Page 255 of Only Be Mine

I forced my hand forward an inch.

Two.

My fingers left a smear on the carpet.

My stomach felt… wrong. Not pain exactly. Just heat and wet and pressure.

“You’re already gone,” Trevor said conversationally. “We searched all night.”

I closed my eyes.

He was talking to me.

Or maybe just near me.

“She thinks you left,” he continued. “You should’ve seen her face.”

Something inside my chest cracked.

No.

No, she wouldn’t think that.

She knew me.

She…

“She’ll come around,” Trevor added. “She always does.”

I tried to lift my head.

It felt like lifting a car.

“She loved me first.”

That stupid line again.

Lightning flashed through the window somewhere upstairs. I saw it through the blur. A white flicker against darkness.

I wanted to tell him he was wrong.

That Cate wasn’t a prize.

That she wasn’t something you won by waiting.

But my mouth wouldn’t form words.

I tasted blood.

Hands grabbed my shoulders.

Rolled me.

The world spun violently.

I couldn’t breathe for a second. Then air came back in thin slices.

Something crinkled beneath me.