Page 57 of Shots & Echoes

What I was becoming.

She’s mine.

The thought slid through my mind like poison—thick, inescapable, clinging to every nerve ending.

I hated it. Hated how easy it felt to claim her, to twist that truth around me like a vice—tightening, suffocating—until it was the only thing left.

But it didn’t stop.

It couldn’t stop.

No one touches her but me.

The words dug in deep, latching onto something primal, something animalistic.

The way Langley had leaned into her space—too fucking close, the way she had laughed at something only they shared?

It set my fucking blood on fire.

I squeezed the wheel, my knuckles pale under the pressure, muscles wound so goddamn tight I thought I might snap.

This wasn’t going away.

I knew it now. Knew it in my bones.

She was inside me. Crawled into my head uninvited, settled in like she belonged there. And I let her.

I was in it.

Too fucking deep.

I couldn’t walk away. Not from this. Not from her.

I wanted her more than I wanted redemption.

More than I wanted my career back.

More than I wanted anything.

And that scared the hell out of me.

It wasn’t just want. It was a need. A hunger that chewed through my restraint, my control, my fucking sanity.

Every time she glanced over her shoulder at me, it felt like a goddamn tether—pulling me back, anchoring me to something I couldn’t name, but craved like an addict chasing his next high.

I clenched my jaw as the memory of her body pressed against mine during practice flashed through my mind. The tension, the fire in her eyes, the fucking collision of us.

She made me feel alive.

Made me want.

Made me ache.

This was nothing like before—the fights, the anger, the desperate need to prove myself. This wasn’t about pride or control or proving a goddamn thing.

This was real. Raw.

And that scared me more than anything else ever had.