Page 145 of Drown Like Heaven
It was a hell of a lot quicker than the elevator.
I hopped up, shoving open the metal door and jogging towards where my car was parked. There were cameras in the stairwell, but I had to assume they weren’t closely monitored because that wasn’t the first time I’d jumped down those six flights, and nobody had come to check on me yet.
In my car, I texted Dakota back to let her know my ETA, then pulled out, thinking about the ways my life was steadily getting worse—and how there was no clear solution.
Aamon was circling, getting closer.
Micah wasn’t defenseless by any means, but between him and the hybrid, it was going to be a scarily close fight. And he wasn’t letting me get away with that level of risk, not when he could hold my own life over my head with his twisted brand of evil. Shoving me into my own darkness without remorse, without thinking twice, drowning me in the one thing I’d never be able to escape.
Sometimes, I wondered what it would be like to live in his head. To think up shit like that. To be constantly planning, manipulating, bending people to your own will.
I wasn’t like that; there wasn’t some darker part of me below the surface that I kept hidden. I didn’thideanything. Dakota knew exactly how messed up my head was—as well as she could, being human—and she could fight with that knowledge all she wanted. Wrestle with all the ways I wanted to break her.
But with Micah, she wouldn’t know a thing.
It was indescribably strange being around his house, especially since it’d been purchased post-me. I wasn’t alwaysinsideit, but often close by, at least while he was there. A duty I wished I could escape. A noose around my neck.
We didn’t talk much beyond what was absolutely necessary. I’d tell him the last place I’d seen Aamon—closer, always closer—and he’d make a noncommittal noise to let me know he’d heard me, but nothing beyond that. No gratefulness, no conversation.
The last time we’d spoken was when I pinned him to the wall as he reached inside my mind. When we’d both crossed lines we couldn’t uncross.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Fuck, I wanted to do more. Ineededto do more. To hurt him in all the ways I’d dreamed of, and watch him fight back just as hard. It would be even better than fighting other Thrausians, because Micah could stop me from fracturing. The risks were different with him.
My foot pressed down on the gas, some part of me registering that I was driving at felony speeds now, but unable to find the strength to care. There were no other cars on the road. Shadowed scenery was a blur in my periphery, the moon hanging low in the sky above the road.
I slowed my speed entering campus, snaking the perimeter to get to the lot Dakota said she would be at. I wished she’d just gone inside some building and let me pick her up there; I hated thinking about her alone at night in some parking lot.
Pulling into the small lot, my headlights cut through the pitch darkness, catching on Dakota’s figure sitting on one of the concrete parking blocks. She had her knees bent up and her head resting on top of them, hair cascading down around her shins, her school backpack still on.
I parked my car in the spot next to her, then hopped out.
The trees surrounding the lot and the complete absence of any streetlights made it very dark. Dakota didn’t move until I crouched right in front of her. Then she lifted her head, her tired eyes meeting mine.
She looked absolutely exhausted. And sad. I hated that part of it might be because of me.
“Come on,” I said, extending my hand.
Reluctantly, she slipped her small hand into mine, let me pull her up to standing. I led her over to the car and opened the door for her, phone and earbuds clutched in her free hand.
When I climbed back into my side of the car, a strong scent hit my nose, the confined space magnifying it.
I could smell Micah’s kapnos all over Dakota’s skin.
No.
It wasn’t the sort of lingering scent that happened after being in a room with an aroused angel, it was sweat and cum and heavy breathing. My stomach turned and twisted, lust and disgust uniting in my blood, warring in my mind.
Somehow, out of everyone on Earth, she’d chosen to fuck the one person who’d hurt me the most.
I wanted to shake her, scream at her, fucking strangle her.
Two weeks away from me and she’shaving sex with her professor?Would she really do that? It felt less like a question of what she would do, and more like a question of what he would manipulate her into doing.
Why else would she be on campus so late?
My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly.
