The Truths we Burn (The Hollow Boys Book 2)
The Truths we Burn: Act 1 – Chapter 11

Sage

There’s only one good thing you could count on West Trinity Falls for, and that is to throw legendary parties. The adjacent town, thirty minutes from Ponderosa Springs, is our biggest rival and our polar opposite, but they know how to have fun.

While we were raised on the thrones of wealthy families and years-old names that carried us through life, they fought for every ounce of money they had. They’re our version of the wrong side of the tracks.

The Wastelands.

A place where good girls like me should never be spotted, but when you grow up rich, when you have everything, you are always seeking more, pushing the boundaries just a bit too far when it comes to drugs, partying, and drinking.

Coming here always ends in some disaster of a fight or police bust, but students keep coming. It’s hard for kids looking for trouble to stay away from a place built on it.

House parties, drugs, and raves. If it was fun and illegal, West Trinity did it.

This is the last place on the face of the Earth I want to be tonight.

Watching my “boyfriend” tweak on coke while we’re surrounded by his barbarian friends who are just as fucked-up. I’d been to one of these raves before, my sophomore year, and it smelled the same.

Weed, alcohol, and sex.

They’re using a retired house of mirrors for the event, just as they had before. The main entrance is filled to the brim with bodies on a makeshift dance floor, while the halls are filled with mirror mazes. Finding your way to the bathroom while drunk is basically impossible.

My head is aching from the rainbow-colored lasers that strobe through the room, a thin veil of mist just above the moving bodies. House music and screams vibrate around, and to make matters worse, I’m stone-cold sober, much to Easton’s distaste. He’d pulled me here so I could loosen up; he’d told me I had been too stressed lately and thought a rave party was just what I needed.

In short, he wanted me to be drunk so he could get laid, considering I hadn’t touched him since before Halloween, and that was five months ago.

It’s not like he isn’t getting it elsewhere though. If he thinks I’m blind to his sleeping around with other girls behind my back, he is just as stupid as I always thought.

I fiddle with the glow-in-the-dark bracelets that stack up and down my arms, knowing that being left here long enough will mean my mind will start to drift away. Checking over to make sure Easton is occupied, I pull my phone out, my stomach flipping when I see the name across from the green message icon.

Morning Star.

Rook originally put “The Devil” in as his contact name, but I’d changed it later without him knowing.

Morning Star: Ready to ditch yet?

Me: Wish I could. Gotta stay until the end. He’s already questioning where I’m always headed lately. Sneak me out later?

Morning Star: Already planned to.

I’m typing my response when he messages me again.

Morning Star: You better not smell like him.

I snort, rolling my eyes, knowing he’d probably smack my ass for doing so.

Me: How very primal of you.

I’ve never had a secret this big before. Yes, my past trauma is a hidden truth, but if people found out, the only person it would hurt is me. If someone found out about Rook, the downfall would be painful.

A part of me hates it, sneaking around, hiding away at the lake house. I want to go on real dates, to actual movie theatres, maybe grab dinner that isn’t takeout. I want more to us than steamy kisses inside school broom closets. Yet, even as secretive and cryptic as we have to be to the outside world, this is the realest relationship I’ve ever had.

However, I can’t deny how fun it is sneaking around. The stolen touches and heated glances. Everything is always so charged when we’re around each other, even if we’re an entire classroom apart.

“Baby, come dance with me,” Easton coos, grabbing my waist. “You’re going to have to work on those two left feet before our first dance anyway.”

My eyebrows make a V as I shove my phone into my back pocket, looking around to make sure no one was close enough to hear him. I glare towards him, my eyes watching the way his pupils expand by the second.

“Will you keep it down? You told me you would wait to say anything, Easton.”

He encircles my body, pulling me into his heavily cologned scent. I hadn’t minded it before until I became fond of natural musk, of smoke and sweat.

“It doesn’t even matter, Sage. There’s two months until graduation. They’ll be replaceing out soon anyways.”

My stomach rolls, vomit begging to release from my throat.

My deadline is approaching faster than I can comprehend. I want more days with Rook, but at the same time, I wish everything would freeze just how it is. My selfishness is about to come to light.

My choice to lie to his face is not going to be taken lightly.

I’m terrified of what his face will look like. How it’ll twist and contort with anger, with more hatred than any person has the right to have. There will be no explaining, no talking to him. He will throw me to the wolves.

The thought alone takes the breath out of my lungs.

I don’t want to give him another reason to hate the world and the people in it.

