Page 34 of Breaking Isolde
“You said you didn’t want to hurt me, but you don’t call forcing yourself on me hurting me.”
He shrugs. “I don’t.”
“It’s illegal to rape someone, Rhett.”
He takes a step forward, then another. His hands are in his pockets, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers twitch against the fabric.
“I didn’t rape you, Isolde. I gave you an out, you didn’t take it. I told you the truth about Casey,” he says. “You just don’t like it. What more do you want from me? You’re getting more than anyone else would with any of the others. I’m trying to be truthful here because I want you to believe me. To understand I’m just as much a prisoner as you, even if our stations and roles are different.”
“You said Casey was supposed to be yours. That she was meant for you. That she died because she ran. But I saw the securityreport, Rhett. There were two sets of footprints. Hers, and yours. And there was blood on the rock before she hit it.”
He goes still.
I keep talking. “You were there when she died. Maybe you didn’t push her. Maybe she did slip. But you were chasing her, weren’t you? Doesn’t that make you an accessory to murder?”
His mouth tightens. He looks away, eyes tracking the ceiling like he’s counting tiles. “That’s the tradition, Isolde. We chase, we claim, you become ours, for better or worse. It’s not personal.”
“It was personal for her.”
He laughs, low and bitter. “Casey was stronger than you think. She could have made it. She could have surrendered when she was supposed to. We could be living our merry little lives right now, but whoever owns this shitty Earth decided she wasn’t the one for me. You are.”
“You said she liked you and yet, she fought to the end. Doesn’t sound like true love to me.”
He smiles, but it’s a corpse of a smile, nothing alive behind it. “She panicked, she didn’t give when she knew it was over. She couldn’t handle the ritual. You’re not like her and you can handle this. You can handleme.”
I cross my arms, every muscle in my body tight. “So what’s this, then? Am I your consolation prize? Your second chance at being the hero of your own story?”
He walks toward me, stops a few feet away. “You’re not a prize. And you’re far from second best, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Sure.”
We’re toe to toe now, the air between us charged like a fault line about to slip.
“Did you ever love her?” I ask, the words burning on the way out.
He flinches. I see it—a tiny jerk of the head, a hitch in his breath. “I don’t do love.”
“Liar,” I say, loud enough to echo off the glass.
He’s closer now, almost touching. “I wanted her,” he says. “But not like this.”
“Like what?” I spit.
He leans in, and for a moment I think he’ll kiss me again, but instead he whispers: “Like I want you.”
He’s shaking. Not a lot, but enough for me to see the control slip, the hands that always move with certainty now barely steady. Ithink about how easy it would be to break him right now. Just one more push.
So I push.
“Casey never wanted you,” I say. “She was scared. She called you a monster. She told me she wanted out. Never fucking mentioned you at all.”
He closes his eyes, and for a second I think he might cry, but instead he grins—a full, savage, predator’s grin. “That’s my girl,” he says. “I want you to hurt me. I want you to ruin me.”
He grabs my arm, hard, but not like last night. This time he pulls me in and slams my back against the greenhouse wall, one hand at my throat, the other pinning my waist in place.
His breath is hot on my face. I can feel his pulse through his palm. The glass is cold, biting through my hoodie, and the stone under my feet is slick with moss.
He bares his teeth. “You want the truth?” he says, voice a snarl. “I don’t feel guilt. Only disappointment. I lost what was rightfully mine, and now I’m stuck with the memory of her death. Not because I miss her, not because I still want her, but because life sucks and then you fucking die.”
