Page 36 of The Blood we Crave

I win.

always lost in the cold

SEVEN

thatcher

“Bro, don’t fucking—”

The harsh whip of wind smacks against my face as I roll the window down. With zero regard for Rook’s protest, I shove my arm into the open air, holding the pack of cigarettes hostage in my grasp, threatening to send them into an asphalt grave.

Alistair’s arm snakes around the headrest, curling around my throat. I glance into the rearview mirror of my car, slitting my eyes at his predatory gaze.

“If you want to make it to Portland with your pretty face intact, I suggest you rethink what you’re about to do.”

My lips curve into a smile, and I feel my foot press into the gas a little harder when his arm tightens around my neck like a boa preparing its food. Looks like some things haven’t changed over the years. He is still just as fixated on the concept of controlling people, down to every single little breath they release.

AndI’mthe control freak.

“Aw, Ali,” I pout. “You think I’m pretty?”

His face twitches with a challenge as I wiggle the pack of cancer sticks outside the window.

“Is your ego feeling bruised, Thatch? Need me to kiss it better for you?”

I lift my eyebrow up, a short memory flashing in my blue eyes, and I know by the way his dark pupils dilate he knows what I’m thinking about without having to voice it.

For a moment, I allow myself the time to unlock a memory in my mind. I remember a fractured fifteen-year-old Alistair, who’d gotten so drunk after a fight with his father that he’d cried for the first and only time on my bedroom floor.

Weakness is not something I tolerate from myself or the people I surround myself with. I’m not equipped with the knowledge of what to do when someone is so drunk they have no barricade. It was only his vulnerabilities and admission of one brutal truth:

That he would rather die than exist as spare parts for his older brother.

I was so angry at him for allowing his family to snap him like this. We did not break. No matter how coiled or how bleak, we did not break.

That kiss I’d pressed to his tearstained lips was fueled with rage I hadn’t felt in a long time. I wanted to pour it down his throat like molten silver until it filled all the cracks they’d created in him. I wanted him to get bitter, not sad or weak.

And his starved inner child, the boy in the corner of his mind who, like me, had never experienced an ounce of sentiment, devoured all of it. Teeth and claws pulled it from my mouth, gulping down my fury like oxygen and storing it somewhere in his body.

Malnourished hearts will feast on anything that resembles love. Even a cold, inexperienced first kiss from a boy who knew nothing of affection and kindness. He took it anyway.

“As much as I’d love to kiss you just to irritate your little toy, Alistair, I’m going to have to pass.” I release the rectangle filled with nicotine and let them flutter in the wind, saying a brief prayer in hopes they get run over. “And I’ve already told you, no smoking in my car.”

“Dude, come the fuck on!”

“Fucking twat.”

I simply roll my eyes as Alistair retreats, leaning against the back seat and crossing his arms in front of his chest like a spoiled brat. They will thank me one day when they don’t have a machine breathing for them.

“We are twenty minutes from the facility. Unfortunately for me, you will survive.”

Pressing my foot onto the gas pedal a little more, I look down at the speedometer, knowing the faster I push my car, the less time I have to hear them complaining.

“Careful, Thatcher. I’m not sure this car is street legal in the States. Wouldn’t want to taint that flawless driving record of yours,” Rook bites from the passenger seat.

My fingers run along the steering wheel of the car before I reach down to shift up a gear. The Aston Martin Victor is my favorite car from my small collection, one of the last gifts from my grandfather, who’d somehow always known what to get me. Down to every single heinous need, he was there to supply me with what I needed.

By the time my father was arrested and thrown into prison, I was already so secluded from the rest of the world that I rarely communicated with anyone. Teachers complained that I disturbed the other children, and parents hugged their little ones a little tighter when I was around.