“Don’t wanna argue, babe. Come dance,” he mutters in my ear, pressing his lips to my neck, making me recoil from him.

“I’m not in the mood. I’m just going to go sit down.” My hands press into his chest, putting space between us even though his hands refuse to move from around my waist.

This all feels wrong.

He feels wrong.

Those baby blues everyone always compliments are so dark in this light, you’d think he was a different person. He stares down at me looking just like his father, acting like him too.

“You want me to keep my mouth shut about the engagement? Then you’re going to dance with me.”

He has the upper hand against me now. He’ll always have the upper hand. This is only a peek at what our future would look like. Every single time I refuse to do something he wants, he would use his power against me.

Easton had finally moved into a place of power, somewhere I can’t reach him.

I let him pull me to the dance floor, and he pushes through people, pulling me into the pit. Once he replaces the space he likes, he tugs me into his chest, my back plastered into his front.

Some house music playlist guides our bodies, mostly his, and I allow the movements of his hips to lull mine. I put in the least amount of work I can without pissing him off. I’m not sure if it’s the fog or if I really just feel like crying, but my eyes burn watching all the other couples barely able to keep their hands off each other.

“You will submit to me, Sage,” he whispers above the music, “I will break you until you’re the perfect domesticated wife who stands by me and follows my every step. Do you understand? You will submit.”

I try to block out his voice, inhaling through my nose and releasing it out of my mouth. I ignore him completely and force myself to go to a different place.

This would be my life, closing my eyes and remembering all the memories of Rook because that would be all I would have. Memories. I just hope these months I’ve spent with him would last me a lifetime of misery.

A song rings with familiarity in my ears.

My body runs cold with chills. A breath falls from my lips as I remember the last time I’d heard it.

It was something Rook had played over the speakers in the house while I was spread on the kitchen island, his hand buried between my naked thighs. Your mind can be a dangerous thing sometimes, and mine is no different.

The vision feels so real, I can feel him, his entire body practically absorbing my own.

When my eyes open as the beat drops, heavy and striking between my legs, I see a man a few feet away watching me.

His face is hidden from me by an LED mask that flashes with the strobe lights. The deep orange glow pierces through my soul, and the X’s where the eyes should be seem to look right through me.

My chest expands with a gasp of shock, a zap of uneasiness falling down my spine, but it only stays for a second before it drifts away.

I think he’s possibly looking at one of the other girls surrounding me, but his ridged form stays rooted in the sea of people, eyes locked on me and only me, unmoving from my stiff body.

He’s covered by a black hoodie and dark jeans, and I can’t see any distinct features from this distance. But this deep sensation vibrates inside my stomach, a sense of excitement washing over me.

Even if he isn’t Rook, I could imagine he is. I could pretend so that being on this dance floor doesn’t feel so awful.

Slow and teasingly, he tilts his head to the left just a bit, adjusting his line of vision to see me better through the crowd. But it’s also like he’s tempting me. Like I would lift his mask up and see his eyebrows lifted in a silent question.

“Are you going to dance for me?”

My body sways to the music, carried by the illusion that Rook is here with me. That he’s both the man in front of me and the one behind me. I dance like a puppet on strings, some of my movements masked by the strobe lights. I dance like Rook is watching and he is my puppeteer.

Rolling my head in a small circle, I let my hair fall down in front of my shoulders, releasing a breath as my hands trace the outlines of my body. I look down at the white minidress, splattered with neon glow paint, swirls and patterns decorating my thighs and arms.

I snake back and forth, shifting my upper body just as much as I do my lower half. Hands grab at the front of my body, sinking into the soft flesh of my stomach. But these hands feel too needy. They aren’t direct and precise, knowing where to go without needing a map.

Raising my head back up, I expect the masked man to still be there, but just like my vision inside my mind, he has disappeared.

My mouth suddenly becomes dry. The light, airy feeling I had is gone, and I’m back to feeling like a rock that is going to sink to the bottom of the ocean.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” I croak, shoving Easton’s hands off my body and disregarding his pleas for me to stay.

Bodies bump me from all directions, only making the urgency for water build. There are too many things happening, too many people, too many sounds. I feel like I might die of a heart attack right in the middle of this dance floor and no one would even notice it, all of them so consumed with their feelings of ecstasy.

I press into the door leading to the hallway, wheezing as I push through, feeling relief instantly. I can feel in the air that there are fewer people out here. It’s cooler on my skin, helping the sweat that rolled from my body.

