Page 101 of The Truths We Burn

“Hit me!” I yell in her face, full of toxic madness and pent-up emotions I haven’t fully dealt with. Things I’ve buried deep, deep down when we ended. They’re all being dug up, making me want to do the one thing I haven’t stopped thinking about since she came back.

Ruining her.

Breaking her.

Make her question who she is just like she’d done to me.

“Fucking hit me!”

The dam breaks. It’s the match in the powder barrel. The final straw for her.

She sends one solid punch across my jaw, snagging my lip in the process. My head is sent to the right with the force, and I feel the blood leak into my mouth immediately. The tangy metallic taste coats my taste buds, and the bite of the cut has my lip aching.

I snap my head back, locking onto her eyes, seeing them wide and full of tears as her hands cover her mouth. She’s shocked that she was capable of something like that, of being pushed to that point.

Everyone is capable of something despicable. It’s all about the right time, the right motivation and emotions.

“What is wrong with you,” she murmurs. “Why did you let me do that?”

I don’t anticipate that question to draw a reaction out of me.

I don’t expect it to slice my throat like razor blades and burn everything inside my soul, leaving nothing but unfiltered honesty.

There are a lot of things wrong with me.

But right now, there’s only one thing that’s really fucking me up.

My fingers snatch the back of her head, gathering a chunk of hair in my grip and yanking her face close to mine. Our noses clash bitterly, so close that I have no choice but to smell her, inhale her for the first time in months.

“You,” I bite out, hating the taste of that truth on my tongue. “You are what’s wrong with me. You being back here. You walking around campus, showing up at the cliff. You fucking existing.”

My breath fans across her face, making her gasp. A charge of friction snaps between our mouths.

“You don’t get to do this. You are done,” I tell her, “You want to be sad? You want to mourn your sister? You do that, but you don’t get to wreak havoc on everyone else, Sage. You don’t get to hurt Silas or anyone because you’re angry and damaged. We lost her too. We all lost her.”

I leave her no time or room to reply to me. I want her to sit with that, to feel this, so that the next time she is missing Rose, she won’t take it out on people who don’t deserve it.

Because she’s better than that.

I know what it’s like to be the target of someone’s grief and mourning. I know what it feels like to be the scapegoat, to be the punching bag for someone who lost a piece of themselves.

I refuse to let her turn into my father because she’s better.

She drops into the seat when I release her, extracting myself from her space. I glance down at Silas’s sweatshirt in her lap, her hands nervously fiddling with it.

“And you’re not fucking putting this on,” I add for nothing other than to aid my irrational jealously, capturing the material from her hands and slamming the door closed.

I’m pissed, I’m cold, and I want to get the fuck out of this place. I need to get away from her, from the crazy shit she makes me want to do and the way she makes me feel. Taking a deep breath of air away from her, I rub the back of my head roughly.

I know what I need. I need to let out some aggression. I wanted to spar with Alistair. Go for a ride. Get cut up by Thatcher. Anything that would make her go away, even if it’s just for a second.

Briar and Lyra say their goodbyes, driving themselves and Sage back to the dorms and leaving us here to take in everything that had just happened.

“What the hell was that about, Van Doren?” Alistair accuses as I start my bike, letting the engine heat up in this cold weather.

“It was me protecting Silas, what else would it be?” I snap back, too on edge to add his attitude to the list of things I have to deal with.

“I don’t need you to protect me.”