Page 81 of Riot Rules
Dash looks up and grins at me, though there’s something wrong with the smile. Something plastic, and forced, and hard. That could have something to do with the fact that he isn’t here alone. There’s a girl here. Another girl. A girl who is not me…and she’s on her knees at his feet, and his dick is in her mouth.
Again…
…WHAT?
“Ahhh,shit!”He inhales sharply through his teeth. “I totally forgot. I toldyouto meet me here tonight, right?”
I’m…where are my words? I’m speechless. What the hell is happening?
Dash laughs, running his hands over the girl’s hair. Her head continues to bob up and down on his dick. Who…whoisthat?
“Don’t worry. If you can give me twenty minutes, I’ll be finished up here and good to go again. Just grab a seat or something.”
Just…
…grab…
…a…
…seat…
…or….
…something…
A shocked bark of laughter rips out of my mouth. One solitary blast of sound that bounces around the inside of the observatory.
The girl, Amalie Gibbons, I think, stops what she’s doing and looks up at Dash. I don’t see her face, but he does. He strokes her cheek affectionately, the way he’s stroked mine so many times before. “She can totally join us. I don’t mind.” She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and reality warps.
How is this not making any fucking sense? I can’t…who…?
Dashtoldme to meet him here. We’ve met here so many times. The observatory is my favorite place at the academy. So then…what isthis?
Dash looks up at me, shrugging. “Did you hear that? She doesn’t mind, actually. If you want, you could just—”
I turn and I crash through the door, back out into the rain.
Just grab a seat or something. Just grab a seat or something. Just grab a seat or something. Just grab a seat or something. Just grab a seat or something. Just grab a seat or something. Just grab a seat or something. Just grab a seat or something. Just grab a seat or something…
I roll my ankle on a tree root. My hood falls down.
The rain slants horizontally, lashing, driving right into my face. I can’t see where I’m going. All I can see is the blonde, wavy hair of the girl who was on her knees. The way her head was bobbing up and down. The way Dash’s eyes were glazed over, full of lust…
I trip on a rock, and a yelp bursts out of my mouth. It wasn’t real. There’s nowaythat was real. He would never, ever do that to me. He just wouldn’t. He told me that he loved melast fucking night.
I stumble, unable to stop myself this time. I slide down the side of the hill, screaming as the shale and scree bites into my ass. I slide to a stop in a deep puddle, and the rainwater soaks though my jeans, flooding my shoes. My jacket, which was so waterproof on the way up the hill, now definitively is not. I’m soaked to my skin. Cold, stagnant water seeps up my back. It doesn’t matter, though. Nothing matters anymore. How could it?
I’m such a fucking fool.
How did I not see this coming? How did I miss this? Where were the warning signs? I’ve been so wary. Cautious. Careful. And just when I became so sure of him, when Iknewwith every inch of my being that hewasn’tgoing to hurt me…
It would be hyper melodramatic to say that this is worse than what happened with Kevin. Stupid, right? But in this moment, sitting in five inches of water, so dejected that I can’t really feel anything anymore, itdoesfeel worse.
Jason and Kevin didn’t lie about who they were. They didn’t try and lull me into a false sense of security. They were who they were—grotesque, evil monsters—and they didn’t have any qualms about people knowing that. In fairness to Dash, he did warn me that this was going to happen. Quite a few times, actually. But then he spent two months stealing secret kisses, slowly letting me in, holding me in his arms and making me come. He made me forget all of the things that he said he was going to do. Like a fool I let him walk me into this…thisepicbetrayal, and now I only have myself to blame.
A choked sob flies out of me, loud enough that it echoes down the hillside toward the academy. My hair is plastered to my scalp. My hands are completely numb. The rain sheets down, the cold droplets skate over my face, blending with my tears.
“You win,” I whisper. The words are lost below the roar of the rain slamming into the earth and the wind shaking the trees, but I feel the resignation in them, deep inside my soul. Dashiell has won. He told me he was going to break me, and he has. Was this his plan all along? Has he spent the past two months, rolling his eyes every time he has to be with me, laughing behind my back whenever he heads back to Riot House, telling his asshole roommates tales of how stupid I am?
