Wrath of an Exile: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (The River Styx Heathens Book 1)

Phi

August 12

The beauty of physics stole my heart at a very young age.

After stumbling upon one episode of Doctor Who, I was enamored by the mysteries of our universe. Not just the stars or the creation of planets but the celebration of the profound beauty of the cosmos and our place in it.

It was looking at equations and knowing it was more than a mathematical construct. That these can be pathways to understanding the fundamental nature of electromagnetic waves, weaving the fabric of reality itself. Our reality that we live and breathe every second of the day.

The beauty, I found, was not in understanding our world but the sense of wonder and curiosity it fed. That gift of acceptance that no matter how terrible moments may seem, it is all minuscule compared to the never-ending galaxies.

I used to dream of doing something life-changing in that field. It was all I thought about. I lived and breathed science. Now, the only physics I use is finishing a Rubik’s Cube faster than some random frat guy can chug beer.

“Holy shit.”

Someone mutters within the group of drunken college students crowded in a circle around me, all watching as my fingers rapidly spin the pieces of colorful plastic in my hands. I smirk when I glance up, seeing my opponent’s throat working as he tries to guzzle down twenty-four ounces of foamy booze.

The colors rotate together as I look back down, shifting beneath my touch. I’m seconds away from finishing this, and he still has half a can to go. Now, that probably has little to do with my talent and everything to do with him being terrible at this.

Either way, I don’t care.

I spent hours and hours of my elementary school years learning how to work these, feeding my quiet joy of mastering something complex.

It’s nice to be the center of attention for something I genuinely love again, even if it’s a silly little puzzle to some. The clicking of the last few pieces rings in my ears, a warmth spreading across my chest as I offer the completed Rubik’s Cube to the drunken crowd.

“Maybe you need more practice opening your throat all the way.” I smirk, chucking the cube at the frat bro who’d failed to beat me. “I hear that helps.”

Darren—I’m not totally sure that’s his name, but oh well—fumbles it drunkenly before clutching it to his chest.

“That’s your specialty, right? You offering lessons?” He arches an eyebrow, wiping the beer from his mouth to reveal a smirk.

“Ah, sexism. How refreshingly original, Darren,” I retort, interrupting his group of friends who are cackling like hyenas at his jab.

“Derrick,” he corrects, irritation lacing his voice, as if it’s expected of me to know his name. “It’s just the truth though. We all know how easy it is to get the vixen to spread her legs.”

My eyes roll so far into my skull I feel like I have to hit my forehead to knock them back in place. The infamous double standard is such an exhausting conversation. Guys everywhere who walk around believing they hold ownership over other people’s bodies, as if it’s their fucking right to have a say in what we do with our anatomy.

Men’s entitlement to vaginas is an epidemic, and I personally think castrating all chauvinistic pigs might be the only cure.

“Someone call the church! A girl enjoys sex, God fucking forbid, she must be burned at the stake!” I say dramatically, backing away from this conversation. “Blah, blah, blah. Skip the misogyny next time. It’s beyond boring.”

Turning on my heels, giving Darren my back, I hear him shout from behind me, “Fuck you, Phi!”

“Gotta be packing more than you’re carrying to ride this ride,” I call back. I fly him the bird, knowing he’s going to be tucking his metaphorical tail and scampering away to nurse his bruised ego while his douchebag friends help lick his wounds.

Dodging the roaring fire and the people huddled around it, I make my way to one of the moss-covered logs strewn across the forest floor. Sneaking away from the heart of the party, I dig into my pocket for a pack of Lucky Strike matches and pluck the pre-rolled blunt from inside my bra before sitting down on what used to be a towering tree but now acts as benches for inebriated kids.

Leaning back against the tree behind me, I strike a match and hold it to the end of the blunt, inhaling deeply as the tip glows. I find the edges of my hood, tossing it up over my head as the earthy taste fills my lungs, the familiar calm washing over me.

Rotating the pack of matches in my fingers, I give a secret smile, thinking about the first time I jacked these from Dad’s stash and he caught me red-handed. He hadn’t been mad, only laughed and told me to ask next time.

Weed fills my head, starting the slow process of numbing me out as I observe the people around me. The woods surrounding the party are a blur of movement and color. Bodies sway together, dancing, silhouetted against the orange flames of the bonfire. A few are hitting a keg, others are sitting around the fire, some are gathered in small groups near the tree line, all laughing as they drink and worry about nothing but this exact moment.This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

Raw human connection.

The only taste of that I’d gotten in the last four years was watching it happen between other people.

I share my body with guys to take the edge off. It’s physical, only. I spend time with my family and friends, but it’s surface level, always.

Sneaking out tonight wasn’t about getting high or needing to do something chaotic. It was for this.

To sit like a quiet voyeur to watch others share in what I no longer had. An attempt to fill the black hole inside of my chest caused by my self-destruction.

Being stuck inside the four walls I’d been grounded to had me too far in my own head and that place? It’s a darkened cavern with nightmarish memories set on holding me captive.

It was too fucking quiet in my room. I needed the noise of life to dull the screaming.

When my world goes silent, the monster in my head awakens with a howl of remembrance. Their claws extract, just to rip and tear at what little of my soul remains. They scream into the void with a painful reminder.

You are all alone. You’ve done this to yourself.

Right now, as I watch the world spin while I remain wholly still, I can admit that I miss the feeling of belonging.

