“Breathe in.” I did. “Breathe out.” I did.
We were like that for God only knows how long before I could finally speak again.
“Wyatt’s right. It never ends—”
“WYATT IS WRONG!” he hollered into my face. “The problem is not us! The problem is never us! The problem is those who want to be us! Your mother’s death is not your fault. Your father’s death is not your fault. It’s Keegan’s! There is always a beginning and it started with him. But the ending comes from us. Don’t put your rage anywhere else. Don’t let your need for vengeance burn out. We came here to kill them all, remember?”
I nodded, still crying but nodding, holding on to his wrist as he held on to my face. “You were my first friend, you know? That is why I wanted everyone to know.”
“You were the first and only girl I ever loved and the first and only girl to break my heart,” he whispered back, putting his forehead on mine.
“I thought you didn’t want to love anyone.”
“I said I didn’t want to be obsessed, not love.”
“And yet after all these years I’m still the first and only girl you ever loved. Isn’t that obsession?”
He frowned and this time when he tried to pull away I held on tighter. “Till I was seventeen I wasn’t with anyone. Then you started to date Pierce Donoghue. When I found out I was so pissed, so jealous…I slept with six out of seven girls on the cheerleading team during homecoming week.”
My hands and my mouth opened as I sat in shock, and he stood back up. The smirk on his face pissed me off so damn much, I kicked his shin. “You little shit!”
“Ahh!” He bounced away from me, grabbing his shin before yelling, “What? If you weren’t going to wait for me, why the hell was I going to wait for you?”
“I didn’t think you existed! I thought you were a figment of my imagination. I was a kid! You knew I was here?”
He rolled his eyes. “You should have stood firm and remembered me!”
“Oh, you are—”
“You forgot me twice!” He shot back, and I froze.
Twice? “What?”
“You are the most infuriating woman I have ever met in my life and you’ve met the women in my family, so that truly is an accomplishment.” He shook his head at me, brushing me aside to take the wine off the counter next to the money.
“When else did we meet?”
He glared at me, using a knife to uncork the wine, and poured it into the owl mug. I outstretched my hand to take it, but he drank instead.
“Now you’re just being petty.”
“Takes one to know one.” He…oh my God, he was pouting. He poured the wine into the cat mug, giving it to me. “I can’t believe you still don’t remember. When I met you in the basement back then, I thought you’d figure it out, but you never did.”
“WHAT?” He was just messing with me now.
“You came to Chicago weeks before I came to Boston! We were volunteering once at the shelter, and you came up, unable to choose between the—”
“Chocolate and lemon cakes.” I remembered, clapping my hands, then pointed to him. “That was you!”
He snickered. “I called you picky.”
“And I said maybe you weren’t picky enough.”
“And you called me short.”
“I was leaving that part out on purpose.” I grinned, finally gripping my cat wine. “You grew, though, so I guess it didn’t matter.”
“It did matter.” He leered at me. “I’d never been so upset with a girl in my whole life. When you told me ‘so what?’ after I called you fat I was livid. My father…he laughed. Everyone laughed because I’d never lost a fight before.”
“Aww, poor Ethan,” I teased, and he rolled his eyes. “If it makes you feel better, I never felt like I won a fight.” Most times, even if I used my fist, I ended up punished in some way or shape.
“It doesn’t,” he said honestly.
We sat in silence for a while, just holding our mugs.
He felt so far standing only a few feet from me, so I put the cup back down and walked around to where he stood. His eyes dropped down to mine. Reaching over, I took his cup and put it down too, then just hugged him, nothing more. Just a hug. He wrapped his arms around me, his chin on my head, my cheek on his chest.
“You’re making me soft,” he whispered.
I smiled, squeezing tight. “Only for me, though.”
He didn’t reply, so I kept talking.
“You’re never allowed to say you aren’t romantic again.”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
“Well, duh, they weren’t me.”
He snickered, and I felt his chest shake. “You’re really going to let this go to your head, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
He cared. He remembered. He came back for me. He loved me. I wasn’t letting go. I’d follow him this time, no matter where he went.
“Now that I know everything, will you tell me what you’re planning? Why we’re here?”
“I thought the revenge was obvious.”
He thought this was obvious?
“Ethan, we’re in a house across the street from the people we want to kill and they want to kill us. You have no one else but me here—”
“I have everyone here,” he said, pulling back slightly to look at me. “When they realize they need me, they need this family, we will stand here and watch as they crawl on their bellies from his house to this one, begging for mercy. Humility forced on the prideful is the very best kind of revenge for them. Everyone else who resists will find the people standing beside them will be the very same that will slit their throats.”
Before I could speak something smashed against the window behind him. I tried to go see what it was, but he held me still.
“Let them throw or shout what they want. No one can get into the house,” he replied. “For now let’s forget about them…I do believe I made you a promise this afternoon.”
I grinned when he zipped down my jacket, but I stepped back.
“Go play with your cheerleaders.”
His mouth dropped open slightly, and I stuck my tongue out at him.
“You’re right. I am petty.”
“Ivy...” He took a step toward me, and I bolted, causing him to chase me up the stairs.
How was it possible for one man to make me feel a hundred different emotions in one single day?
ETHAN
Her head rested on my lap, her naked body in between my legs, the sheets barely covering her as I leaned against the headboard. For some reason she preferred sleeping on me rather than the bed…but at least she could sleep. I, on the other hand, sat in wait, staring at the security feed on the screen mounted on the wallpapered wall before the bed. My plan would look insane to most people because for most people it would mean putting themselves in potential danger at all times. However, I was not most people, and I already lived in constant state of potential danger…so why not do it in front of them all. They thought I was just the boy who inherited the reign from his father…that I lived surrounded by bodyguards, in a mansion in some far away city so they could do whatever the fuck they wanted, they could disrespect me because they did not know me, they did not fear me. But when the devil moved into the neighborhood they’d know what true fear would be like.
Ringgg.