Page 176 of Cain

The anger sizzles inside me, making me unable to hold it.

I slap him. Hard. So hard that the blood dripping from his face sprays all over the ground and my hand.

He doesn’t say anything. His jaw twitches, and he avoids looking at me.

But then he does.

His eyes roam my face while his breathing becomes more forced.

Slowly, he drops to his knees and looks up at me.

“I told you no one would ever take you from me. And now there’s nowhere left to go but me. You belong to me.”

I reach for him, tangling my fingers in his damp hair. I have never been more certain in my entire life.

“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

It was a goddamn test.

But why do I feel that it doesn’t matter anymore? Why doesn’t it hurt me?

It should rip me apart. I should be furious, betrayed, broken. But all I feel now as I look at him is relief. He’s here.

The sirens are getting louder. We don’t have time.

But I don’t care, and neither does he.

I swear the whole world doesn’t exist around us anymore.

“I don’t regret, nor am I ashamed of what I did to you. I’m proud of you, little rose. You were strong and fearless. Now you’re wrecked and broken in ways you don’t even see yet. No one else wants the mess you’ve become. No one but me. I want the damage. I want what’s left. I want the wreckage, the ruin, the hollowed-out thing you’ve become. I want all of you.”

I smile at him. “Youare enough. I never wanted anything more.”

His eyes linger on mine for a bit longer. I don’t know how much; I’ve lost track of time as I’m sinking into his arms.

“You are my war and my peace. My obsession and my oblivion,” he says as his hands wrap around my waist, pulling me closer to him.

I know he means it. I can see it now.

I am the first thing he’s ever wanted that isn’t power or pain.

And I’ll be the last thing he clings to when the world tries to take him down.

“You are my light and my darkness. My salvation and my damnation,” I reply.

He closes his eyes and pulls me closer, resting his cheek against my belly. Like that’s the line that saves him and damns him all at once.

“You are my Eden, Katerina. And I belong to you.”

I take a deep breath, immersed in the blissful feeling he offers me so graciously. Euphoria.

He stands up, takes my hand, and leads me out of the cell.

The hallway is chaos.Guards and inmates lie scattered, blood pooling on the floor.

I try not to look, but the carnage is impossible to ignore.

I should be terrified. I should be sick to my stomach, choking on what he’s done.