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I didn’t know what to say to that, so I decided to keep my mouth shut.
He leaned closer to me, his voice dropping to a whisper, “Don’t hurt yourself again, though. What you did is something that can only be written off as an accident once. From now on, you’ll have to find other ways to control Gareth that don’t involve you constantly hurting yourself.”
I really hated that he was putting all of this on me, as if his psychotic nephew was now my problem and not his. “If Gareth supposedly cares so much about me now, I wonder…” I licked my lips, feeling how dry they were, and the movement caught Alistair’s eyes, just for the quickest of seconds. “What would he think if I told him about what happened between us?”
Alistair let out a long breath, and he leaned even closer to me. His head was a mere twelve inches away from mine, so close, and yet still so far. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Brianna, but I really should expect nothing less. Go ahead. Tell him. He’ll probably try to kill me, and then he’ll turn on you—unless you try to claim that you weren’t willing and I had my way with you regardless… but from what I remember, you were more than willing. You practically begged for it.”
Fighting with the heat creeping up my body, I managed to say, “And you were all too happy to give it to me, so what does that say about you?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” Alistair spoke, and as his cold stare held mine, I felt his hand curl over mine on the side of my body, slowly dancing its way up my arm. Goosebumps rose on my skin anywhere he touched. “Maybe I didn’t choose you just for Gareth. Maybe a part of me wanted you for myself.”
I had those thoughts before, and hearing Alistair say them aloud made me wonder if it was truer than I’d thought.
But Alistair managed to pull himself away from me after that, getting to his feet and taking a giant step back, as if he had to put more distance between us. “A moment of weakness does not a weak man make,” he told me, back to his aloof, emotionless self. “Don’t threaten me again, Brianna, or I will make you regret it.”
He turned to grab his suit jacket and his tie, throwing both on haphazardly before going to the door. He walked out after that, and I could see him in the hall through the window on the wall. Almost instantly, Gareth appeared, carrying a food tray, his expression dour behind his glasses. Alistair said something to him, and his head whipped in my direction. We locked eyes through the glass, and my stomach twisted for a whole different reason.
The heat that had crept up my spine during the exchange with Alistair was replaced by dread. Dread and desire and hatred all rolled into one.
As Gareth walked around Alistair to come inside the room, Alistair tossed me a look. I couldn’t read that look, but I had to turn my focus to Gareth as he strolled in, holding onto a tray with a hodgepodge of food. He set the tray on the small table that rolled over my bed, going to shut the blinds and block out my view of Alistair, who remained in the hall, almost like he was standing watch.
“I can’t believe my uncle was with you when you woke up,” Gareth muttered, sounding unhappy as he turned toward me. He took the same seat Alistair had recently abandoned, pulling the rolling table with the tray before him and away from me. He worked on lowering it so it wasn’t as high. “I wanted to be the one you saw first.” His green eyes flicked toward me, his irritation plain.
I didn’t say anything, so he carried on as he opened up a spork from its plastic wrap, “I heard your mom left. Alistair’s standing watch outside for me so no one comes in and interrupts us. You and I… we need to talk.” He stabbed whatever meat was on the plate with the spork as hard as he could, but instead of bringing the meat chunk to his mouth, he leaned toward me, offering it with a glare.
Taking that meat off that spork was the last thing I wanted to do, but I assumed Gareth wouldn’t let it go until I did, so I parted my lips, letting him feed me like I was some helpless girl who couldn’t feed her own damn self.
At least the meat didn’t taste as bad as it looked.
Gareth scooped some mashed potatoes with the spork, feeding me that spoonful—or sporkfull—next. “I’m not very happy about what you did,” he told me. “You forced my hand, which was bad enough, but you couldn’t stop there. No, you had to actually do it.” As I swallowed the scoop of mashed potato, he stabbed another piece of meat and brought it to his own mouth, chewing on it in a way I could only describe as vicious.
That’s what Gareth was, though: vicious.
“You pissed me off,” he spoke with his mouth full, not caring at all about etiquette. “I wanted to fucking kill you when I saw you cut your wrist like that.” He swallowed, his grip on the spork so strong the plastic sounded like it was cracking. “But then, and I hate myself for saying this, believe me, all I could think about was getting to you and stopping the blood.”
He set the spork down and leaned towards me. The arm closest to the bed rested on its edge, while his other hand swept some of my hair away from my face, dipping down to my neck, where it settled comfortably. Gareth didn’t squeeze my neck, he didn’t choke me; no, he held onto me like a possession, like something that belonged to him.
“All I could think about,” he whispered, a fire dancing in his emerald stare, “was saving you.” He smirked at that, as if it was funny. “I think that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever wanted to stop someone from dying. I hate you so much for bringing that out of me, Brianna.”
The hand around my throat tightened just a bit, just enough to make me swallow. I parted my lips, wanting to tell him off, but he wasn’t done yet.
He leaned over me more, stopping only when his head loomed over mine. He was practically on the bed with me, the only thing I could see. No wonder why he wanted Alistair out there. “I hate you for making me feel these things,” he growled out. “I hate you so fucking much for daring to take yourself away from me.”
Somehow, I managed to scrounge up some strength, and I lifted a hand, curling my fingers in the fabric of his shirt. Alistair must’ve brought him a change of clothes, because he had not a fleck of blood on him.
With my fingers curled tightly against his shirt, I returned his glare with one of my own. “Not as much as I hate you,” I whispered back. “Not as much as I hate everything you are and everything you do. There’s no way you hate me like I hate you, Gareth.”
Staring up into his eyes, I wanted to kill him. I wished we were back in that kitchen, the knife in my hand. I’d take it and plunge it so deep into his neck, twist it, and yank it out so his blood sprayed everywhere. There was nothing more I wanted than to kill him.
At least, that’s what I thought until Gareth whispered, “Hate me all you want, but I won’t let you leave me. I won’t let you.I won’t.”I didn’t know if he was trying to convince me or himself of that; maybe both of us. Regardless, every time he said he wouldn’t let me, his face lowered and lowered, and he only stopped when his nose touched mine.
“No killing my friends,” I hissed out, the hand in his shirt loosening until it pressed against his collarbone, flat on his upper chest. What I felt was his steady breathing, in tune with mine, and when my fingers grazed the skin above the collar of his shirt, he let out a ragged sigh.
“Fine,” he whispered back. “But no more hurting yourself, either.”
The breath that came from me right then was uneven, like his nearness was getting to me. Second after second it grew harder to simply exist while this close to Gareth. “Fine,” I echoed him. I didn’t know if I could trust him, if I could believe a single word he said, but I guess I’d find out, because I had nowhere else to go but back to that house with him once I got out of here.
I was slightly propped up in the hospital bed, but that didn’t stop Gareth at all. He literally crawled on top of me, like he couldn’t hold himself back—and I supposed he couldn’t. Holding himself back wasn’t something he was well-known for. He knew nothing about impulse control.
