Page 103 of Toy No More

“J-Jasper?” he whispers, voice weak and low.

Even as my vision blurs, I watch his fingers dig into Apollo’s side, making him flinch. He leans to his ear, breathing over his shoulder. “All the things I did for you. Everything I gave you…and you decided to turn on me. To work with this pitiful, disloyal rat!”

Apollo’s breath hitches. He starts shaking his head. “N-no, I…I didn’t…I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not working with him!”

“He has nothing to do with this,” I say, trying to keep my voice firm, but my ribs send sharp pain throughout my chest and it breaks.

“I’m not… I would’ve never…” he keeps mumbling. Even with Jasper’s demanding glare on him, Apollo doesn’t stop staring at me, darting his eyes over my body.

Jasper notices.

That volatile, surging anger twisting his features again. He lets go of Apollo, only to grab him by the hair and pull him toward me. He yelps as he pushes him to the ground next to me. “Yet you still care about this pathetic fucking omega!” he screams over us while Apollo kneels, covering his head with his trembling arms. “You stupid, ungrateful whore! You always were such a shit liar. I never could understand how you made it in this life for so long. I guess a pretty face and a filthy scent are all that gets most of those idiotic, horny fuckers to want to believe your lies, huh? Not at all like this one. This one…” He chuckles bitterly, shaking his head while looking at me. “This one’s pretty good at faking, gotta give him that!”

“Pl-please, please stop, Jasper,” he whimpers desperately. “I’m so sorry, just let me… Don’t do this.”

I don’t know what to do. My body won’t listen to me, and it hurts, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to save him from this.

Fearing meeting his eyes, I only stare at the ground, where Apollo’s hand rests inches from mine. I want to reach out and hold him. I want to tell him how sorry I am for causing this before it’s all over.

I blink when he slowly slides his hand closer. His index finger touches my skin briefly before Jasper’s heavy steps coming toward us make him jerk away.

“If you’re really sorry, you can make a choice,” he says. I watch him in horror, breathless and powerless, as he grabs at Apollo and drags him back up on his feet. He pulls him into himself and turns him around. Looming behind him like some spirit of death, Jasper puts his gold gun in his hand, his fingers over his against the trigger, arm straightened out and aimed down at me.

Apollo lets out a hyperventilating sob, shaking his head while he closes his eyes. “Please, no…pl-lease.”

This is how it’s gonna happen.

No matter the panic gripping me, I’m glad. Glad it at least isn’t as gruesome as what he did to that other guy. But…the thought of Apollo having to live with it rips my heart apart in the worst way, almost more painful than the terror over my approaching death.

“Please, don’t make him do this,” I whisper.

“Shut your fucking mouth!” Jasper snaps at me, and I swear he nearly presses Apollo’s finger against the trigger right that moment.

Curling his upper lip like some deranged wild beast, he releases his pheromones. As potent and excruciatingly intense as he did back in the warehouse, only now the scent is even more biting. Like he wants to not just hurt but completely destroy. I watch Apollo react to them the same way I do. His knees tremble, and he lets out a small, high-pitched whimper while tears run down his cheeks.

“What’s the matter,sugar?”Jasper growls against the side of his face, clearly using that name as a dig, as another form of an attack. “Do you really care about this person more than me? Me, who saved you. Who protected you. Who gave you everything and pulled out of the shit you were drowning in?Seriously?!”

I wish Apollo could read my thoughts. Even as my head feels like it’s going to explode with the overpowering scent of the ocean making me want to throw up, I stare at him, internally screaming for him to just say what Jasper wants to hear. This is all about control. About his bruised ego. Apollo needs to tell him I mean nothing. He needs to do whatever he can to save himself.

“I-I used to love you,” he whispers softly, each word interrupted by a sob. “You w-were everything to me.” I shake my head, begging him to stop, but Apollo keeps going. “But then you started changing. L-Last few years, you started…becoming the same as the violent men I thought y-you saved me from.”

I try to get up, to move, but I can’t. It drives me insane seeing his lip quiver like that. I have to protect him. I have to do something.

Jasper scowls, letting out a cruel chuckle. Apollo’s hand with the gun keeps dropping, so he snaps it back up and aims it at me. “Fine then,” he says in a tone that strikes terror into me. “It’s either you or him. How about that?”

Twisting Apollo’s wrist around, he presses the barrel into his temple.

I let out a gasp like someone kicked me in the stomach.

Apollo’s terrified gaze meets mine, and I just stare at him with my mouth open, completely paralyzed.

“D-Don’t do this,” I mutter, well aware that Jasper might snap and aim the gun at me again.

I’ve never really thought about how much I’m afraid of death before. I believed it was too far in the future. It wouldn’t happen tome, I told myself. And even if I did die, what always weighed on me the most was what would happen to Skyler. How he would be left alone in the world and I could no longer make sure he’s happy.

Right now, watching those grayish-blue eyes drenched with tears in front of me, I can suddenly think of only one thing:NOT HIM.No matter what, don’t kill him.

“You can g-gut me or beat me to death or-or do whatever you want, just please, don’t do this to him,” I say, shaking my head desperately.

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