Page 69 of Riot Act
“Yeah. No worries.” I head for the stairs.
“The library. Tomorrow,” Elodie calls after me. “You, me, and Carrie. We’re gonna study. We’ve all been so distracted, we’ve hardly spent any time together. What do you say?”
“I say yes.” I give her a smile over my shoulder, warmed by the idea of spending the afternoon with my friends. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but when you’re trapped at the same school, at the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, that’s an age to not spend any time with your friends. This little bit of distance between us all has worked in my favor, though. If Elodie and Carina weren’t so wrapped up in their boyfriends, they might have noticed just how pale and distracted I’ve been. They might have noticed the bandages. They might have started asking unwelcome questions…
Above me, a swell of loud, thrashing music erupts as a door opens and Pax leans out over the side of the bannister. He’s shirtless, tattoos blacker than black, taking up most of his skin. The look on his face is ominous to say the least. “You’re late.”
I glance back down the stairs, and Elodie has gone.
A pop of brilliant white light bleaches the walls. Pax took another photo of me? Sure enough, the body of his Canon is in his hand when I look back up at him. “I said eight-thirty. It’s nearly nine.” His brows are drawn together, eyes narrowed, his jaw set. Even with a shitty expression on his face, he’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. My pulse ratchets up, changing gear as I climb up to the stairs. He watches me intently as I come, scowling the entire time.
When I get to the second-floor landing, he heads straight for me, camera still in hand, and sweeps me up with one arm. I’m so shocked that I don’t even have time to yelp. One moment I’m standing on my own two feet. The next, my legs are wrapped around his waist and he’s pinning me to his chest with what feels like one solid, strong band of steel.
Panic flutters beneath my solar plexus. He’s so much stronger than me. Picking me up like this was nothing to him. If he wanted to, it would be nothing for him to hurt me. To pin me down and take whatever he feels like.
If you make a sound, I’ll cut out your fucking tongue, Presley. Is that what you want, huh? You think I won’t do it?
Horror climbs my body like a ladder. It starts as a numbness in my feet. A prickling. A tingling. By the time it reaches my chest, I feel like I’m about to split out and my insides will rupture out of me like sand. Only…Pax boots his bedroom door closed and drops his hold of me. Not for long. Only for enough time to set down his camera and to walk across his room, stalking like a predator with the muscles bunching and shifting in his back, over to where his stereo system is blasting Rage Against the Machine. Assuming that he’s going to turn the music down so I can hear when he gives me shit for being late, I’m surprised all over again when he cranks it up even louder.
He faces me with dark determination written into the lines of his face. He doesn’t speak. Instead, he points to the empty, polished floorboards in front of him. The demand is clear: get your fucking ass over here.
I’m not afraid.
I’m not afraid.
I’m not afraid.
This has been true ever since the night Dad moved into Grandpa’s place. It isn’t true now. The first stirrings of fear have ignited within me. It’s as if a stone has been cast into the still, flat waters of my calm, disturbing the surface, and instead of the ripples decreasing, they’re building, becoming greater and greater, more violent with every step I take toward the point on the floor where Pax is pointing.
I can hardly breathe when I reach him.
His eyes are wild—the pale filaments of blue and white-grey twisting together until his irises look like they’re made of beaten silver. Over my racing heart and the blood roaring in my ears, I can just about make out the sound of ‘Bulls on Parade’blaring from the speakers mounted on Pax’s bedroom wall. Strangely, I can hear Pax perfectly when he whispers to me, though.
“You disobeyed me, Chase.”
I shake my head. “Jarvis came to my room. My father told the school…told them what happened. She’s has to check in on me—” Pax’s right eye twitches. Less than a millimeter of movement, but I see the command in the action.
Be still.
Be quiet.
“Take off your clothes.”
I swallow thickly. “I sweat so much on the way down here. It’s hot as hell out there. Maybe I should get cleaned up first?”
His right eye twitches again. A muscle feathers in his jaw. His nostrils flare, too. He leans in closer to me, turning his head, angling himself in toward my neck. The whole time, he doesn’t break eye contact. It takes a second for me to realize that he’ssmellingme. Slowly, deliberately, his eyes fall shut. “Take off your clothes…” he repeats. “Right. Fucking.Now.”
Am I really doing this?
Did I come down here, fully aware and perfectly fine with the knowledge that I was showing up at Riot House for the sole purpose of getting fucked?
I did. I know I did, and I didn’t think twice about it. Pax encompasses me. He always has. Every dark, angry, ugly part of him, wrapped up in such a devilishly beautiful package. He’s hostile and he’s hateful, and he wields his anger like a blade. There is nothing good about him. But when I’m with him, I can let go. I don’t think anymore. I don’t rage against my own inner pain. The waking nightmares that plague me every second of the day have no power over me in his presence. I used to crave him because of how he looked. Because of how he made me feel. Now, I crave him because, around him, I can surrender. I can feel nothing at all.
I move automatically, undressing myself. It isn’t some kind of sexy, sultry strip tease designed to turn him on. I remove my clothes, focusing on his face as I slip out of each item. He watches me back, and I feel the weight of his attention fixed and locked around my throat like a goddamn choke hold. I want him. I want him more than I want to keep on living. I want him more than I want to die. And isn’t that the crux of this whole thing? Isn’t the wanting of him the only thing keeping me sane? Driven mad and held together by the one person who has the power to destroyeverything.
Pax runs his tongue over his bottom lip, tilting his head back. His hands contract at his sides. “Turn around,” he tells me.
Turning away from him feels like turning away from the warmth of the sun—a fierce and volatile sun that might explode and wipe out humankind at any moment.
