“I can’t give you a chance when I have no chance to give! Even if the past never happened. Even if I’d loved you without a broken heart. Even if you’d loved me all these years earnestly, wildly, you would still lose, West. You are where I wrote once upon a time, he is where I write happily ever after.”
In an instant, the boy I’d once known vanished. I tore at my hand but he kept it pinned.
“Let me go.”
With his other hand, West gripped the back of my head, holding me captive. Captive to the pain and helplessness in his eyes.
“You want me to be the villain?” he growled.
My heart dropped. “Don’t do this.” Be better.
“Fine, Story. I’ll be the fucking villain.”
He crashed his lips against mine. Ugly. Brutal. I struggled against him, and he forced his mouth harder against mine.
I felt the wetness on my cheeks first, then the salt hit my lips.
Tears—his.
Then West was gone, pulled off of me in what felt like a gust of wind. I had a split second to see his face. The tears reflecting in the black night, before he was yanked further away. Thrown to the sand.
Grayson.
Grayson had been the unseen force pulling West off me. He caged West, legs on either side of his torso. The wind whipped blond hair wildly around his face—his profile seen in carved and vicious glimpses.
An angry god dispensing justice.
“And the prince saves the princess.” West laughed. “But what are you going to do tomorrow? When nothing fucking changes?”
Grayson grinned, mean. “I don’t give a flying shit about tomorrow. All I care about is now. Seeing your bones break like you’ve been breaking her heart.”
“Grayson? How are you here—how did you find me?” Grayson rolled his neck at my questions, eyes laser-focused on West.
“Look away, Snitch.” His voice made my gut clench. Deadly.
“Grays—”
“Look away,” he growled, then slammed his fist into West’s face.
Fifty-Three
GRAY
The crunch of his bones against my fist, the splatter of his blood black on the sand. This moment was an inevitability come to its conclusion. From the minute I overheard her truth, to every broken look after. Her letters were kindling piling higher and higher.
Dear Atlas, I need you.
Snick. Flash. Boom.
Slam. “Stop.”
He’s right, it whispered. You’re bad, it whispered.
Slam. “Fucking.”
If I make a mistake, does that mean I’m not worthy of loving you anymore?
Slam. “With.”