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“Of course.”
I heard my mom storm out of the room after that. I didn’t think she even stopped to kiss her new husband goodbye. Trouble in paradise? Or maybe it was all in my head because I’d, you know, banged my stepfather in the shower after Gareth had locked me in a pitch-black room with a corpse and a big-ass bucket of blood.
I struggled to open my eyes after that, and it took damn near all the energy I had in me to lift my eyelids. They felt like stone. It was a losing battle, but I wouldn’t give up. No, I didn’t know how long it took, but I didn’t stop until I forced my eyes open.
A white, sterile ceiling hung above me, and an itchy blanket sat on my legs. I lay in a hospital bed, my wrist bandaged up, an IV hooked into my vein. Rolling my head to the side, I saw Alistair sitting in the chair beside my bed, staring at me.
He didn’t say a word when I met his icy blue stare, but he did shift his weight on the chair as he leaned forward a bit. His tie had been taken off, along with the top two buttons on his dark shirt. His suit jacket hung off the back of the chair he sat in, his tie draped across it.
“You’re awake,” he whispered. “Good.” He didn’t say anything else, getting up. My head was too tired to follow him, but I heard him close the door before returning to the chair. He dragged the seat closer to the bed, leaning toward me and holding my stare the whole time. “Look at where you are, Brianna, and tell me if you think what you did was worth it.”
I struggled to swallow, feeling the intensity of his stare. Alistair was a good-looking guy, especially all undone as he currently was. “Where’s Gareth?” My voice came out sounding weak and dry; I was suddenly so very thirsty.
“He went to find some good food, which might be difficult since this is a hospital,” Alistair spoke dryly. “Don’t worry about him right now. Worry about me. Tell me why I should stop the hospital staff from holding you here for a psych evaluation and observation.”
My eyes fell, and I started to turn my head away from him—I couldn’t take the intensity of his stare any more. It was like he could see through my flesh and bone and peer into my soul. I hated it.
Alistair leaned over the bed, and before I knew what was happening, his hand gripped my jaw and forced my head to turn back to him as he commanded, “Eyes on me, Brianna. When I’m talking to you, always keep your eyes on me.” He didn’t let me go right after; he kept his hand on my jaw, the warmth from his skin seeping into me and making me remember a whole lot of things I shouldn’t.
It was only when I continued to hold his stare that he finally let my jaw go and sat back, waiting for an answer to the question he’d asked before.
“Gareth invited my friend over and was going to kill her,” I whispered, my voice cracking because of how dry it was. “He brought her to the pool house. He was going to make me watch.” Reliving those moments was almost too much to bear.
Alistair nodded along. “You waited too long to give him what he wanted. I warned you against that.” He paused, studying me, a flicker of emotion crossing his handsome face. “But there’s no body in the pool house, is there?”
“No. I threatened to kill myself to get him to let her go.” My fingers clenched on the sheets beneath me. At the time, it’d been all I could think of, the only thing I could do, and now… now that I wasn’t dead and was still somehow alive, everyone was going to assume I’d tried to kill myself because I was suicidal, not because I wanted to hurt Gareth.
“And he did what you wanted,” he spoke, and I managed a nod. “But you went ahead and did it regardless. Why?”
The answer was simple, so simple Alistair should’ve known it already, but still I told him the truth, “I wanted to hurt him, take away his newest toy.” I puckered my lips into a frown and shot Alistair a dry look. “You can see how well that turned out.”
To my surprise, Alistair smirked at that, as if he found it all amusing, like I’d just told him a joke that was hilarious enough to break through his cold outer shell. “I see. Did you know Gareth would save you?”
“No. I was hoping he wouldn’t. I tried to keep him off me, but…” I shrugged.
The look Alistair gave me right then was one I couldn’t read. “You were willing to kill yourself in order to teach Gareth a lesson. Kudos to you. I don’t think anyone’s ever been willing to go that far for him. It seems I chose right after all, picking you.”
That got me to scowl at him. Well, scowl as hard as I could at him, given the fact every muscle in my body, including the ones on my face, were exhausted. “Are you kidding?”
“I’m not. You got him to pull back and let his prey go. Of course, you’re also the reason your friend was prey to begin with, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of this. I’ve never seen Gareth so worried about someone else before. Other than when you were getting looked at and fixed up, and now, of course, he hasn’t left your side.”
If I would’ve been stronger, I would’ve ground my teeth at that. “So?”
Alistair held my stare. “It means he cares about you, to some extent at least, and that’s what I wanted to begin with. He’s probably upset at you for doing what you did, but I’ll try to help him see the reason why.”
“I wanted to hurt him,” I hissed out.
“Yes, just like he’s wanted to hurt you, I’m sure. Someone like Gareth… he’s not normal, Brianna. You know that. You understand that it means you have to go about things differently with him. You understand that, sometimes, pain is necessary.”
Silly me. I’d momentarily forgotten I was trapped with two psychopaths. My new life, all shiny and rich to the outside world, but dark and dangerous and bloody on the inside. None of this was normal.
Alistair got quiet after that, though his intensity did anything but lessen. The way he stared at me, I wanted to look away, to pretend those azure eyes of his did not make me feel certain things… but that was damn near impossible, because at the same time, the last thing I wanted to do was look away.
Shit. I think I was crushing on my stepdad. Like, we’d lost sight of who we were to each other that day, when he’d brought me to the bathroom to clean me off. He’d turned into a whole different person, all orders and filthy language,good girlthis andgood girlthat. How stupid was I to think we could pretend none of it had happened?
Things were only going to get harder from here.
“As angry with you as I am for daring to hurt yourself,” Alistair spoke, not sounding angry at all—but I guess that was his superpower, “I’m also impressed. For a moment there, I was beginning to wonder if you were a lost cause.”
