“I didn’t know you enjoyed a slow and lingering form of suicide as a pastime,” Tatum’s voice reached me and I cracked my eyes open to find her looking up at me.
She was wearing her running gear, headphones dangling around her neck and the tight clothes clinging to her body. Blake had gone out with her as none of us were willing to leave her on her own until this stalker shit had been dealt with, but I guessed they were back already. Fuck knows how long I’d been up the mountain pouting on my own.
“You want one?” I asked, offering up the pack of cigarettes as I took a took drag on my own again.
“Ew, no. You do realise this makes you like ten points less attractive, right? What’s the deal anyway? Do you just enjoy playing chicken with cancer or do you think you’re so fucking tough that there’s just no way you’ll ever get sick?”
I leaned towards her and blew my smoke in her face, making her scrunch her nose up in disgust. “Naw, baby,” I taunted. “I don’t think I’m too tough for cancer. I just think a more violent death is in my future so it doesn’t seem like there’s much point in me worrying about it.”
“Is…something wrong?” she asked, her brow creasing with concern and I let the cigarette hang out of the corner of my mouth as my gaze slid over her.
“Yeah. Have you come to bask in my pain?”
“No,” she snapped, having the nerve to sound offended. “It is possible for one person to care about seeing another in pain.”
I snorted derisively. “So you wanna help me banish my demons, do you?”
“Maybe.”
For a moment the truth actually came to the tip of my tongue and I took a long drag on my cigarette as I considered giving it to her. It wasn’t like her opinion of me could get much lower anyway and today this truth was weighing on me more heavily than usual. Maybe offloading it would help.
“Or maybe I should just leave you here smoking and having a pity party for one,” she added as the silence stretched. “After everything you’ve done to me, it’s not like I owe you anything anyway.”
“If you really wanna help me out, baby, then why don’t you get on your knees and suck my dick for me like you did at Monroe’s initiation?” I snapped, the anger in me rising to the surface as I wondered why I’d even considered trusting her when I hadn’t trusted my brothers with this and my heart pounded with fury.
“Fuck you, Kyan,” she snarled, turning and stalking away from me but now that my gaze had fallen on my prey, I wasn’t willing to let her go.
“Alright, I’m feeling generous,” I called as I moved after her, catching her arm, whipping her around to look up at me and drowning my fears in the hatred I found in her blue eyes. “I’ll give you what you’ve been aching for and fuck you until you can’t think straight. Fair warning though, I’m in a foul mood and I’m rough as fuck, so you might wanna prepare yourself.”
“I don’t know why I even bothered,” she hissed, yanking her arm out of my grip. “Serves me right for trying to help you. But don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson and I won’t ever attempt it again.”
Something shattered and fell apart in my chest as she glared at me with her eyes full of hatred, but all I did was glare right back at her.
“What the fuck is going on out here?” Saint’s voice interrupted us and Tatum looked at him as he stalked around The Temple towards us, but my eyes were glued on her.
I was gripping her arm too tightly, but the idea of her walking off on me right now was too fucking much along with everything else. But all I seemed to be able to do well with her recently was rile her up and drive her away, and I was so self-destructive that I couldn’t fucking stop it.
Saint stormed straight up to us and shoved me in the chest, forcing me to release her as I stumbled back a step.
“You knew what I’d fucking do if I ever caught you smoking again,” he snarled at me and I sucked in a final drag a moment before he snatched the cigarette from my mouth.
He spun it in his fingers and drove the cherry straight against my chest with a snarl of rage, stubbing it out as it burned right through my shirt and the pain of it cut into my flesh.
I stood my ground and glared at him as he held it there, his eyes flaring with fury as he burned me and I just fucking took it. Because why the hell not? I’d known exactly what he’d do when he caught me and some fucked up piece of me had wanted it so that at least one single part of my body would feel an inch of the pain my soul was drowning in right now.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Tatum yelled, her fist slamming into Saint’s jaw as she knocked him away from me with a snarl of rage and the cigarette went flying into the mud.
She looked up at me with real pain in her eyes like she was trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me and like she actually gave a crap too.
Saint snarled in fury as he wheeled on her and I snatched her hand, yanking her behind me as I squared off against him.
“Back off,” I warned, my muscles bunching as I prepared to fight him if he tried to lay a finger on her.
“If you think for a single second that I’m going to let her
