Page 170 of Feed Your Fiends

I shake my head. “I said them anyway because I didn’t care. I thought I didn’t care.” He blurs before me. All I can see are a mesh of colours through a liquid lens. “But I did because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have wanted to shatter you so that we both could be destroyed, together. Even if we were broken, I wanted us to be broken together.”

He grips my thigh tighter.

“You could never be a spare because there isn’t anyone like you. I don’t see anyone but you first. For me, there’s only you because… I love you. I don’t ever want to spend another day without you, and I won’t waste what time we have left pretending to hate you any more. I don't care about winning. If I can just keep you forever, I’ve already won.”

A gasp flies from my lips as I’m tugged down. His fingers slip into my hair, his lips descending on mine. Warm, his tongue is so warm against mine as he tries to soothe me. I stroke his nape, my tears rolling along the curve of his nose and splashing his cheeks. Through my haze, I can see his dazzlingly white teeth as he smiles once we break apart.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear you say, that you love me. The fact that I made you believe I didn’t love you for even a day…it was unbearable. I’m sorry I had to shatter your heart. Again. But we did shatter together that night.” He shakes his head slowly. “That night… I couldn’t stay in our room without you. I couldn’t forgive myself for dismissing you, for handing you over to Rin and Hale until I was positive I could keep you forever.”

Rin and Hale…

Bae’s key out in the open…

Hale’s phone call…

Him locking me up in that cage away from everyone’s reach…

He’s always one step ahead.

Always.

“I’m sorry,” I whimper. “I’m so sorry for wanting to win so badly, I’d do anything. Like backstabbing you, double-crossing you, believing you when you said you didn’t want me any more.”

The tip of his tongue tickles my cheek. “What did I tell you before about apologising to me?” he asks between licks.

I knit my brows.

“Swallow your sorries,dove. Everything you did was for a reason I drove you toward. I made you a player.”

I hiccup. “But I drove you, too. You knew Bart would never accept me, so you killed him? For me?” I swallow the words, my palm covering my mouth as my eyes fly to the door. We shouldn’t talk about this here.

“Forus.And I own the hospital now, Dove. The police have already left, although I’m sure they’ll reach out again. But I have alibis. Witnesses. Some of the same ones Bart planned to use.”

He’s thought of everything.

And all I thought of was money.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper again. “Another death. Another parent death, and this time I’m even more involved. Bart…”

“Has returned to the underworld.”

“You say that now but—”

“I’ve said it since forever. Before I even knew you existed.”

“But now that he’s gone…emotions aren’t black and white. They ebb and flow.” Jarett’s childlike, clueless face comes zooming to me. I hate him, and yet there’s this undercurrent within me that wonders if he’ll ever be normal again, but why would I want that?

“Are you thinking about Jarett?”

I blink a tear away. He must be clairvoyant.

“It’s complicated. Those emotions. You feel concrete about it, but then sometimes you don’t… I just mean that it’s okay if those complex feelings hit you hard later.”

“You want me to give myself permission to feel them, although I caused them in the first place?”

“Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“For me, it was straightforward. The only way.”

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