Page 4 of Riot Reunion
The guy starts mapping out a route to the cemetery like he’s fucking ‘Waze’or something. Everyone filters out of the church, chattering in that low, respectful way that people do in churches. I wait for a sign from Elodie that she’s ready to move. She remains seated on the pew, staring straight ahead, unblinking. Whereas before she looked everywhere but at the coffin, now it’s all she can see.
“I couldn’t move in that box he put me in,” she whispers. “It was so small. My back and my arms and legs…every single part of mescreamedin pain.Iscreamed. I cried and sobbed and cursed for him to let me out, but he never would. My joints hurt so bad that I prayed for death.”
My blood ignites. I almost detonate from the fury that explodes in my chest. “I should have been there—”
“How could you?” Elodie looks to me at last. “You didn’t even know I existed. You were on the other side of the world.”
“I should haveknown—”
She squeezed my hand. “Don’t. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.He’sthe one in the box now. It’s finally over. He’s never getting out. I can live my life without having to worry that he’ll suddenly get better and come and find me. He’s gone. I’m fuckingfree.”
She’s poised when she gets to her feet. It’s as if a giant weight has been lifted from her shoulders—one I didn’t even know existed—as she steps toward her father’s coffin. Regarding the glossy black wood, she reaches out and places a tentative hand against its’ surface, exhaling a long breath down her nose.
“I’ve dreamed of this moment,” she admits, her tone hushed. “I prayed that he’d just die. That I’d get a call one day, and they’d tell me that he’d been hit by a bus or something. That he’d fallen asleep at the wheel. That someone had kidnapped him on his way to the base and he’d just…vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. Even before he killed my mother. I—” She trembles with a sudden rage. “I fuckinghatedhim as much as I loved her, and he knew it.” She leans over the coffin…andspitson it.
It's oh-so-fucked-up that the sight of her doing it turns me on.
My dick doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong, though. It sees something it likes and reacts accordingly, which is why I find myself sporting a growing erection. Something dark and twisted stirs in the pit of my stomach. Something primal and possessive. Her father might be dead, but heisstill hurting her. The memory of what he did turns her insides to jelly even as she stands there looking down at his casket. I want to take that horror away from her. If I could, I’d surgically remove those memories from her mind altogether and make it so that, as far as Elodie’s concerned, they never even happened. But I can’t.
Instead, I roughly grab the back of her neck and spin her around. Her eyes are clear as glass; liquid and bright. Her lips part in surprise, but it’s a token expression: I think a part of her knew I was going to do this. Has my Little E been waiting for me to finally act on my deviant urges? I watch her pupils blow out, knowing sheneedsthis from me. Her bottom lip trembles.
“Don’t youdarecry,” I growl, lacing my fingers around her throat. “He doesn’t get any more of your tears. Not even if they’re angry tears. You hear?”
She swallows hard, her throat working beneath my palm. A sick part of me wants to tighten my grip, to feel the thin rush of air traveling in and out of her body. She’s magnificence personified, this girl. I’m obsessed with every detail of her; her eyelashes; the tiny beauty mark above her top lip; how petite and delicate her hands are; the paleness of her perfect skin, thesmoothnessof her perfect skin; even the pale little half-moons beneath her fingernails. Lunulae: I’m so obsessed withthosethat I actually looked up what they were called.
I doubt there’s a psychologist out there that would call my obsession with Elodie Stillwater healthy. I willnevergive her up. I willneverforsake her for another. I will forever be attuned to her wants and needs, and I’ll go to the ends of the Earth to make sure she gets whatever she desires. I will not tolerate another man’s gaze to land on her; I’ll gouge the offending eyes straight out of a dude’s head before I allow him to appreciate what’s mine. My love isn’t ‘Gen X Simp.’It isn’t‘Rich Boy Arrogant.’It isn’t ‘Teenaged Fixation.’It’s ‘Victorian Fucking Villain,’ and I claim that energy with no small amount of pride, knowing that the girl standing opposite me wouldn’t have it any other way.
I angle my head, studying Elodie, marveling at the pure venom in her eyes when she looks back up at me. “Youareangry, aren’t you, Little E.” This is a rather redundant statement, what with the way she’s vibrating like she might explode any second now, but I say it anyway. She’s never been more beautiful than she is in this moment, with the depths of her hatred spilling out of her.
“Yes,” she grits out. “More than I know what to do with.”
“Why?”
Her brows pinch together. “What d’you mean,why?”
“You heard me. Why?”
“Because my father hurt me, and I didn’t deserve it.”
I dig the tips of my fingers into her skin. “Millions of innocent people get hurt every day. None ofthemdeserve it, either. Try again.”
Elodie’s eyes flash blue murder, and I mean, fair’s fair. I’m being a dick. But she needs to see… If I can just get her to admit…
She works her jaw, scowling at me, eyes hard as flint. “Fine,” she chokes out. “I’m angry because this death was too good for him. They keep telling me not to worry, that he didn’t suffer. That he wasn’t even awake, and he had no way of knowing what was going on. Well, that death was toogoodfor him,” she spits. “Heshouldhave suffered. I wanted him to feel pain. I wanted him to be scared. I wanted him to go to his grave, full of terror over what a fucking shitty, awful life he’d lived, and that he was probably going to pay for it. I wanted—” She gasps, pulling in a deep breath. She struggles with the remainder of her confession. “I wanted—”
“Say it.”
“I wanted to hurt him back. I wanted to humiliate him in front of all of his precious Army buddies. I wanted to see the look on his face when they realized what a sick, perverted psycho he was.Iwanted to make him pay for everything he ever did to my poor mom and me, and then I wanted to hold a gun to his head, right between the fucking eyes, while he pleaded with me to show mercy.”
“And would you have shown him that mercy?” I lower my voice an octave, keeping my tone as close to a caress as a man can manage.
My darling Little E shakes her head, the lush waves of her hair swaying, her eyes all steel and hate. “No. No. Fucking. Way.”
I bring my mouth crashing down onto hers. Her body sags against me. She’s so overwhelmed all of a sudden that she becomes a lead weight in my arms. It’s as though she has no control over herself whatsoever. I’dthinkthat was the case, at least, if her lips didn’t part, and she didn’t return my kiss. As it happens, she returns it to the biting point of aggression.
Yes. Fuck yes. Take all that anger and give it to me. I can take it. Iwantit. It can’t hurtme.
Elodie isn’t like me. She’s strong, and wild, and perfectly capable of looking after herself, yes, but she’s also sweet, and kind, and tenderhearted. She’sgood. This fury has been eroding her, leaving an ugly patina on her vibrant soul. It’s been happening since the day I met her, and I’ve had to watch it happen, knowing what it’s costing her. I’ll be damned if I let it go on any longer.
