Page 156 of Boy of Ruin
He laughs, and it’s a nice sound. Unlike Lucifer’s cruel rasp. “I didn’t think so.”
I let the silence stretch between us, ignore the guards darting glances our way as I stare up at the moon. “Why are you out here? Where’s your girlfriend?”
He seems to tense beside me, his spine going rigid as he sits up straighter. I can see it out of the corner of my eye, and I marvel at the fact every Unsaint has fucking relationship problems. I guess it should be no surprise, but Atlas is kind. He deserves something good.
“She’s not my girlfriend anymore,” he says, and his words are low and angry. Almost…evil. Like there’s something lurking beneath that smile he always wears.
“Oh?” I ask quietly, not wanting to press too hard, but it would be nice to think about someone else’s pain for a moment instead of being consumed with all the thoughts of my own.
He blows out a breath, adjusts his hat, drops his hand back to his thigh. “Don’t change the subject, Sid,” he says quietly. “Why don’t you go find your man? He needs you, you know?”
Just before I can cuss him out, he turns his head, his dark eyes locking on mine as I keep ripping apart a blade of grass with my fingers.
“We all need someone, and I know you two have fucked each other over a thousand times.” His jaw clenches as he glances down at the space between us a moment, and I wonder in what ways Natalie fucked him over. Was it the drugs? Like my husband?
His eyes meet mine again after a moment. “But he’s having a fucking psychotic break, and he doesn’t want to hurt you. He wants you to…help him.”
I stand, taking a step back, dropping the blades of grass. “I’m not a psychiatrist, if you didn’t know that, Atlas—”
He stands, too, towering over me, a skull T-shirt stretched tight over his chest. “I did know that, thank you very much. I’m not as dumb as you seem to think I look.” He glares at me, his jaw ticking. “But he can’t see a fucking psychiatrist, and I don’t think either of you are looking for a healthy relationship.” He cocks his head, glaring down at me. His face is boyishly handsome, but right now, he looks a little scary. “You don’t want that. You don’t want someone that doesn’t fight for you.” He steps closer. “Someone that doesn’t hurt you. You want to be roughed up, Sid.” Another step and that aquatic cologne seems to consume me as I stare into his dark eyes. They’re not nearly black, like Cain’s. No, they’re some sort of brown-blue mix, and the shards of blue seem to glint in the lights around the parking lot. “And he wants to rough you up, but he doesn’t want you to fucking run all the goddamn time. Grow some balls and stay.”
For a moment, we just stare at each other, our chests heaving, anger between us, and it’s not even towards each other. His is no doubt to Natalie, and mine to Lucifer. He’s just taking his pain out on the wrong person.
I get that.
Even so, he needs to back the fuck off.
After a moment, I step away from him, toward the back door. “You must be just as dumb as you fucking look,” I tell him with a shrug, “because I don’t have balls, shithead.” Then I turn around and head inside.
I stop outside of our room, and I don’t hear anything. Even the music is drowned out up here, on the hallway with all the boys’ bedrooms. I snuck in through the back stairwell, successfully avoided seeing anyone.
Now, with the silence beyond the door, relief spreads through me. I can go inside and fucking sleep. I’m sure he knows I’ll be in here and leave me the fuck alone. Or maybe he’ll be so fucked up, he won’t be able to find his way up the stairs at all.
Either way, I reach for the door, find it unlocked. Good thing, because I don’t have the damn key. My copy is somewhere at our house, which I’ve avoided like the plague since I saw Ophelia in there.
Fucking Ophelia.
My stomach twists into knots.
I push thoughts of her aside and step into the dark room, taking a deep breath as I close the door at my back.
But immediately, I know something is wrong.
The lights are off in the room, but down the hall, the blinds are open, from the balcony, and the dim light casts a glow on two people.
One is laid out on the table. The one Lucifer and I had breakfast at in the mornings that week we came here after we got married. He smoked out there, too, careful to blow the smoke away from me, unlike that first time we met at the intersection. He drank too, mimosas in the morning, but no fucking blow.
Not yet.
Not then.
Maybe he was stronger then. Maybe the nightmares hadn’t started. Maybe our fights hadn’t been so fucking vicious.
I don’t see any coke now, either, but I see plastic cups. A bottle of vodka about to teeter off the edge of the table, dangerously close with every thrust my husband makes into Ophelia.
She’s stretched out over the table, her arms over her head which is tilted back, her mouth open in ecstasy. Her big tits are bouncing as my husband pounds into her, slapping one of her tits as I watch him, one hand on her upper thigh, pulling her closer to him.
I see his core muscles flex, his pants around his ankles, and Ophelia’s bikini top tied around her throat where he must have been choking her, because after he slaps her tit, he grabs the string and pulls, hard.
