: Chapter 7

I let Margo have the night. I’m not an idiot—I know what today cost her.

But the important thing is that we’re on the same page. Neither of us are going anywhere. She needs to know how it feels to be systematically crushed.

And then we’ll see how well she puts herself back together.

“I was going to call you.” Theo leans against his car, and he straightens as I walk up the driveway. “But I figured you might be busy.”

I stifle a laugh. “You find Amelie?”

He follows me into Eli’s house. “She wasn’t home.”

I grunt.

“You found Margo.”

“Indeed, I did.” I flick the lights on. I leave my shoes at the door and lead the way to the basement. “Why are you here?”

He shrugs. “Figured you might do something stupid.”

“Like?”

“Kill Ian.”

I chuckle. “I thought about it.”

“Everyone’s talking about how you kicked them out of Ian’s house,” he says, throwing himself down on my couch.

Margo and I sat there not too long ago. She was the last person down here besides me.

I shake my head. “We needed privacy.”

“That usually includes a room, you know? A locked door.”

“She’s turning into a ghost,” I say to my dresser. I yank out a clean t-shirt. “She needed reviving.”

“Is that what you were doing?” He scowls.

“I don’t think she even noticed it was a costume party.” I get changed, then flop down next to Theo. I stare at the television, which is currently off. “Video games?”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

I flick it on and hand him a controller. It isn’t the most intelligent thing for us to be doing. In fact, it kind of feels like a mind-suck after a while. I enjoy the empty feeling it gives me, so I let our playing time stretch from a few minutes into almost an hour.

I finally drop it and check the time. It’s past midnight.

“Do you ever sleep?” I ask Theo.

“Not really.”

I grunt. “Well, I do.”

He puts aside his controller and stands. “I can take a hint, Asher.”

He slaps my shoulder on his way out, and then…

Silence.

I lock myself in the bathroom, scowling at my reflection. I turn on the shower and wait for the steam to fog up the mirror. It only takes a minute, then I shed my clothes.

I hate looking at myself. My reflection. All I see is the scared little boy who Margo turned me into. Old rage works up my throat. I pound my fist on the counter. There are hickeys on my chest from last night. The memory of her lips on my skin is almost enough to erase seven years of trauma… but not quite.

I used to smash mirrors. My hands are covered in faint white scars, barely visible, from my time as an angry child. My mother once walked in on me punching the shit out of a mirror in the bathroom. There was blood everywhere. She dragged me to the emergency room, where a doctor picked glass out of my knuckles for thirty minutes.

That was a hard lesson to learn.

Once I’m under the hot water, I relax. It’s almost hard to breathe with the amount of steam in the shower, and it reminds me of the way Margo’s pretty lips parted when I squeezed her throat. My dick gets hard at the thought of her.

I should’ve fucked her against the wall in Ian’s living room, even if the prick was eavesdropping around the corner. Especially because he was eavesdropping. I stroke myself, remembering the way she reacted to me tonight.

Afraid.

Turned on.

Fiery.

The way her pussy clenched around my fingers when she came.

Fuck.

I pump faster, desperate to relieve my growing tension. It’s the memory of her anger that does it. The way she fought. I groan and come, spilling on the tiles. Sparks zap through me.

This wasn’t supposed to be this way. I wasn’t supposed to let Margo get to me—again. But she has. I’ve let myself hate her for years, and it’s easy. What isn’t easy is admitting that every tear down her pretty face tightens my chest.

Why does her crying affect me so much?

I finish washing and get out, ignoring the mirror. Theo was a good distraction, but all I want to do is crawl into Margo’s bed. I’m torn between making her pay and protecting her from the shitstorm that’s brewing.

I could throw her out into the cold. It’s already in motion.

Dad used to relate Newton’s laws to human behavior. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. His favorite was: Every force in nature has an equal and opposite force.

He meant to balance us out. Every decision carried weight. It was harder to make a change once a course of action had been decided on. He would know best of all. Selling his company, the shit he pulled with Margo’s family…

My trajectory has been set toward Margo since we were children.

It’s too late to stop.

