Page 58 of The Cruelest Chaos

“I told you,” I try to keep my tone even, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Silence. He doesn’t say a word, but I can feel the weight of his gaze on me. He didn’t speak when we drove back to his house. Didn’t touch me. Just clenched his fingers so hard against the wheel I was surprised it didn’t break in half. I have no idea why he’s in such a bad mood, but I don’t really think he needs a reason. He’s just always angry.

How exhausting.

How…relatable.

Finally, he sighs. I hear him stand to his feet. He walks around the coffee table, comes to sit beside me, the sofa dipping with his weight. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. He’s in tight black jeans, a black t-shirt that he had on under his sweater, and I can see all of the ink on his arms.

“Does she hit you often?”

I close my eyes, grip the popcorn bowl a little tighter. “I told you,I don’t want to talk—”

He grabs my chin, cutting off my words, yanking my head toward his. He leans forward, so his face is inches from mine. “And I told you,that’s too fucking bad.”

My breaths are shallow, muscles tight. I squeeze the popcorn bowl as hard as I can, the shiny plastic flexing under the strain of my fingers. “Get your hand off of me,” I snarl.

He smirks at me, his hand splaying over my face, my jaw. He digs his fingers in. “No. Not until you start fucking talking.”

I yank out of his grip, toss the popcorn bowl on the floor. It bounces, spewing the contents all over the wood floors as I stand to my feet, the blanket falling from my lap. I clench my hands into fists, chest heaving.

He leans back to take me in, something like amusement on his handsome face.

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask him, trying to keep my voice low, tone even, but my heart is hammering in my chest, my temper boiling. This is how it wasbefore.How it still is with my mother. This is what I was looking for an escape from, in Shane. Someone to calm me.

Soothe me.

Fucking save me from myself; from that empty pit of self-loathing.

“Huh?” I demand, narrowing my eyes as he watches me calmly. “You bring me here to hit me, too?”

“I might have,” he says honestly.

I lick my lips, my mouth dry. I try to laugh, but it comes out all wrong, like an angry huff. “You fuckingasshole!”I don’t know why I want to hurt him, but I do. I don’t know why I want to push him back against the couch and slap him untilhisface is red. Until his ears are ringing. Until he puts his hands up to defend himself. Until he apologizes for pushing me. For fucking with my head. “Why didn’t you fucking leave me there?” I ask, throwing my hands up. “Why were you even at my house in the first place?”

He still regards me with an infuriating calm that makes me want to break something. My eyes dart to the decanter and the glasses. A wild idea lodges itself into my head and I want nothing more than to throw those glasses against the floor and listen as they shatter.

But he sees where I’m looking, and some of his calm starts to fade. To give way to the angry fuck that I know he is.

“No, Ella,” he warns me. “You don’t want to do that—”

“You have no fucking idea what I want to do!”

He blows out a breath, scrubs a hand over his face and rests his elbows back on his knees, clasping his hands. “This why you’re at that school?” he questions me, condescension in his tone. “Because you’re a teenage bitch that can’t control her—”

I don’t let him finish that sentence. I snatch two glasses from the table and hurl them against the wall, beside the projector. They burst into pieces, glass shattering on the floor, the sound piercing in the room. But that’s not enough. That’s not nearly enough.

I reach for two more, but he reaches for me, standing to his feet and grabbing my upper arms, holding them still.

“Put it down,” he snarls in my ear, pressing my body against his.

“If you insist.” I drop the glasses,hard. His grip on my arm stopped me from throwing them, but he held my arms up, giving them just enough height to shatter at our feet.

His hands tighten around my arms at the sound. Glass sparkles on the floor around us in the lights from the projector screen. We stand there in near silence, the only sound his heavy breathing and my rapid pulse.

Then he throws me against the couch, one hand in my hair as he rips down my leggings.

“You little bitch,” he snarls, and I know there’s glass under his feet but he doesn’t seem to care as I grab the back of the couch. “Your mom ever whip you, Ella?”