Page 7 of Almost Rotten

Ty bows his head, his nose nudging mine. “I know what you’ve been doing, Sawyer. Or should I saywhoyou’ve been doing. It ends now.”

All the stress and adrenaline plaguing me for the last hour curdle low in my belly.

Though the sick sensation quickly flares into fury.

Because this isn’t a misunderstanding.

This isn’t a strange string of coincidences.

It’s not a mistake, and it’s not an accident.

This is a series of malicious choices and actions directly targeted at me.

“Get fucked, Ty.” Pushing up on tiptoes, I get right back in his face.

He still hasn’t let go of my one hand, but I shove hard against his pec with the other.

“You filmed with me without my consent, and what? Thought you could use it to blackmail Mercer? What did he do to you?”

He scoffs. “To me? It’s what he did toyou.” Finally, his control slips a fraction, his eyes wild and his chest heaving. “He humiliated you the first day in class. He’s been monopolizing all your time. Hefucked youinmyjersey.”

Rage boils my blood, my inside hot and unstable.

“I asked him to fuck me in your jersey,” I snap.

Ty’s face goes blank, his cold mask snapping into place once more.

It’s a reaction I’ve witnessed hundreds of times. He’s shutting down, protecting himself from pain.

It’s a move I know all too well. This is how he gets his head before he goes out on the ice. It’s how he copes. He locks down all the anger and rage that swirl inside him after all he survived, after all he endured.

He locks it all down, but it doesn’t go away.

It simmers. It festers. Eventually, it’ll boil over. But for now, he’s done.

His nostrils flare, but he takes a steadying breath.

“It’s over,” he declares, the words icy. “It ends now. We’re walking into that classroom together, just like this.”

He holds up our joined hands again.

“That asshat of a dean isn’t the only one susceptible to blackmail. You’ll play along if you want Eden to keep his job.”

Chapter three

Tytus

The nerve of this woman. The fucking gall.

She thinks she can sass back, that she can fight me on this? She doesn’t know just how far over the edge I am right now.

She fucking betrayed me, and in the most fucked up way she could. Like she wanted to rip my heart out and eviscerate all the history we’ve shared.

She let another man fuck her in my jersey in front of my goddamn locker. She wanted him to do it—she just fucking admitted it.

I don’t possess an ounce of sympathy for her situation. I have exactly zero concern for what she wants anymore.

Because what she wants is wrong.