I don’t say any of that though. I just slide out of the back seat before Ryland climbs out after me. Theo pulls out of the garage as Ryland unlocks the door to the house, and as soon as he steps inside, I brush past him, heading for the stairs to the second floor.
But before I can even make it across the kitchen, a hand closes tightly around my wrist.
I jerk to a stop, then whirl around to glare at Ryland, tugging against his hold on me. “What?”
“You think I don’t know what you’re fucking thinking?” He narrows his hazel eyes, his full lips pressing into a line. “I know how goddamn stubborn you are. I know you don’t give up. You probably think you can take on every single person in this competition, but you can’t.”
“I never said I wanted to do that.” I pull harder against his vise-like grip, wishing I had my other fucking hand so I could slap him. He’s twisting my words, twisting my intentions, making it sound like I have some kind of death wish. “I said I want to help! Why won’t you let me do that?”
“I’m trying to protect you,” he grits out, pulling me a little closer.
We’re less than two feet apart now, and I can see how bloodshot his eyes are, how sallow his face looks. It breaks my fucking heart. What would he look like if Theo died too? Would he even survive that kind of loss?
“I’m trying to protect you too, you asshole!” I yell, shoving at him with the stump of my ruined arm. He falls back a step, and instead of pulling away, I follow him, narrowing the space between us to less than a foot.
“You’ve already done enough.” Ryland’s body tenses, his shoulders squaring as if he’s facing off against an enemy in battle.
“What are you talking about?”
He yanks on my wrist, pulling me toward him so sharply that my chest crashes against his. I can feel the wild rhythm of his heart as he stares down at me like I’m fucking crazy.
“How do you not get it?” he rasps. “How the fuck do you not get it by now, Ayla? You didn’t just save Marcus’s life the night you took those bullets for him. You saved mine. You saved Theo’s.”
I blink up at him, completely thrown off balance. “What do you mean? The gun was aimed at Marcus. The bullets—”
“I’m not talking about the gun.” He shakes his head, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’m not talking about the bullets.”
“Then what—”
My words break off as I realize exactly what he means. He’s talking about this.
About the grief that’s eating through his soul like acid.
About having to go to a wake for one of his best friends.
About losing himself under a tidal wave of pain.
My stomach tightens. A small noise escapes my mouth, and I shake my head. “But I didn’t save you this time. I didn’t save him.”
Tears sting my eyes like shards of glass. It’s the first time I’ve spoken those words out loud, but as I say them, regret rises up inside me. I twist my arm out of Ryland’s hold and step back, my skin going cold.
“It should’ve been me. If Marcus just would’ve let me—”
Ryland doesn’t even let me finish. He moves into my space again, towering over me as he growls, “Don’t fucking say that.”
He looks furious. Unhinged, almost. The same way he looked at Doctor Adelman’s office when his bottled-up emotions exploded out of him.
“You don’t wish it had been me?” I challenge, lifting my chin. It’s a cruel question to ask, I know that. It’s going to hurt him or me or both of us, but I can’t stop myself. “I did it once. Why not a second time? Don’t you wish it’d been me who got shot instead of Marcus? Because I sure as fuck do.”
Ryland’s face freezes, his expression turning to stone. “Don’t ask me that. You can’t fucking ask me that.”
“Why not?” I blurt.
I’m on the verge of crying again. I’ve never felt so emotionally unhinged in my life as I have during the past week, not even after the first time my foster father raped me. Not even after I woke up in the hospital to learn that I’d lost my arm.
Ryland drags in a shuddering breath, his nostrils flickering. “Because you can’t ask me to choose between two things I love.”
The kitchen around us seems to fade away as I blink at him in shock.
There’s not a hint of a lie on his face as he glares down at me. Just anger and pain and… truth.
It’s too much. I should laugh in his face and tell him he has to be mistaken. That he can’t possibly love me when he’s only known me for a little over a month. That the years he and his friends spent hiding in the shadows of my life don’t count, and that this is his grief talking, or his obsession, or his lust.
But I don’t say any of that. I can’t. My traitorous fucking heart won’t let me.
Because it doesn’t care what logic says. It doesn’t care that this is insane.
It cares about Ryland.
It cares about Marcus.
It cares about Theo.
Maybe a tiny part of me, the part that’s been hurt over and over again and expects nothing else anymore, hoped that forcing Ryland’s hand would make him admit he doesn’t care about me. That he sees me as a useful tool, a human shield who kept his friend safe once, and nothing more.
I wanted him to push me away so I could run without feeling like a coward.
But he didn’t.
And I don’t think he ever will.
“I’m sorry.” The words are a choked whisper, and tears stick to my eyelashes as I try to blink them away.
Ryland’s face cracks. Every bit of careful control falls away as he grabs my face in both hands and kisses me.
It’s an immolating kiss.
The kind that ruins you.
The kind you
