Page 49 of Wicked Little Darling

Dakota’s brother.

The closer I got, the more I realized just how idiotic it was to approach them without a plan—or even a valid reason.

Everett regarded me with the most disdainful expression I’d ever seen on anyone. He raked his dark brown eyes up and down my body in a scathing assessment before settling his gaze on my birthmark. The smile he gave me was cruel, and a part of me was screaming at myself to turn around right the fuck now and walk away because this wasn’t my problem.

But I didn’t.

“Can we help you?” Everett asked. His voice was so different from Dakota’s—cultured and smooth and dripping with boredom—that for a split second, I wondered if I’d been entirely wrong in identifying him as his brother. But no, it was Everett. There was no mistaking those unkind eyes, and now they were locked on my cheek again with a wealth of disgust.

I stopped about ten feet away, my chest heaving and heart racing from all the adrenaline pumping through me. I glanced at Dakota, who wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were glued to a spot on the ground between him and his brother, a muscle in his jaw ticcing.

I took a step toward Dakota. “Um…yeah, I?—”

“Fuck off.”

Dakota’s words were like the crack of a whip covered in thorns, and my ears rang with the echoes of his harsh tone. I was so surprised by the vitriol in his voice—that he wascapableof sounding so nasty—that I just stared at him.

Was this the same person who called my birthmark pretty and teased me relentlessly?

It wasn’t. So which was the real Dakota? Or was there no real Dakota?

He finally lifted his eyes to mine, and I stopped breathing at the hollowness in his gaze.

I’d forgotten that was how he first looked at me because at some point, it had been replaced with other things. Filled with mischief or amusement or curiosity.

I saw Everett glance between us in my peripheral, but Dakota had my complete attention.

“But—”

Dakota took a step toward me, his expression hardening. “Get the fuck out of here. Don’t make me say it a third time.”

“Oh, yes. You really don’t want to get the rabid dog riled.” The amusement in Everett’s voice crackled like static, nothingbut meaningless white noise in the face of Dakota’s cutting words.

It was strange, the pain that wound its way through my chest. Sharp and visceral, cutting into my sternum and going right through soft tissue. I didn’t understand it, but…it didn’t matter.

Neither did the useless tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.

Without another word, I turned on my heel and walked back to the bench—but not before hearing Everett ask, “Who the hell was that?”

“Nobody,” Dakota muttered.

That’s right.

I was nobody.

I gathered up my things and made my way back to my room, feeling as empty as Dakota’s eyes.

9

YOUR SHIRT’S ON BACKWARDS

REESE

Over the next few days, Dakota wasn’t there when I went to bed and he wasn’t there when I woke up in the morning.

The curiosity I’d been harboring for days was gone, too. All that was left was an aching numbness.

I didn’t want his words—and the way he’d said them—to bother me, but I couldn’t help it.