Chapter 5
666 Words
Liam refused to believe Sofia had been the one who hurt me, and so he simply let it go.
"The pack is holding the Moonlight Ball soon. I'm planning to open the dance with Sofia. What do you think?" He said it from beside me on the sofa, as if it were nothing at all.
"Fine. I don't have an opinion." The wolfsbane was churning up inside me again, and I had no will to speak to him.
His thumb stilled on the screen of his phone.
My continued indifference cracked the dam on something he had been holding back for a long time. He pinned me to the sofa, his eyes gone bloodshot, and shouted in my face.
"Mia! Do you really not care, not even a little? What is it you want from me? How long are you going to drag this out? Do you want me on my knees? Do you want me to beg?"
I lowered my eyes and pushed down the iron taste rising in my throat. "Isn't this exactly what you wanted me to be?"
He didn't let me struggle free. His hands tore at my collar, and kiss after kiss landed at my throat.
"Are you going to force me?"
He went rigid above me. A long moment passed before he forced out a single sentence between his teeth.
"Mia, for every wound you give me, you'll pay it back tenfold. We're going to tear each other apart until we both die."
He turned and walked away, and the moment he did I lost the strength to hold it in. Blood spilled past my lips.
His back went still in the doorway. He stood there for a long time without turning around.
I didn't expect his retaliation to come so quickly.
Every photo of my mother vanished from my room, and Sofia posted again soon after.
I only had to ask, and he gave them to me.
A wave of heat rolled up through my chest, and I had to shut my eyes hard, several times.
By the time I burst into the Vance Residence, the two of them were tangled together half-clothed. What sent me over the edge was what they were lying on. The photograph I had taken of my mother.
Liam pushed Sofia off without ceremony, sat up, and lit a cigarette.
"What? Finally come to admit you were wrong?"
I stared down at the photo, smeared and stained. My nails dug into my palms and my back teeth ground together.
"Liam said the dead are dead, the photo was no use to you, so he gave it to me." Sofia smiled, taunting. "The carpet was at the cleaner's, so we used it as a sheet. You don't mind, do you?"
Rage burned through whatever reason I had left. I snatched up a vase from beside me and brought it down on her head.
"Drop dead!"
Sofia screamed. Liam lunged over and seized my wrist. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Liam, you should drop dead too! Both of you, why don't you just die?"
I screamed it through my tears and bit down hard on his arm.
He froze. Then his fury surged back, and he caught my face in his hand, roaring, and yet beneath the rage there was something almost like hurt.
"You wish death on me, over a damn photograph?"
His voice cut off.
Sound seemed to come at me from far away then. Red flooded my vision. I was vomiting blood again. It had landed on his face.
The room spun, and I collapsed against him like someone going under water, catching only fragments of what he was shouting.
"Mia! Mia, what's wrong with you?"
His face was naked panic, naked confusion.
I felt only how tired I was.
"Liam, we don't have to keep tearing each other apart.
"I'm dying."
His expression went blank. Before his mind could even process the words, hot tears were already falling onto my face.
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