Page 21

WHAT DID YOU DO?

ALEX

“Alex, don’t,” Patience screams.

The pitch pierces through the air as tears make rivers down her porcelain cheeks. Her white-blonde hair shines with the flickering candlelight, but all I see is red.

All I see is blood.

My sister’s plea is drowned in my heartbeat rushing in my ears.

My fist finds his face.

Again.

Again.

“Alex.” Her tears become my battle cry, even if she’s begging me to stop. “You can’t. They’ll kill you.”

They will, but at least he’ll be gone because our parents will never protect her from this man if I don’t.

Dad is too busy focusing on me, while Mom fumbles with her rosary, excusing and ignoring the seams splitting apart our family.

I’m all my sister has.

My knuckles meet bone, and my hand breaks. But I’m numb to the pain.

To this .

His face is nothing when I finally sink back on my heels. No eyes to watch me. No tongue to judge.

Patience hugs her legs to her chest, rocking back and forth in the corner of the room. Her golden-brown eyes are fixed on mine. The silence is only broken by our breathing and the occasional spit of a candle flickering.

My hands ache, radiating pain through my arms and up into my shoulder. The knot where my spine meets my skull throbs.

Patience’s sob cuts through the quiet. Rattles in my chest. Pulses behind my ribs. Once she starts, she can’t stop. And the quiet cries might as well be screams ricocheting between my temples.

Until the sound of bootsteps comes from down the hallway. It’s muffled through the door, but when the handle rattles and it swings open, my sister recoils against the wall.

Like there’s any hiding what I’ve become.

“Oh, Alex, my son.” Dad steps into the basement, pausing beside the mangled body in front of me.

He toes one of the limp limbs before neatly resting his foot just outside the pool of blood.

“Your sister makes you compassionate.” Dad hums, and it’s not a compliment.

Patience tightens her arms around her legs, not saying anything. Rocking back and forth. Her eyes are sealed shut as she tries to clamp down on the faucet of emotion. No doubt willing the tears to stop.

But she can’t blink away this reality. It’s who we are.

Lancasters.

Bringers of pain, power, and death.

“Clean up. Both of you.” Dad frowns, his gaze skipping to my sister. “Patience, your mother requires your assistance. And Alex, we need to talk.”

No acknowledgment of the body.

No care for the sob Patience fails to muffle as he turns to leave the room .

Because, unlike her, he expects this.

When he’s finally gone, and his footsteps have faded, Patience dares to look in my direction, even if she won’t meet my stare. “What did you do?”

My body jolts, and my eyes snap open. A dull ache radiates through both arms as I grip the sweaty sheets. Darkness dances with moonlight on the ceiling, mocking me.

Turning my head to the clock, I see it’s only four thirty. Two hours of sleep doesn’t sound like much, but it’s better than the hour and thirty minutes I’ve been used to lately.

It takes a moment for me to stretch my fingers. To leave that candlelit basement and return to my body.

Sit.

Breathe.

Survive.

Sliding my legs off the bed, I glance back at the sweat staining the flat pillow. At Montgomery, orderlies would wash the sheets and blankets daily to erase what haunts me in the middle of the night. Now that I’m back at Sigma House, it’s my job.

I stand up and strip the bed clean. Bunching the sheets into a pile I’ll deal with later.

Once I’m awake, there’s no use closing my eyes and hoping for another hour. Even if I managed to slip back into my subconscious, it wouldn’t be peaceful. Dreams are for people who still have a shred of hope.

I flex my fingers and find my way back into my skin, fighting against the tightness in my joints.

With a final stretch, I relax my hands and scan my empty room.

Dark-gray walls make the space seem smaller, and even if I’ve piled clothes on the heater, I’m still burning up.

I’ve grown accustomed to the constant chill of Montgomery Psychiatric Ward.

But I suppose the heat is only fitting when I’ve returned to hell.

Tilting my head back, I take a deep breath, still smelling Mila on me.

If I thought fucking her last night would settle me down, I was wrong. All she does is stir me up.

