologize. I just need to say something nice to her.
Fenrir walks in. “Hey. The food’s here.” He grabs the sodas that are on the table. “By the way, I love your outfit, Mel.”
Mel startles, then looks up at him. She looks confused, but she says, “Thank you. I love your tattoo.” She gestures to his throat and the wolf tattooed there.
He grins. “Thanks. It was a bitch and half to get it done. I’m probably due a touch-up soon.”
“Don’t flirt with my sister,” I say viciously. “She’s tooyoung for you anyway.”
Fenrir looks taken aback. “Uh. I wasn’t flirting? And if you want to be a bitch, go take it out on River. He’s the one with a hard-on for abuse.”
I flip him off and storm out of the room.
Asch calls out to me, but I take the stairs up two at a time to hole up in Blaze’s bedroom.
I need to keep it together.
Once we take care of Allers, I’ll be normal again.
No more weird hallucinations.
No more fantasies of killing my sister.
No more needles stabbing through my skin, puncturing me, leaving me a seeping, pocked mess.
Someone knocks on the door, but before I can tell them to go away, it opens and Asch steps into the room. He takes one look at my expression and closes the door behind him.
“Hey,” he says, crossing over to sit next to me on the bed. “What happened? Do I need to beat up Fenrir for something?”
“No.” I pull the pillow tighter against my chest. “Somebody should probably beatmeup.”
“They’d better not,” Asch says, wrapping an arm around me. “Seriously, though. What happened? I thought plans were going well. You know, besides all the bickering and grandstanding and everything.”
“Everything’s perfect.” I let go of the pillow and roll so I’m facing him. I trace a line down his neck.
I can feel his pulse.
What is it like, to know that you’re a real person with a real heart?
I couldn’t even comfort River properly. I’d almost told him we could go murder his bitch of a mother.
He would have hated me again.
“I can tell, what with the way you ran upstairs,” Asch says, but his voice is gentle. He’s so gentle these days, nothing like what he’d been when we’d first met. “C’mon, Pandora. Talk to me.”
I press my lips against his and drag my nails down his neck.
Asch shivers, his arm tightening around me.
“Fuck me up,” I whisper in between kisses. “Mark me. Make me bleed for you, Asch.”
“With your brothers downstairs?” he asks. “They’d setmeon fire.”
When did he turn into such a pussy?
I growl and pull his shirt up. “They won’t. And who cares, anyway? Do it. Come on, Asch. Fuck me.”
Asch lets me take his shirt off, revealing his muscled chest, then grabs my wrists and squeezes tight. “That what you really want?” he asks. “Or are you just trying to distract yourself? Fenrir said your sister was crying.”
