This isn’t over.
Not even close.
He laughs again, watching us from the corner of his eye. There’s a flicker in his gaze—dark, venomous—a look I’ve seen before. Pure hate, dressed in that familiar smirk.
“Don’t worry, Nell,” he sneers. “He’ll get bored of you too once you stop putting out. We all do. You’re just a placeholder—you’ll never be the main act.”
Is that it? Is that why he did what he did?
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’ve never been enough—for anyone. Just a passing distraction, something to fill the silence until something better comes along. Not the reason someone stays. Just… the reason they stop for a while.
I’m the static in the background, the wallpaper they don’t notice until it peels. I fade when they lose interest. A wallflower, melting back into the scenery like I was never there.
Cameron’s still blocking me—his broad frame cutting off Adam, towering above with an aura steeped in storm. But his eyes… there’s no malice there. Just something softer lingering in those chocolaty irises. Pity? God, pity for the girl whose life is too tangled to untie.
Darcy pulled men in with her beauty. I host a never-ending pity party. Maybe that’s why he kissed me. Maybe it wasn’t want—it was guilt.
“See why I didn’t want you in here?” Cameron’s voice is low, calm like the edge of a blade. But Adam’s words keep coming, pounding into my chest like he’s hammering nails into my self-worth. I falter. And for just a moment, I can’t stop the flicker of shame that crosses my face.
Cameron sees. Of course he does.
He doesn’t hesitate. He turns sharply and stalks back toward Adam, plucking the rolling pin from my grip with chilling ease.
Then he crouches, slow and deliberate, beside Adam’s face.
“You know,” he says, voice dipped in ice, “I feel sorry for her.”
There it is. I knew it.Pity.
He tilts his head.
“After all—you’re all the same. Tiny dicks, loud mouths, and rubbery personalities. I bet you never made her cum, bet you never gave her a proper orgasm. Because men like you make up for the lacking bedroom department by making them feel like it’s their fault. Hell, I bet you couldn’t even keep it hard half the time.”
He’s not wrong. But that wasn’t the way Adam used to spin it. Said I didn’t try anymore. Said without makeup, I was ugly. That I’d let myself go.
Cameron’s voice cuts in before I can spiral further into my self-doubt.
“And that’s exactly why men like me get to swallow your footsteps. To show her what it’s supposed to feel like. To remind her what it’s like to be seen.”
He pauses, crouching low enough that his words barely need volume to hit.
“Because when she screams my name,” he murmurs, “she’ll finally understand the difference between being fucked by a man and a boy.”
I know he’s only saying it to crush Adam—to strip him down and salt the wound. He doesn’t mean it. I’m not that lucky.As much as I’d love to believe I could be something to him… I won’t be. Not me. A man like Cameron could never want a mess like this.
“Yeah, good luck with that one,” Adam sneers, clinging to what’s left of his bravado. “Even her uncle couldn’t get it up half the time—could he, Nell?”
The words hit like a punch to the gut. I should’ve known better. I should never have let him that deep—should never have handed him the parts of me I still wake up running from. That was my biggest mistake; giving a boy like Adam a map to my trauma and expecting him not to turn it into a battleground.
He took everything broken in me and twisted it into a weapon. And the worst part? He’s gotten good at it.
Cameron’s nostrils flare, jaw locked so tight it looks like it might shatter. Before Adam can spew another word, Cameron lunges—pinching his nose shut, forcing his mouth open, and driving the rolling pin down his throat in one swift, brutal motion.
Adam gags, his eyes bulging and watering as he flails—arms twitching at nothing, body convulsing around my favourite weapon.
Cameron leaves him there; writhing, choking, fighting for air like a fish on concrete.
When he rises, his chest heaves. There’s something in his eyes now—something wild and unnameable. Animalistic.
