I kiss him harder, hoping it’ll block the memories I don’t want to see, the emotions I don’t want to feel. I need him to take hold of me until my world makes sense again, to touch me until I forget everything that’s happened since I came to this godforsaken place.
Octavia.
Linus.
Owen.
He nips along my jawline, kissing and biting and teasing his way back to my mouth. I revel in the harsh press of his fingers against my back as our lips tangle together again. Some twisted part of me hopes he leaves marks on my skin, so tomorrow when I wake up, I have proof this wasn’t some fragment of a dream.
In my head, I know being with Carter is messy and broken and wrong. But somehow, as he lowers me backward onto the stone bench, he’s the only thing in my whole horrible life that feels totally, completelyright. My body is a lit fuse, every nerve ending sizzling as his weight comes down on top of me.
I need him.
I need this.
To feel dominated by my choice, not by someone else’s design.
There’s a certain sort of beauty in submission. At least, in the kind Carter is slowly inflicting on me with each sweep of his tongue, each stroke of his hands. I am coming undone beneath him, unraveling into something I hardly recognize.
Maybe if he touches me long enough, I’ll fade into him.
Cease to exist at all.
Just a memory of a girl on a cold stone bench.
I arch up against him, totally lost in his touch. He gazes down at me and I see a flicker of something in his eyes — not lust, not need.
Concern.
“Emilia,” he whispers, pulling back a fraction.
I try to grab him, to crush his lips to mine again until the world blurs out of focus, but he’s too strong.
“Kiss me,” I plead, voice ragged with desire and despair.
“But you’re crying.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He sits up, pulling me with him. His brows tug inward as his big hands squeeze my biceps. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? Of course it matters.”
“No. It really doesn’t.” I try to kiss him again, but he’s holding me at arm’s length. It pisses me off. “Jesus Christ, Carter, don’t you get it? Nothing I do makes a damn bit of difference in the outcome of this game.Nothing matters.None of this. Not you, not me, not anything we do together.”
He flinches like I’ve struck him, but I barely notice. A dam inside me has broken and all my darkness is spilling out in one great flood.
“None. Of. It. Matters.Not my father. Not my best friend. Not my house. Not my future. Not even my damn memories, because they took those too.Tune in to your local news tonight at five for the Emilia Lancaster show!Learn how her date stood her up for the senior prom! Hear neighbors talk about her tragic teen years! Then, at primetime, we’ll delve deep into her mother’s agonizing death!”
He’s breathing hard, staring at me like he doesn’t even recognize me.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I say, feeling something crumble inside me. Another fault line, this one made of broken dreams and bad intentions.
“How exactly am I looking at you, Emilia?”
My voice is a shaky whisper. “Like I’m scaring you.”
“Youarescaring me,” he murmurs. “Guess what? I’m still here. I’m right fucking here.”
He reaches for me, but now I’m the one pulling away — out of his grip, off the bench, onto my feet. My eyes are stinging again and suddenly, everything feels a bit out of focus. Like maybe that swirling black hole of grief inside me has pulled me off balance, out of alignment. I’m on a new orbit now, about to crash into something hard enough to do permanent damage.