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Shedoesn’t answer. Caught between a tidal wave of fear and arousal, she looks down at the floor.

I stop circling her, stomping my foot onto the ground. Demanding her attention, but still the stubborn bitch keeps her eyes off me. Insulting me with her lack of attention.

I lunge at her again, snatching her chin into my grip, and she loses her footing a bit.

There it is again. Her shaking her fucking head.

“You’re fucking crazy, Harlan,” she spits. Literally. A splash of warm and scattered saliva sprinkles onto my face.

My grip sears into her face harder.

“Stop talking about yourself that way, Araceli.” I taunt, but she doesn’t budge, remaining incensed and stubborn.

“Go ahead. Make it tighter.” She brings her hands to mine, her gaze unwavering as it bores into mine. “Matter of fact, slap me again, church boy.” Again, my hold tightens, and it’s a wonder I haven’t broken her skin. Though somehow, even with her cheeks hollowed from my touch, her stubbornness prevails and the ability for her to speak penetrates the air. “Go ahead, you fucking—”

Abruptly, I let go of her.

She catches her breath.

“That’s what I fucking thought.”

“Did you, now? Is that what you think? That, because I took my hands off you, you’re suddenly exempt from my wrath?”

She cackles, and it’s the equivalent to nails on a chalkboard.

“Wrath? Really? Fuck, you’ve been listening to too many of your daddy’s sermons. You aren’t capable of wrath.”

Frustration fills my veins, raising them to my skin's surface. But for some reason, the anger I feel—towards her refusal to be honest for once in her fucked up life—has me laughing. Cackling actually. Loud and eerie. Uncontrollably, so.

“What’s so funny?” The scoff at the end of her question is as infuriating as it is cute.

“You.” I increase my steps towards her and by default shemoves hers back, this time propelling her deeper into the house and down the hallway.

Her feistiness withers before my eyes, as does the delusional assumption she had that made her think she has one up on me, vanishes.

“You know what, just forget it. Forget I was ever even here.” She shakes her head, trying to move past me.

Oh, no you fucking don’t. Not this time.

I mirror her movements. Stomping every which way, she attempts to sneak past me. Frustrated, she lets out a growl before locking her gaze on my face. My tongue clicks before extending my newly split tongue out past my lips, and just like the little whore she is, she stops in her tracks, entranced by it.

“Harlan,” she gasps. “You’re so… so…”

Say it.

“…different,” she breathes.

I close the space between us more. “Yep,” I hiss.

“Fuck,” she lets out, exasperated, from her anger and need, toying with her. Her hand sears itself to her forehead as she slaps it. “This isn’t happening,” she mutters, now shaking her head back and forth.

“What’s the matter? Am I scaring you?” I laugh, stomping closer to her.

Her hands fall to her harness, probably about to reach for the knife she thinks I didn’t clock the second she walked on the porch.

“Cat got your tongue? What? Is my little sister too much of a whore for the fear that she can’t think straight? Are you too consumed by the need to spread your fucking legs for me, and let me finish what I teased you with in the bathroom of your house last night? While you were unconscious, no less. Fucking druggie whore.”

She growls, loud this time. Stomping her feet. So fucking flustered that she abandons the mission she was just on to grab her knife.