Soft moans of pleasure replace my ear, turning my attention to a few different couples layered down the hall, bodies pressed into the glass of the mirrors while they grip at their partner’s shoulders.

The neon LEDs that illuminate the mirrors only shine a light on the twisted faces of bliss they’re all experiencing. One couple has both their pants around their ankles, while the guy thrusts inside of her so hard I can see her thighs jiggle from down here.

I suddenly felt empty, needing something I know only one person could give me.

“Fuck!” Another man’s voice rumbles between the panels of mirrors. His breath appears hot and steamy in front of him as he slams his hand into the glass. With his other meaty palm, he winds his hand tighter in a girl’s hair, her mouth open as she sits on her knees gazing up at him. His breath appears hot and steamy in front of him.

It’s hard not to look, not to be curious.

I peer further down the hall, only to jump slightly when I see the man with the orange mask has returned, tall frame solid as he looks over at me.

We stand there, staring at one another while moans ricochet between our bodies.

There’s once again a sort of familiarity in him, but not enough for me to have an excuse for standing here listening to people fuck while we stare at each other.

The dance had been harmless, a figment of my imagination, I had thought. Until right now.

Until I watch his foot move forward. It sends me into reality, reminding me that I don’t know that man, and who knows what he wants from me. There could be a million different things he could do, including turning me into a skin suit.

I spin, heading down the opposite way, walking faster than I should for not knowing which way I’m going.

My body collides with one of the mirrors harder than I’d like to admit. “Shit,” I hiss, rubbing my shoulder that took most of the force. The reflection tells me that he is still following me, so I don’t have much time to nurse my wounds.

I fight the rising panic, different from the drowning I feel normally. This is different altogether.

This feels like quicksand, enclosing around my feet, swarming like ants to food, sucking me down further into the plush, grainy earth.

That’s what quicksand does—it eats people up. It gobbles them down, refusing to leave anything behind until you’re trapped beneath the weight of sand turning into nothing but sediment.

I can see his body in every mirror. The dark mask with orange LEDs multiplies by what feels like hundreds, and his looming figure seems to block all of my escape routes. What’s worse is while I’m practically jogging in heels, he’s barely moving, as if he knows he doesn’t need to try to catch me.

As if he’s already caught me.

My throat tightens, fear crawling up with sharp claws.

Turning left, I hold my hand out, still moving quickly but making sure I don’t crash into any more dead ends again. Dread twists in my gut as I navigate quicker, the sounds of his feet walking behind me echoing in my mind. I don’t know where I’m going. I have no real plan.

So instead of continuing to panic, I decide to face it. I refuse to admit defeat to this fear, knowing that guys like him probably get off on freaking me out. I whirl around, cutting my gaze at the dude behind the mask.

“Dude, beat it. Following people is fucking cre—” I stop, noticing I’m speaking to myself because it would seem he has once again evaporated.

Had someone drugged me and I just hadn’t been aware of it? Is this all just some LSD trip or a hallucination? Had there ever been a man in a mask?

I run a hand through my hair, laughing at myself as a way to cope with how fucking delusional I’m being.

“You’ve officially gone nuts.” Talking to myself only adds to that fact. I rotate back to my original direction, my bladder squeezing tightly, nudging my memory as to where I was headed.

My blood freezes in my veins, all of my functioning organs seizing up when I feel the abrupt pressure over my mouth. The force behind the hand makes me whimper in pain. I’m almost too frightened to lift my eyes from the person’s chest, but when I do, they widen with horror. My scalp prickles, and my bones rattle.

The orange mask glows into my soul, holding me there for only one still moment before heaving me backwards with an overly aggressive hold. My throat tries to become the home for my screams, but it’s only a haunted house.

Vacant.

Discomfort pinches at my back as it comes into contact with something solid, both of our bodies breaking into an artificially lit room. My eyes scramble to take in my surroundings.

The aged white tiles on the floor, a wall of mirrors above the sinks, and rows of stalls to my right. Dying in a rave house bathroom is the last thing on my bucket list, and after the shock of the attack wears down, my adrenaline kicks in.

Swinging my leg up, I aim straight for his dick in hopes of catching him off guard long enough to scatter away, but he’s smart. Like he knows what I’m going to do before I actually do it.

The hand not suffocating my mouth seizes my thigh, preventing my leg from making contact. With such effortless force, he shoves my leg back to the ground, lifting one finger.

He wiggles it back and forth, like the hands on the clock, insulting me without even using words.