I did my best to temper my desire the first year she was in Bristal. I watched from afar and ignored her the few times she accompanied my sister to Montgomery. But then I slipped. One mistake had me meeting her gaze, and when fear didn’t bloom in her green eyes, everything changed.

She weaved her way in, no matter how harshly I fought the urge. And finally, when ignoring her didn’t work, I convinced myself I could fuck her out of my mind instead.

Exposure.

Usually, I’m really fucking good at it.

But every taste of that girl and I need another. Until I’m drowning in her scent and committing her to memory.

Even now, I can still feel her legs wrapped around my hips while her green eyes watched me. I can still see the moment she snuffed out the resistance. Her cunt streaked my cock, and I was done. Drowning in the perfect little gasps that fell from her lips.

She shuddered, and I tore apart.

I’ve imagined that moment a thousand times with my hand wrapped around my cock. Debating if she’d taste sweet like her smile or as poisonous as the secrets in her eyes. She eats away at my every nerve. And somehow, she was everything mixed into one. Decadent and sinful and addictive.

And mine .

I’ve imagined her in every position, fucking every hole. Nothing came close to her actual surrender.

Mila is my reckoning. The truth that will finally break my tainted soul.

Giving up on sleep, I get dressed. I toss on a sweatshirt and boots and step into the dark hallway of Sigma House.

It’s a quiet walk to the stairs this early.

When I reach the top, I eye the opposite wing, where Marco’s room sits.

I consider storming over there and peeling off every inch of his skin for subjecting Mila to his bullshit last night.

No one would stop me.

No one could.

After all, Declan made me a promise when I agreed to join him on the new Sigma House Council: No more lies. No more leashes.

Declan knows it’s only a matter of time before I neutralize the problem. And while I intended for it to be my first priority when I moved back into this small slice of hell, I’ve been enjoying Marco squirming a little too much to do anything about it just yet.

Dad always said it was a weakness to play with one’s food , as he put it. In reality, he didn’t have the stomach for torture like I did.

As I head downstairs, it’s mostly quiet. Music is still playing in one of the far living rooms, but the party has dulled to nothing more than a few people lingering around.

I don’t bother acknowledging them as I pass. Just because I’m out of the confines of Montgomery Psychiatric Ward doesn’t mean I don’t still feel the walls closing in around me. If anything, being here is more difficult. At least in there, they didn’t expect me to be cured.

The drive to the campus is quick, this late at night.

This early in the morning ?

Time doesn’t mean anything anymore. Years have passed, and somehow, nothing has changed except who pulls the strings.

The parking lot is quiet when I reach Mila’s dorm. I told myself I wouldn’t come here. That I’d fuck her and that would be enough. Except I’ve said that about a lot of things.

One look would be enough.

One touch would be enough.

One kiss would be enough.

Nothing ever is enough when it comes to Mila Bianchi.

The only reason I let her walk away after I fucked her earlier was that I was still under this delusion I could sever the ties between us. Clearly, the last few years taught me nothing. Distance doesn’t carve her out.

There’s no more lying to myself.

From the parking lot, I find her window, nestled in the corner, facing another building. Even with Kole’s obsessive spread of hidden cameras throughout the girls’ dorm room, this used to be more difficult when Mila had three roommates to avoid. Now it’s too damn easy.

All I have to do is check the single view of Mila’s room on my phone before using my copy of her key to let myself in.

With her roommates gone for the summer, every inch of air smells like her. It draws me in. Suffocates me. Pulls me to her bedroom with every heartbeat.

Her bedroom door is locked when it normally isn’t, and I wonder if she’s uneasy about being in the dorm room alone. If she’s worried about who might find her in her sleep, or what they might do.

No worries, my angel. I’m the only one who comes here.

I made sure of it .

Slipping a second key from my pocket, I let myself into her bedroom. The fan stirs the air, creating the soft hum of white noise that probably helps her sleep. It breezes her curtains aside, splitting them down the middle to let in the soft glow of the moon.

