But that would make me prey. And I’m done playing victim.
Someone put their hands on me. Someoneunknowntook what didn’t belong to them and branded it with pleasure. And I fuckingfeltit. My body didn’t fight it. It burned for it.
I should be disgusted. Instead… I smile.
“I’m going to own it,” I whisper, dragging my fingers down the front of Karter’s shirt. “Wear it like a goddamn crown. Whoever touched me without my permission? They’re gonnawishI was broken.”
Karter’s lips twitch into something dark, dangerous. “You damn well better.”
He kisses me, sharp and sweet, the kind of kiss that stains.
“Now talk. Everything. Word for word. Don’t spare a single fucking detail.”
So I do.
I recount the way that masked stranger made me tremble. How his voice twisted into something haunting. How he fucked me like he knew my body better than I do. I speak every filthy syllable with my chin lifted and shame burned from my tongue.
And when I finish, the room is so silent it could bleed.
Their faces are unreadable. Walls of ice. Monsters caged by control.
Then Wyck steps forward. Voice low. Razor-edged.
“When we find him… he’s dead.”
God. Why does that turn me on?
It should send me running. Should have me scrubbing myself clean.
But it doesn’t.
It makes my thighs clench and my blood thrum.
“I want to be there,” I say, fire licking my throat. “When it happens. I want to see the light leave his eyes.”
Five heads snap in my direction.
“What?” I ask, daring them to flinch.
“You want to what, now?” Dash asks, arching a brow.
“You heard me.” I straighten, folding my arms. I won’t cower.
Dash opens his mouth, but Wyck beats him to it.
“If you do that, it’ll change you,” he says. His voice isn’t mocking. It’s regretful. Honest.
“Is that what changed all of you?” I ask, voice barely above a breath.
“Yes,” Dash murmurs.
“No,” Karter says at the same time.
I look at them, reallylook. The five Devils of Cliffside. Flesh and blood, but forged in something colder than steel. They weren’t born monsters. They were sculpted into it.
And I wonder…who did the carving?
“I want the truth,” I say. “I’ve been reading those journals. There are entries with your names in them. From when we were kids. Wyck, are they real?”