Grabbing my forearm, he practically drags me towards one of the stalls. All the while I’m trying my hardest to fight him like a feral cat. My nails scratch into his chest and arms, but it only seems to make him tug harder.

My short physique is not equipped for this, for someone who can overpower me so easily. He’s barely struggling as he pulls me into the cramped space of the stall.

A barbed, stinging pain develops across my cheek as his large hands drive my front half into the door. I’m plastered against the ugly green wall, terror swelling around the confines of my heart, eating it alive just like the quicksand.

His body leans on mine, pressing into my back.

“I told you not to smell like him.” His voice is molten hot as it pours from the holes in the mask. “Now you reek.”

Relief floods my system; the familiar nature that I’d felt earlier hadn’t been something I’d made up. I had known him. As if I could ever forget what he sounded or felt like.

However, even though I replace comfort in knowing it’s Rook and that I’m safe, I’m on the blunt end of his rage right now, and he’s unpredictable when angry.

“Rook,” I breathe. “What are you doing here?”

Instead of answering me, he just presses into me farther. “You made me watch him touch you.”

“Made you? What are you—”

“You made me. You made it impossible to look anywhere but you. Existing effortlessly in a room full of fucking trash, looking every bit of holy, divine, and angelic, practically forcing me to corrupt you. You made me watch him grind against you, inhale you.” A beastly rumble erupts from inside him as he breathes my scent in, feeling less man and more monster.

“I’m with you,” I whisper, meaning it more than I’ve ever meant anything before. “I’m always with you. Even when I’m with him, I’m still with you.”

“I can’t not watch you, Sage. But I can’t watch you with him anymore. I’ll end up killing him, branding my name across your ass just before I slit his throat right in front of you. I’m sick of seeing him touch you.”

The power in his hold rattles me to my core. There is so much severity in him right now that I know he isn’t joking. I’ve asked him to do the one thing a man like him hates to do: share with a guy he hates, greedily hiding him in the shadows so that I could keep what we had just a little longer. I know it’s wrong, but is it really that bad? Am I really the bad guy here for wanting to have one thing for myself?

I can’t keep doing this to him. I can’t keep lying.

But I don’t want to lose him either.

So that leaves only one option.

The truth.

“Rook, I—”

Rambunctious laughter and voices burst into the bathroom, followed by the door exploding open. It dings against the wall behind it, but the group of men who just tumbled inside don’t even care.

“East, that brunette little thing that’s eyeing you out there is a solid fuck. Had her in between my sheets a few nights ago.”

“I’ll pass on your sloppy seconds, D. I’m capable of snagging my own pussy.”

I’m thankful for the pressure Rook is putting on my back, or else my knees would’ve buckled. This is not how I wanted this conversation to go with him, and the last thing I want is Easton replaceing us and telling him before I can explain.

“It seems we have company, TG,” Rooks mutters in my ear, the plastic of the mask biting into the flesh of my cheek. “How about you put on a show for them like you did me earlier, hmm?”

My body melts a little when I feel him grind into my backside, feeling his hardened length behind the fabric of our clothing. A gnawing in my stomach starts abruptly, resulting in a pulse beginning between my thighs.

My dress rides up some, enough to expose the back of my legs. I shiver at the scratchy feeling of his jeans rubbing against me. I bite down on my bottom lip as his hands fall to my lower half.

“I want you to make it up to me, Sage. I want you to be my pretty little whore and get down on your knees,” he starts, building this fantasy for me to act out, one that has my nipples taut and core dripping. “And apologize for making me watch you and him. Make it up to me with your hot mouth.”

The grip on my waist tightens as he spins me smoothly so that I’m facing him. Behind me, I can hear them all laughing about someone not doing a line of coke correctly. Panic comes back, but not out of fear of Easton’s reaction of replaceing me—fear of losing Rook before I’ve gotten the chance to truly have him.

But Rook pulls me back into us, making everything else besides him disappear. He grabs my chin between his fingers, holding me there.

“On your knees, slut.” The mask makes it hard to see his expression, but his voice leaves no room for disagreement. I can practically see his eyes burning through the disguise. “And don’t get back up until I’m finished.”

I can’t tell him right now. I can’t break up with Easton right now either. But I can do this, and I want to make it up to him. I want to give him this.

So I do as I’m told.

I creep down in a squatting position, dropping to my knees one at a time, the cold tile stinging my skin. I keep my eyes up, staring at him through the mask because I know how much he loves it when I look at him while he fucks my mouth.

