Page 77 of Atone

“How?”

“When you can’t smother a fire, what’s the next best thing?”

“To let it burn?”

He shakes his head. “To set a perimeter and contain it. So let’s do that… I’m sending you on a trip.”

“Where am I going?”

“Oregon.” Dad taps his fingers on the chair. “There’s someone up there we need dealt with.”

My fingers dig into the leather armrests as I settle back into my mind. Sweat beads on the back of my neck.

It’s getting harder to contain this anger now that I’m back at Sigma House.

Memories flash.

Ghosts clatter.

Then there’s Marco, fucking with Mila and testing the last fibers of my patience.

Maybe Declan is right, and I should just deal with him already. But part of me thought I’d walk out of Montgomery a different man. One in control.

I tried.

I resisted.

Now I’ve snapped, and I don’t regret it.

Marco’s blood spilled over my hands, and I bathed in the warmth. He deserved it for hurting her.

Too bad Mila didn’t seem to appreciate Marco’s screaming as much as I did. Her warm cheeks paled, and her green eyes widened with fear as she watched her ex-boyfriend’s blood drip down my arm.

That’s likely why Mila is ignoring my texts today. Probably in an attempt to prove to herself that she can resist this.

She can’t.

I warned her when I fucked her—when I explained in detail what I did to Oxy—there is no walking away from me.

There’s no cutting this off now that it’s started. Like there’s no pulling the sickness from my veins. I’m the poison in her bones, the cure to her desires, and I won’t stop infecting her until she can’t survive without me.

I sit back in my chair and watch the Sigma House party slowly start to devolve. If it weren’t for Declan needing meto keep an eye on things while he’s in Paris for the summer, I’d disappear to my room. But I promised to give the illusion of giving a shit in his absence.

It’s times like these that I miss the silence of the psychiatric ward.

As the room continues to fill, people keep their distance. Even Maddox, who I don’t have any problems with personally, doesn’t try to walk over. After the carnival last night, the members of the house are walking on eggshells, wondering what will make me snap next.

I don’t blame them, given the thoughts I have every time I glance down at the razor blade sitting beside a pile of coke on the coffee table.

All it would take is one nick at the corner of Marco’s eyelid to peel it free. I could visit him in the hospital and force him to watch while he suffers for everything he’s done to my angel.

One of the benefits of having a father like mine is that I learned at a young age the most effective ways to torture a person.

Staring at the razor a moment longer, I imagine all the ways I could use that small sliver of metal to make Marco pay. Maybe then Mila will see the picture I’m painting. The need that courses through me.

There’s no escape for either of us.

Maddox bumps into the coffee table, sending a cloud of coke into the air. He’s a fucking mess, with his pupils pinpricks and his stare vacant. Declan only puts up with it because Maddox is a brilliant chemist who can mix disturbingly lethal weapons.