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“No, pretty baby. That’s all on me.” He kisses the back of my hand again before he lowers it, letting go. Letting me go. “You were always too good for me, Remi.”

It feels like time has stopped. Like we’re frozen in this moment, his gray eyes on mine, the light on the porch illuminating the silver of his piercing.

Shock and disbelief steal through me, and I don’t understand.

I want to ask him why, I want to ask him what changed, but hurt morphs to anger and suddenly, I don’t want to ask him a fucking thing.

“You don’t get to do this.” The words are rough, but my heart is beating again.

My mind is working. I push my finger against his heaving chest as I fling those words he said to me in the tent back to him.

“You said I was yours, and I am. I’m yours, Cortland, and I’m part of this whether you like it or not. ” I keep my tone ice cold.

Nothing.

Silence.

Just like Silas.

I slap his chest, tears falling freely. “You said!” My words are raw, my eyes blurring as I stare up at him in the dim light. “You lied to me. You lied to me, didn’t you? You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to turn everything upside down and then leave.”

Gone is the warmth in his gaze. The soft words. He just says, “Go home, Remi.”

His words chill my bones. Stop my heart all over again.

He steps out of my touch, jerking his chin to my car, parked haphazardly beside his truck. I’d spun my tires yanking the wheel into this place. Barely remembered to throw the car in park, desperate to be near him.

I drop my hand by my side but don’t move.

“Go home,” he says again, his words colder as he crosses his arms over his chest, his biceps flexing.

The tears are hot but my body feels like ice. “Cortland,” I whisper, hating that I’m begging. Pleading with my tormentor. “Don’t do this.” My words are jagged like the splinters in my heart. “You said?—”

He drops his arms, moving toward me so fast I think he intends to hurt me and I welcome it. Anything. Any flash of emotion. Anything at all. I want it. My heart accelerates again as he gets in my face, my blood heating, the cold gone.

Fight me. Hurt me. Touch me. Feel something with me.

“I know what I said,” he snarls in my face. But he doesn’t touch me, his hands by his sides. “I know what I said, but that was before they tried to burn down your fucking dorm.”

I open my mouth to protest because I don’t care about the dorm and I don’t know who “they” are, but he silences me with his palm over my lips. I smell nicotine, and the familiar scent cuts deep.

“What’s next, huh?” he asks, his nostrils flare, his grip over my mouth tight. “What if next time they don’t fuck it up?” They. That word again.

And I know, in this moment, who he’s talking about. Chase. Chase did that. This. Maybe Maya, too. That’s how he knows. It was them.

“You’re gonna let them win?” I scream beneath his palm. The words are garbled but I know he understood them. I yank at his wrist and he drops his hand but shrugs out of my touch, like I disgust him. Another chip at my broken heart. “You’re going to be a fucking coward?—”

“Go. Home.” He turns his back on me to walk toward the door, but I run after him, jumping on him and trying to wrap my arms around his body. He spins, shoving me backward.

I catch myself before I fall on my ass but just barely.

My heart skips a beat and he looks torn.

Like he wants to help me up. Care for me. Comfort me.

I want to pull up my sleeves and show him the scars on my arm. Manipulate him into giving into me.

But I don’t feel that desperate anymore.

Not like I would have before.

“Remi,” he whispers, watching me stand so still.

I say nothing but I don’t move.

“Remi,” he whispers, the word choked. “You have to… you have to go, baby.”

“I will,” I finally say, my tone cold again. “But I want you to know that you did this to me.”

Silence.

“I was doing better before you got here. I was hiding, and scared, but I was growing and some days, I was stronger.” I don’t look away from him as I take a deep breath. “Brave, huh?” I scoff, bitterness twisting in my chest. “I’m feeling more and more like I was fucking stupid, Cortland.”

He says nothing. Just stares at me.

Beyond him, at the door, I see Storm.

He’s watching me, and he steps outside, his arms folded across his bare chest, his light blue eyes expressionless as he takes me in.

No one speaks for long moments.

Cortland looks down, his throat bobbing as he swallows.

“I know you love me,” I tell him in the quiet. “In your own sick and twisted way, I know you do. But if you loved me enough, you would’ve stayed away.”

He shakes his head.

My heart cracks.

“Remi, I…”

“Go live, little wolf,” Storm says in the night. “We all know you deserve more than us.”

I consider it. Turning around and walking away.

But my emotions cloud and without thinking, I lunge for Cortland, but Storm steps in front of him, holding me back.

I hit at him, scratch at him. But I don’t beg anymore. The hollowness in my heart is breathtaking. It’s like an elephant on my chest, collapsing my lungs. Reducing me to nothing.

Storm’s fingers are wrapped around my upper arms, and Cortland turns his back on me. He opens the screen door.

I go still again, in Storm’s arms.

I won’t beg you again.

I drop my head to Storm’s chest, and by the time I look up, Cortland is gone.