“Like this?” I ask innocently, licking my bottom lip, waiting for his answer as my palms run up his thighs.

My mouth waters eagerly. The challenge of making him feel good, the opportunity to receive his praise, makes my toes curl. I make quick work of his button and zipper, dipping my hand into his jeans.

Kneading his stiffened cock through his boxers, I tease both him and me. Touching it reminds me of what it feels like inside of me, stretching me out, massaging my walls until I’m left a puddle of bliss.

Chills rack my spine as I pull him free, and my body hums as I admire him. My tongue tests the waters, flicking against the vertical barbell jewelry that only adds to his sex appeal. The distinct veins swirling around his shaft throb as I take my time.

“Sage still not letting you smash?” I hear echoed outside.

“That uppity bitch has barely let me touch her.”

“Skank is probably screwing some other dude, man.”

Rook’s hand falls to my head, sneaking to the back of it to grab a chunk of my hair to hold on to. My skin is warm and tingling as I listen to them talk shit about me all the while I focus on pleasuring him.

Seductively and without moving my eyes from his glowing face, I spit onto the angry, red head, using my hand to smear my saliva up and down his length. I lube him all up so he slides down my throat smoothly.

“Maybe he’ll fuck the bitch out of her,” Easton jokes, making the guys around him cackle.

My scalp burns as Rook twists his wrist, pulling tighter on my locks.

“You going to fuck the bitch out of me?” I ask, my voice a whisper for only him to hear, eyes wide, trying to get him to focus on me so that he doesn’t kill the entire Ponderosa Springs’ offensive line.

I’m used to their crude comments; their words do nothing to me. My only focus is on making Rook feel good, showing him just how little I care for the man outside of this stall. How much I care for him.

Showing him how worthy he is of this.

I’m down on my knees where I could easily be caught, not caring as long as I get to make him feel good.

My palm curls around him at his base, pumping up and down while I open my mouth to take him inside. I engulf him fully, swirling my tongue, tracing the grooves.

He pulls me off him before I can do anything else, bending at the waist so his face is near my own,

“I don’t need it to go anywhere. I know how to handle the bitch in you.”

A blush heats my cheeks, just before I feel him press my head down towards his hips. He pushes his cock past my lips, into my mouth, and down my throat, catching me off guard completely. His piercings tickle the back of my throat, making me choke quietly, but it doesn’t seem to faze him because he holds me there.

With no mercy in sight, he shifts his hips back as he places his other hand in my hair, stroking forward once again, creating a sloppy sound as he crams his cock into my mouth.

His head is tucked into his chin, that neon from the mask illuminating our space. Even without seeing his eyes, I know they are staring straight through my own. My throat constricts around him, pushing him out with resistance, and my gag reflex kicks into high gear.

“Relax your throat, baby. Let me in.” He groans lowly, using both hands to shove me farther down his shaft until my nose is buried into his pelvis. The girth forces my throat to expand, painfully pressing against the soft tissue of my windpipe.

My breaths through my nose come out shaky as I wince, my eyes squinting as I focus on not making any noise so those outside of this stall don’t hear me. I swallow around him, suctioning him with my lips, creating an airtight vacuum.

“That’s it. Such a good slut for me.”

As difficult as it is, it feels so good. Feeling him stretch my mouth, feeling him rooted inside of me, watching him seek pleasure from me.

I’m so selfish, because I will take all of this. Everything he gives, I will take, take, take. Because it might be all I have in the end.

Every time I try to catch my breath, he steals it with another hard thrust into my mouth, and I have no choice but to take it. And it only gets worse as the seconds tick by. His hold on my hair burns with the force, and his strokes become violent.

I struggle to breathe, desperately trying to keep my gags quiet. Although there’s nothing I could do about his soft groans of pleasure and the wet noise of his cock filling my mouth.

Finally, fate decides to give me a break, because I hear the group of guys start to file out of the bathroom. When the door shuts, I choke embarrassingly loud, pressing my hands into Rook’s thighs and forcing him out so I can catch my breath.

A trail of spit from my mouth drips from his shaft, leaking down my chin and onto my chest. I can feel the heat from my flushed cheeks, my eyes rimmed with tears that freely fall from the force of his thrusts.

“Did I say we were done, Sage?” he taunts, pushing me backwards so that my head and his hands press into the stall door.

My reply is void. I’m unable to speak once he returns to my mouth, pushing deeper inside me than I thought possible. My head against the door gives him a backboard to drive into so that his thrusts are harder, and I have nowhere to pull back to.

