Page 70 of Boy of Ruin
I turn to look out the window, resting my head against the seat.
I’m so fucking tired and torn. Torn between demanding Jeremiah drive me far, far from here. From getting out and running up to that house. Breaking the fucking window before I break Ophelia’s nose and snap Julie’s neck.
But I’m exhausted.
My brother did this, because…of course he did.
Even still, it’s not his fault. What’s happening down that dark driveway—and I don’t want to think about that too hard—isn’t his fault.
“He’s fucking her.” It’s the only thing I can think to say, and I can’t stop staring out my window, even though I see nothing.
I think again about the last time I was here with Nicolas.
His hand comes to my shoulder and I flinch.
“Get the fuck off her,” Jeremiah snarls, his words quiet.
Nicolas doesn’t let go of me. I’m glad for his touch, because my heart is...aching. Without tearing my eyes away from the abyss of darkness that’s Julie’s front yard, I place my hand on Nicolas’s.
“It’s okay,” I say quietly, hoping to calm J. I thread my fingers through Nicolas, trying to forget I did that with my husband all the time.
He seemed to like it.
Now I’m not so sure.
Jeremiah’s hand comes to my thigh, his grip firm. Meant to reassure. But his fingers seem to spark against my skin.
“I don’t like anyone else touching you,” he says softly, and my jaw clenches as I turn to stare at him, his green eyes eerie from the dash lights of the car.
He can’t even let me have this.
He can’t fucking let me have this.
He took me here for his own sinister purposes, because he’s a calculating fucking psychopath, but now he can’t even let me grieve what I should’ve known all along. My marriage is over.
I open my mouth to tell him just that when his hand shifts from my thigh to my face, his thumb pressed against my bottom lip again. “I don’t like anyone else hurting you, either,” he says, leaning in toward me, across the console. He drops his hand to my throat again, his touch gentle. He angles his head, brushes his mouth over my lips.
I try not to react. So, so fucking hard. Despite what Lucifer did, what he’s doing, this isn’t right.
This isn’t fair to him.
I ran.
I ran.
“I’ll leave him alone for now,” Jeremiah says, his words like a promise, “but I’ll pay him back for this too.”
I dig the pen in deeper to the blank notebook, folded back to an empty page. It slices through the paper, cutting into the next sheet. I drag it down—red ink—to the very end, flexing and curling my fingers when I drop the pen, my grip shaky. I lick my finger, flip past the pages, seeing how many I ripped through.
Ten.
The pen cut through ten pages, and on the eleventh, there’s a little indention, but no ink. No tears.
If I cut through ten layers of paper, how many layers of flesh would this pen get through. I snatch it up from the floor of my bedroom, staring at the point, glancing at my wrist as I flip my palm over, see the blue veins on my forearm.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath, stretch my legs out, brushing the notebook aside as I do.
I think about her.
