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She was right. Well, Heath was right.

Everything we needed to leave this place was in our grasp. Why would they have edible food and drinks if they weren’t giving us a chance to escape?

God, this entire situation was so fucked up.

“How…” Bianaca’s quiet voice reached my ears, and I tensed automatically. “How are you doing?”

“Are you asking because of my breakdown last night?” I asked roughly, my hand clenching around the can I was holding. The numerous silver rings adorning my fingers appeared almost black in the darkness of the kitchen. “Don’t act like you fucking care.”

“I do care,” she responded automatically, and out of the corner of my eye, I watched her straighten, piercing me with a look that went straight to my heart.

I licked my upper lip and forced myself to keep working, keep moving.

Autopilot.

I needed to remain on autopilot. Because the second I stopped, the second I actually thought about all that had happened…

It wouldn’t be good for any of us.

“Why would you fucking care?” I asked, barely able to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “I was awful to you.”

When she first arrived at the school, claiming a room that had belonged to Josie, my fear for my sister distorted into anger towards a woman I knew in my soul was innocent. But that didn’t stop me from pushing and destroying her, wanting her to bleed the same way I was.

So why was she looking at me with such kindness? Such empathy?

I didn’t deserve that. At all. I deserved a lot of things, most of which involved hard objects and my nuts, but not the softness on her face now.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I muttered gruffly, shoving the can into my bag.

“Like what?” She rolled her eyes but finally,finallyturned away.

“Like you give a damn about what happens to me.”

“I told you,” she harshly shoved a water bottle into her bag, “I do.”

“You shouldn’t.” My tongue fiddled with my lip piercing as the words left me. “I’m bad news. Everything I touch turns to dust. That’s not even a fucking cliché. Look at Jo—” I snapped my mouth shut.

“You can say her name, you know.” Bianaca’s voice was light, airy, but with a guarded undertone. “It’s okay to—”

“To what?” I spun towards her, my muscles flexing with the need to destroy, destroy, destroy. That was all I was good for, after all. Destroying things. Demolishing anything that was remotely beautiful with my anger and hate.

It was what I did to Josie, after all.

And it was what I was going to inevitably do to Bianaca if I didn’t push her away while I had the chance.

It was who I was. It was in my blood, coursing through me, alive and vibrant.

Anger, destruction, pain.

They were all I was good for.

“Don’t pretend that you understand what I’m going through,” I hissed, wanting her to hurt the way I was. I knew I would regret my actions later, but right then and there, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wanted her to hate me, to despise me, the same way I hated and despised myself.

“I’m sorry if I made you think that—”

“Why don’t you just fuck out of my business and my life. Can you do that? I don’t need you pitying me.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”