But… she might just be my opposite—and equal—force. If she can find her spine.

I shake my head, water droplets flying. It’s going to be a sleepless night. The rattle of restlessness will keep me awake for hours. It leaves me with two options: fight to keep my eyes closed or burn off energy so I eventually crash.

Option two usually works best.

I lace on running shoes and yank on a sweatshirt. Eli’s parents are on the couch in the living room, the television screen flickering blueish light over their faces. They don’t seem to notice me slip past them, out the front door.

As soon as I hit the sidewalk, I run.

There are a million ways to exhaust the body.

A million ways to burn energy.

Running isn’t my favorite—I think my first choice is a tie between sex and skating—but it works just fine. Well, I think it does, until I find myself standing outside the Bryans’ house.

All the windows are dark. I walk across the lawn and tip my head back, watching Margo’s window. She’s at Ian’s house, hiding like a coward.

I scale the trellis with practiced movements. I never told her that Liam’s family used to live in this house, and he used to sneak out often.

Her window is unlocked. I slide it open with one hand, then lift myself in. My entrance is nearly silent. I straighten and glance around the dark room. Her bed is made. Her uniform is crumpled toward the foot of the bed, a pair of running shoes just below it. She took her boots and high heels with her.

I lie down on the bed, fluffing the pillow under my head. It smells like her shampoo.

She isn’t a girl who wears a lot of perfume. Her scent comes from her skin and her soaps, and I think I like that best. Amelie and Savannah—and any other girl who got close enough for me to notice them—coated themselves in expensive shit.

Not Margo.

She forgets that I knew her as a child, too. Memory isn’t a one-way thing.

I catch her looking at me with regret. Maybe longing. And I know it’s because she wishes she could untangle the mess she made. The knots bind us so tightly together, it’s killing us.

Through the walls, one of her foster parents is snoring.

I shift around on the bed, leaving my mark. I have no doubt she’ll notice it when she returns. She’s tuned in to me. And make no mistake: she is going to return. The Bryans will find her and bring her back, even if it tortures them.

They’re honorable like that.

Why couldn’t Margo have been placed with someone else? A family less forgiving?

I’d call it fate that Margo was put with the Bryans, but unfortunately for them, fate operates by a different name: Lydia Asher.

My mother.

I pick myself up off Margo’s bed. I still have a pair of her panties in my dresser. The pair I ripped off her. But I cast a glance around the room and I can’t help but to think that this place doesn’t feel like her home. She’s inhabited the closet and the bed, a few drawers in the dresser. Beyond that… nothing. No pictures or posters on the wall. The same fucking bedspread that was probably there the day she arrived…

It’s understandable why she doesn’t call it her home.

And after what I did, it’ll feel even less like it.

I’ve been spinning off-kilter for years. It’s justifiable to want the same for her.

How does it feel, Margo?

I run my finger over the top of the dresser, and then I step into the hallway. There’s more risk out here. Robert or Lenora could come out any minute, half-awake and stumbling to the kitchen for a glass of water.

It’s almost pitch-black in here, except for the moonlight filtering through the window at the end of the hall. I lean close to one of the frames on the wall.

Robert, Lenora, Isabella. One happy family—on the surface. Of course, this photo was before Isabella got addicted to drugs and derailed her entire life. Theirs aren’t the only ones destroyed by Amber Wolfe.

The list goes on and on…

I lift the photo off the wall and unclip the back. I intend to take the picture—there are so many on this wall, it’ll take them weeks to notice it gone—but there’s a folded piece of paper in the back of the frame.

Intriguing.

I take it and put it in my pocket. I leave the photo. No need to raise undue suspicion. Carefully, I place it back on the wall and cross back to Margo’s room. I slip out of her window, closing it behind me, and climb back down to the ground.

Anticipation licks at my skin.

But no: first, the punishment.

I shouldn’t have come to the Bryans’ house in the first place.

Scrub out the weakness, son.

So I do. I’ll run until I puke, and then I’ll read the note burning a hole in my pocket. And maybe then, I’ll be able to sleep.