I twist my head back and forth while his shaft chokes me, flattening my tongue so that it massages the underside of his length, lapping at the bulging vein every single time I force myself down.

It’s chaotic euphoria. The kind of painful ecstasy that makes you question your sanity.

My eyesight is blurred with LED lights from his face covering, hazy with tears as he continues to replace pleasure. Fully ignoring the ache in my throat and jaw, my body begs me to take a break at the very least.

This is how it always happens with him. He pushes, pushes, pushes until I’m unable to function. There are no breaks. There is no easy with him.

He takes me to the complete verge of incomprehensible pleasure every time.

I want this.

I want to make him feel good so if we don’t make it, maybe he’ll think about this while he’s in the shower, stroking his cock to the image of my face as he fucked my mouth in this bathroom stall.

I want this pain.

Knowing that in the days to come, I will remember it.

I’ll think of the hurt, and my thighs will be slick with heat, because we remember the things that hurt us.

The number of grunts and moans pouring out of him is enough to keep me going through the ache. I gag and sputter around him, my throat tightening as I bring my hand up to rest on his abdomen. I can feel his stomach seizing, his vicious thrusts turning sloppy and out of control.

My other slippery hand cups his balls, eliciting a hiss from him as he sucks air in between his gnashing teeth.

“Fuck, baby.”

With my name on his lips, he shoves deep into the back of my mouth, pouring his release into my throat. I swallow greedily, sucking until he’s finished with me. I can feel his legs shaking slightly as he cradles the back of my head.

He pulls himself from me, allowing me to inhale deeply for the first time since this started. I rest my head against the door, my shoulders falling as I relax the muscles in my jaw.

I hear him lift the mask from his face, exposing those bright eyes, a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. He tosses it on the floor behind us, reaching down and scooping me up into his arms.

My body naturally winds around his, hugging him close to me while he pushes my back into the door, holding us there.

“Now when you leave, I want you to kiss Easton goodbye so he gets a nice taste of my come, then you’re going to go home and wait for me to sneak up so that I can eat, yeah?”

Chills rush down my spine, cool heat tingling between my legs.

“I missed you too,” I snicker, my voice raw and scratchy.

“I did miss you. It’s just…” he whispers softly. “Can I keep you?” And my soul breaks because of it.

I want him to keep me. Always. To stay here, right here in this disgusting rave house bathroom because it feels more safe, more right, than anywhere else I’ve ever been.

I didn’t believe there was a soft side to someone like Rook prior to getting to know him. I always thought he was just burnt edges and scorching insults. Until I saw the person he was before this place turned him into something evil.

He’s not evil.

He laughs and he smiles. He jokes and literally has a higher GPA than me. He hates the rain but loves the fog it leaves because it reminds him of smoke. He hates when I write on the inside of his cigarette packs, but I catch him smirking when he reads them.

He is a human who was hurt by the world. And all I want to do is be the reason he believes in it again. Even if I can’t do the same for myself.

Even if we don’t make it out together in the end, he needs to know that he deserves more than suffering.

He deserves happiness.

There’s still something he’s hiding from me, something in his past that makes him feel damned. I can feel it, that he still keeps pieces of himself in the shadows. It keeps him from fully giving in to me, but I don’t care.

And maybe that’s what’s so scary about all of this.

That I don’t care if I have his secrets.

I just want him. The him that makes me feel alive and real.

He pushes me to face life as I am and not as others want me to be.

When I’m with him, it’s like knowing every day that tomorrow the birds will sing.

My fingers wrap around the strands of hair at the base of his neck, playing with them softly.

“You can keep me, Rook.”

It’s in this moment I realize I would do anything for him. So much so that I’m going to tell him about the arrangement, see if he can help me so that Rose won’t be just as trapped. Anything he asks, I would do it.

I want him. I want to be with him and not just for another few weeks.

And that’s the real power you could have over someone.

Easton has blackmail, which is something I could overcome in time. It isn’t permanent or long-lasting.

But love—God, what a hold to have over someone. That is a true downfall.

It’s why I stayed away from people for so long, why I was mean and bitter, keeping everyone at bay so they’d never get the chance to know me.

Because I gave the world a chance as a child, and it destroyed me.

I promised myself I wouldn’t allow this to happen again. I wouldn’t let myself get hurt, to trust someone the way I trust him.

I promised myself, and I have broken it, because now I think I’ve fallen in love with the devil.