I wasn’t here for anything but my revenge.
I wasn’t here for anything but…
London was curled on his side, and even in the low light of the room, I could see the way his shoulders were shaking with silent tears he tried to keep to himself. I wondered whether he did it so I wouldn’t hear if I walked by, or if he was trying to make sure that the two men asleep in the room with him weren’t disturbed.
I unlocked the door and slid inside, and felt his entire body stiffen when I crawled into the bed behind him.
How many nights had this situation been reversed? Me, crying because of some atrocity that my adoptive mother made me commit, and Nicholas, the son who looked just like her, crawling silently between my sheets and wrapping me up in his arms.
Whenmyarms slid aroundhim, the reaction was completely different.
London went stiff beneath my touch, though the fine tremble of fear that pulsed along his shoulders told me he knew exactly who was there. I couldn’t help myself. I dropped my head and buried my face in his hair, inhaling his scent.
This was different too. Nicholas had always smelled dark, smoky, like blood and soot. Like danger.
London smelled faintly of sweat and fear, but beneath it he was sweet. Warm like vanilla and sunlight. I took another deep breath and splayed my fingers on his waist.
“Please don’t,” he whispered. It was like those words were the only thing he could say. I knew what he thought I was going to do… which was why I heard the soft sound of confusion he let out when I slid my fingers upward and settled my palm over his chest—his thundering heart—and pulled him until he was pressed back against me.
“Don’t what, London?”
Did some of the tension in his shoulders ease when I said his name?
When he breathed in, his entire body shuddered. I wasn’t sure if he was still beneath my touch because he was afraid that moving would get him hurt, or if some part of him remembered when we used to do this.
“I…” It was like he wasn’t sure what to ask now that he’d gotten my attention. When he didn’t say anything, I shifted my hand up to his shoulder, turning him so we were facing one another. It let me feel the rapid-fire thundering of his heart against the steady beat of my own.
And it gave me the sensation of his small hands coming up between us like he could actually overpower me. Like he could force me away from him.
He wasn’t even trying. He paused with his fingers resting against my shoulders, half pretending he wanted to push me away while lying silently in the bed beside me.
The low lighting would have made it so easy for me to pretend this was just like every other time before. Every other time in a life that wasn’t ours anymore.
Except I remembered the last time—Nikki slipping into the bed, wrapping me up in his arms. Telling me he loved me, that he would do whatever he had to if it meant keeping me safe.
Nikki, pressing a gentle kiss to my temple when he left the next morning.
And then his mother coming in a few hours later.
Time after that passed differently, a mixture of agony and despair where he never crawled into my bed again. Every waking moment was torture and starvation, horror and longing to just die.
But I remembered my last time with him—my last moments. Nikki, looking me in the eyes as our mother finally pulled out a gun and put it to the back of my head. Nikki, mouthing the words,“Look at me, Otto.”
I remembered it all.
Every moment he could have helped me—every moment he could have at least had the decency to sneak into the room and fucking suffocate me with a pillow so I didn’t have to suffer anymore.
Every moment he didnothing.
I needed to pay him back for every one of those moments.
I skated my nose along the pulse at his throat, drawing the scent of him deep into my lungs like it could water the seeds of hatred taking root and help them blossom into the threat on my tongue.
“I’m going to make your life a living hell. Do you know that?” I nuzzled into his ear, and beneath my palm, his heart startedto speed again. When my fingers danced along his side, he squirmed… but he wasn’t trying to pull away from me. London moved closer, even though I wasn’t sure he realized he was doing it.
Interesting.
It was even more interesting when I lifted my hands up, threading my fingers through his hair to yank his head back… and hegasped.
