Page 70 of Cyber Revenge

The word is still burned behind my eyelids.

Trip hadn’t just punished him. He’d turned him into a monument. A canvas. A warning.

It wasn’t just violence.It was art.And it was for me.

That realization sends a tremor through my core so deep I feel it in my toes.

The sex hadn’t been the claim. The tattooing– no, thebrandingwas.

The sex was worship.

Trip’s truck is parked at the edge of the lot, hidden in the shadows. I don’t realize how far he must have carried me until now. His arms are trembling from the weight, but he doesn’t show it.

He would’ve carried me through fire if he had to.

I whimper– just a small sound, but Trip’s jaw ticks when it reaches his ears. His head tilts slightly, eyes flicking down toward me for the first time in minutes. I see something flash across his face. Guilt? Rage? Love?

Whatever it is, it twists my stomach with need.

Words are passing between us, but I can’t comprehend them. All I hear is silence. I don’t know what I’m saying to him, or what he’s saying to me. All I know is peaceful silence.

When the truck door opens, he puts me on the passenger seat like I’m glass that’s going to shatter into a million pieces any second. His hands shake.

I feel the seat beneath me and panic, reaching out, grabbing his wrist before he can close the door.

Don’t go.

I don’t say it. But I don’t have to.

Trip’s other hand cups the side of my face, his thumb dragging gently under my eye. He stares at me like he’s memorizing the damage. Like he’s trying to absorb it.

His knuckles are stained red. So is his throat.

There’s blood in the corner of his mask.

Mine. His. Patrick’s. I don’t care. It’s part of us now.

He doesn’t kiss me. He doesn’t speak. He just looks at me like he’ll never stop. Like he can’t.

And then the door shuts.

I watch him through the glass as he moves around the truck, sliding into the driver’s seat without a word.

He doesn’t turn on the radio. Doesn’t say anything.

Just drives

The building fades behind us, its jagged silhouette shrinking in the distance.

The silence between us is thicker than the air had been inside that building. But it isn’t uncomfortable. It’s sacred.

I touch my fingers to my lips. Swollen. Bitten.

I trace the mark on my throat. Still wet.

Trip’s hand is tight on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched, chest rising in hard, shallow pulls.

I know the sound of his breathing. This isn’t calm.