Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 106065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
“And I blamed myself for it,” I gritted out. “I turned inward and wished I could be normal.”
“You should’ve listened to your ma and Lane,” Greer drawled. “Why the fuck didn’t you? They never liked him.”
“Because—because—” I flinched and screwed my eyes shut behind the blindfold, and I tugged at my hair, ready to kick the memories away, out of my skull. I didn’t want them. I didn’t want to remember the shame. “Because I was embarrassed.” I forced out the words. “It was my fucking fault, all of it. Mom and Lane were wrong. I was wrong. I was difficult. Why the fuck would I want to tell my family that? Back then—I was just so goddamn happy Marcus put up with me.”
Greer cleared his throat, and he was quiet for a bit.
I took a calming breath and tried to slide back into the pool of apathy.
I didn’t want to feel anything.
“Do you really wish Marcus dies alone, Corey?”
A breath gusted out of me in sheer relief. He was moving the subject away from the shame. “Yes.” I was honest. “Preferably in pain too. Complete fucking misery. Maybe some type of cancer that slowly eats him up from the inside, and he’ll feel the life draining out of his body.”
“You hate him.”
“With every fiber of my being,” I snarled.
“You don’t believe he can redeem himself?”
Are you fucking kidding me?
I let out a humorless laugh. “Are you stupid? He’ll continue doing this to others.”
“Hopefully, others won’t be as easy to screw over as you were.”
“Fuck you.” Rage itched right under the surface of my skin, and I balled my hands into fists. Even as a voice shouted at the back of my mind that Greer was just pushing buttons and trying to provoke me, I couldn’t hold back my reactions. “You don’t fucking get it.”
“Of course I don’t,” he laughed. “I’m strong enough to withstand armchair psychology manipulations. I never liked the fucker either. I never understood what you saw in him. He didn’t deserve a single motherfucking giggle from you—or your goofy fucking grins, but—” He coughed and blew out a harsh breath. And for a second, all the fight left me. “You were too weak, Corey. Accept that.”
But just for a second, because that did it. I couldn’t speak; I was overcome with so much fury that I choked. Instead, I ripped off the blindfold and heaved a breath, and what did he do? He fucking laughed at me. He taunted me. He mocked me.
I saw red and flew at him.
“I’m not weak!” I yelled. “You wouldn’t say that if I’d been in shackles, you piece of shit! My shackles were just invisible—I couldn’t see them! I’m not weak!” I pounded my fists wherever I could reach, his chest, his stomach, his arms, and he tried to restrain me. “I’m not weak! He tricked me!”
The crushing wave of grief rolled in again, killing the last of my lethargy, and I screamed right out. I just screamed and hit him. We toppled over. Pain shot up my spine, but it didn’t stop me. I kneed him in his side and smacked his face, to which he grabbed me in a chokehold and trapped me with his body.
“Fight me, you coward!” I shouted hoarsely.
“Why, so I can prove how weak you are?” He hissed as I punched him in the ribs.
I didn’t think. I just acted. I shot my head up and made impact with his nose, and then I managed to shove him off me. Fucking hell, my humanity had left me. I felt completely wild and frenzied.
I heard a sob and realized it was coming from me, but I was riding on a high where nothing but physical reactions mattered. I thrashed against his strength as if my life depended on it, and it felt like it did. This was life-or-death.
“I’m not weak,” I fucking bawled. “He used me! He lied to me! He broke me!”
With those last three words, a gut-wrenching scream left me, and the pain came at me at once. Two years’ worth of self-hatred and guilt, Greer’s tight grip on me, the breakup, Marcus’s infuriating arrogance, and the regret of dismissing my friends and family who’d tried to warn me.
It hurt so much. It hurt so fucking much.
“Red.”
I landed on the grass and curled into the fetal position. I couldn’t breathe, yet the tormented wails poured out of me without a problem. Greer hovered over me, his touch lighter than before, and he kept murmuring the same words over and over.
“Red, baby boy. It’s over. Red.”
I didn’t know I’d still been fighting him—however feebly—until he gathered my wrists in his hands and hugged me to him. Right there on the damp grass, he molded his body to mine and squeezed me tightly.
Damp, cold grass.
“I’m not weak,” I sobbed.