Page 140 of Like Grim Death: Part One
I slide my hands down his chest, hooking my fingers around his sweats, for something to hold onto. He smiles, crushing me with his sternum pressing to my breasts. “I like toying with you, Ella. But you know what I don’t like?” Something sinister lurks in his question.
My mouth goes dry, but I answer him. “What?”
He steps back then, and my hands fall to my sides. But he doesn’t let go of my throat or drop eye contact. “I don’t like feeling as if things arehappeningaround you that I don’t know about.”
I feel dizzy.What do you know? Can we talk about this now? Can I say it? Am I allowed?
But we aren’t on the same page and it’s so very clear when he asks, “Were you jealous, watching her at Ignis?”
What?I blink, thrown.
Ignis.The memory hurts. We talked about it beforehand, me and Maverick. He told me how it would go. What it was. But he didn’t give me an option to prevent him from doing it. It was watch, or step outside, go upstairs. NeverI’ll sit this out for you.Never a question on how I’d feel. Not once. I didn’t have a choice. I rarely ever do.
“You want all this attention you think my sister has? You hate her, you saw what Lucifer was willing to do for her, and now… Is that why you’re flirting with Atlas? Are you that desperate?” He circles his fingers tighter around my neck. “Do I not give youenough?”
I shake my head once. “No, that’s not—”
He drops his hand from my throat and steps back, watching me carefully, the movement cutting off my words. I breathe deep, trying to follow along to his thought process but I’m confused.
“Don’t play games with me. I willnotsuffer like Lucifer did, do you understand me?” He keeps his voice low and his eyes piercing mine, like his words do to my heart. “I don’t have time to check your head every day. I know you have problems…” He trails off, looking down and to the left, and I start to sweat under my arms, along the back of my neck.Problems.BPD. Borderline Personality Disorder. I don’t think about it most days. I don’t use it as a shield, an excuse. I don’t think most people with mental illness do. We don’t realize our behavior is abnormal, or problematic. And now, when he references it, I feel like he slapped me in the face. “And God, I love you.” His eyes lift to mine again. “But I’m too old for games.” I think about when he chained me to the bed to fuck Chelsea, when he toyed with me in his lap last night, and I want to disagree, but it’s like I can’t think of a good argument. I can’t formulate the words to hit back. “You’re mine,period.Don’t try to piss me off. This shit you’re doing, I see through it. But it’s not cute, and I don’t work like that. You flirt with him again, someone will end up hurt, okay? I’m trying toprotectyou. I can’t do that if you’re acting like achild.”
There’s the sensation of falling, like my stomach plummets to the floor and along with it, I’m sinking, sinking, sinking.
My mouth closes. Whatever retort I had is gone. I cross my arms, like I’m trying to protect myself.
Maverick looks exhausted as his shoulders fall. Circles are beneath his eyes. His gaze is on the floor. “And if one of my brothers comes to you whispering some shit in your ear, it’s too good to be true. Don’t fall for that shit.” He lifts his eyes to mine. “Your loyalty is tome.And if you need help with something you feel like you can’t talk to me about, get over yourself and reach out to Sid. She knows what this life is like.”
My breaths come in heavy pants, like my pulse in my ears. I feel like I should tell him. I should confess. I want to let it all go, but what if I fuck this up, when I’m so close to being done?
Before I can decide what to say, how to respond, he adds, “Don’t go near Sevryn again.” Then he turns around and stalks off, not even glancing once again at the fucking cookies.
I stare after him as I hear him head up the stairs. He is so incrediblywrongabout whatever it is he’s thinking. He is so fuckingoff.I want to scream. I want to hit something.
I ball my hand into a fist and turn my body, crashing my knuckles into the counter. It hurts, so I do it again.
And again.
And again.
My body is hot, and I’m sweating, and tears prick my eyes.
Fuck you. Fuck this. You don’t get to say shit like that and just walk out on me.
A scream leaves my throat. I grab the hot pan without putting the mitt back on and I stalk across the kitchen, stomping on the pedal for the trashcan. I dump every single fucking cookie in the trash, then I fling the pan into the sink, my fingers burning from the heat.
Fuck. You.
I curl up alone in bed, my eyes open but there’s nothing to see. Maverick is still in his office, and he’s ignored me all night after our stupid fight.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand for something to do. I pull it from the charger and open up my contacts.
I have all of the Unsaints in there, except Atlas. I suppose, in retrospect, maybe that’s more suspicious, but at this point, I don’t care.
I think of Sevryn. The marks on his body. How scared he seemed around me. I think we could be friends, and I need a friend, but it’s hard to tell any of that to Maverick when he is so wildly blinded by shit he’s inventing inside his head.
My thoughts flicker to Mom and I wonder if she’s still at that trailer. I have the sudden urge to call her. I’m not sure why. She was never one for comfort, but I wonder if we just always cling to it, the longing for a mom? Is that the ache inside my chest? A wish for an older woman to tell me sometimes boys suck, and it’s okay, we’ll get past this, and it’ll be fine?
I squeeze my fingers around my phone, wondering what she would say if she knew how I was living now, minus the secrets. She would be angry, I think. She could never be happy for me. She could never be happywithme. Or pissed on my behalf, protective over her own daughter. I never got any of that from her.