Unlike most nights, when I come here and her room is spotless, tonight there’s a mess of clothes on the floor and makeup strewn on the desk. The books on her nightstand are open and stacked.

She’s unsettled about something.

Circling the bed, I see the book on top is the memoir of Ketchum Pierce, one of Sigma House’s founding members. She’s looking for answers surrounding her friend’s death again, but she’s not going to find them in there.

I close the book and pause at the side of her bed.

One of her bare legs is kicked out of the blanket, and she’s lying on her back wearing nothing more than lace underwear and a tank top. The dark lines of her eyebrows are pinched, sharpening them.

Usually, I’d stand back and watch her sleep until her expression finally relaxes, but tonight, I find myself drawn closer. Unable to help myself as I toe this delicate line of what I need and what that will do to her.

Reaching out, I graze a fingertip on her hip, where her tank top lifts to expose her stomach. Now that I’m familiar with what’s underneath, it takes all my resistance not to explore her lower.

I trail upward instead, teasing her ribs, stroking the soft curve beneath the swell of her breasts.

She hums as I circle her belly button. Teasing her stomach, her sides. Up and over one breast, pausing at a peaked nipple before moving to the other. Her breathing deepens, and her cheeks flood with color .

I could replace her nightmares with pleasure. Sink inside her body like I drift through her dreams. She let me have her once, and if she thinks that’s all she offered, I’ll make her see how wrong she is.

Continuing the path, I move up higher, to her collarbone. Dashing the pad of my finger over the nick that mars her skin on the right side. I’m desperate to strip off all her clothes and figure out what else paints her body.

Does she see her own blemishes with the same curiosity she shows my scars?

Teasing the dip at the hollow of her throat, I consider stepping back. Fading into the darkness like I usually do once she’s settled.

But now she’s mine, and I can’t help myself as I wrap my fingers around her throat and steal what she’s given me.

Her body.

Her trust.

Her soul.

I don’t hold tight enough to steal her air, but enough to drag her from her dream and force her to come to me.

Mila’s green eyes flash open, and her entire body tenses. Her hands fly to my wrist. Her vision tunnels as she processes who is standing over her. What should be terror is a question in her gaze. One she’s known the answer to longer than she’s allowed herself to admit.

She blinks, and I wait for her to fight me. Fear me . If she only knew how badly I want to wrap my fingers tighter. How much I need to steal every last drop of her soul. Then she’d realize I’m no better than the answers she’s looking for.

Her tongue traces her full lower lip, and I want to lean down to taste her all over again.

To watch her is one thing .

To have had her is another.

“You’re here.” She presses her perfect lips together as she processes.

I nod as a tear slips down her cheek. A lovely crack in her polished facade that I reach up to brush away.

“You were having a nightmare.” I hold my thumb up, and it glistens from the dampness of her tear.

“I have nightmares every night.”

“I know.” I sit on her bed when I should leave.

I shouldn’t have come here, and I shouldn’t have woken her up. Eventually, the tower will tip, and this will all come crumbling down like it always does. It’s in her best interest to fear me.

So why does she reach for my hand instead? She pulls it to her chest, over her heart. Mila is all muscle and blood and panic.

So petite.

So breakable.

One hard push, and I could crack all the way through her ribs to wrap my hand around the organ that fascinates me. I could make her heart mine without question.

Mila tugs my arm, pulling me down beside her, not caring that my shoes will make a mess of her sheets or that she’s welcoming a monster into her bed. No one sees me like she does, and I can’t decide if that will be my salvation or her destruction.

“Lie with me, Alex,” she whispers, settling with her back against my chest as she wraps my arm around her.

I bury my nose in her hair and breathe her in.

Lilacs.

Summer rain.

Possibility .

My palm flattens where she continues to hold it over her heart. It’s racing beneath her ribs.

“Sleep,” I whisper, even if it cracks at the end.

Even if it burns in my throat, and I know I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have said anything at all.

But she needs to hear it so she can settle. At least one of us deserves to rest, and the devil knows I never will.