Belonging to someone, something, anything.

I used to belong. I was connected, tethered to my family like the deep roots that ground an old oak.

Caldwell. Hawthorne. Pierson. Van Doren.

They were my home before I evicted myself.

Those last names raised me. A conjoined effort of four legacies choosing to look after one another’s children. They are the foundation I’d built my life on.

My summers as a kid were spent at one of Thatcher and Lyra Pierson’s many vacation homes. Even though they had no children themselves, they have loved us unabashedly since our birth. Thatch taught Andromeda how to play piano, and I watched over the years as she grew to be his secret favorite because of it. Silas Hawthorne has been my biggest chess rival since I started playing, and Briar Caldwell once held my hand while I got fifteen stitches across my knee after I’d tried skateboarding and Mom couldn’t be there.

My father’s childhood friends and their wives do not have an ounce of blood linking them, but they are our uncles and aunts, just as their children are more siblings than simply friends. The group of eight had turned into a band of seventeen over the years, proof that the unbreakable bonds they’d built had withstood the test of time and had trickled down into their gene pool.

I’d never once felt alone before. I could’ve spent forever stumbling into one of their welcoming arms.

Instead, I’d shut the door on them all.

“Cops! Fucking cops!”

I hear shouting in the distance as my eyes pop open. Blue and red lights flash through the trees, and a chorus of panicked voices bounces around me. People are scrambling in all directions, abandoning their drinks and fleeing into the woods.

If the sound of impending doom wasn’t thumping in my ears, I’d roll my eyes and groan at the karmic timing. If I’m going to be stuck in Ponderosa Springs for at least another year, I’d like to avoid doing something that will make it harder than it’s already going to be.

Like being picked up from a jail cell by my father while I’m supposed to be grounded.

I know I can’t run for my bike unless I wanna run straight toward police officers to get to it. I have to wait it out before leaving, but where the fuck am I going to hide?

Shit, shitty, fucking shit.

Piercing beams from flashlights slice through the dense forest, police creeping closer, ordering people to freeze. Adrenaline surges through my body, drowning out all other sounds except for the frantic thumping of my heart.

Quickly, I stand, stubbing out the blunt and pocketing it before vaulting over the log I was just sitting on. With little thought of where I’m headed, I take off into the pitch-black woods opposite the cops, silently praying to the forest goddess that I don’t get lost.

I weave between trees, branches whipping my face and arms as I run blindly into the darkness. The platforms of my Converse slam into the damp earth as I try to use the streaks of moonlight to guide me forward without tripping.

There is an overwhelming amount of beauty in the Ponderosa Springs Forest when the sun is up. It flutters with the sounds of life, gentle songs from sparrows carried in the sea-tinged breeze, the rustle of pine needles, and has this sort of kaleidoscope effect from the sun when it pierces through the canopy of trees above.

But at night, it is a labyrinth of illusion. A feeding ground for fear.

Every shadow slithers across your skin, owls hooting into the darkness, giving warnings. Even the soil below feels like it might grow teeth to swallow you whole. No matter how well you think you know the forest, it’s never well enough.

My chest heaves as the trees grow thicker and closer together. I scramble up a small incline, clawing at the barren soil beneath me. When I reach the top, the tip of my Converse catches on an exposed root, and I sprawl forward with a scream. Throwing my hands out to break my fall, I feel the exact moment a rock slices through my palm, making me hiss.

A sharp pain pulses in my hand as I glance up through the canopy of trees to find the moon, a full moon, illuminating the ink-colored sky. I imagine if celestial beings talked, the moon would be laughing hysterically at me.

Blood leaks down my wrist, twining down my forearm as I push myself up to my knees, examining the gash on my skin. The crimson liquid catches the light as I groan in both annoyance and pain. Reaching under my hoodie, I rip at the material of one of my favorite graphic tees. With more struggle then I care to admit, I finally get a piece torn off, winding it around my hand, hoping that’s enough to keep it clean until I get home.

“Fan out!” an authoritative voice booms between the trees. “See if we missed any!”

Scrambling to my feet, I look ahead, ready to take off running again, but halt. I stare at the structure in front of me, one that rattles and shrieks, old metal outraged at the violent gusts of wind.

The Ponderosa Springs water tower is imposing, standing tall amidst the forest.

“You’ve gotta be fucking joking,” I mutter dumbly.

How are my only two options right now to either face my fear of heights or run deeper into the woods?

The sounds of officers encroaching grow louder, and terror swells in my gut as I sprint toward the fence surrounding the base of the tower. A bitter, metallic taste hits my tongue as fear begins to swell in my mouth, and I watch my hands shake when I grab the metal links.

Cold steel bites into my palms, and with wobbly limbs, hand over hand, I scale the barrier. Rough metal snags at my jeans, ripping a hole in the material just above my knee. Biting down on my bottom lip to keep from screaming, I do my best to ignore the pain in my hand as I apply pressure on it to throw my leg over the top.

Clumsily, I find myself firmly planted on the other side of the fence. My head spins as I balk at the daunting spiral metal staircase. Even in the dark, I can spot the rust, the weathered steps coiled around the tower like a snake.

Trying to keep my breathing under control, despite the panic coursing through me, I close the gap between me and the stairs. Each step up groans beneath my feet, protesting against the intrusion.

Higher and higher, the ground receding below me at a dizzying rate, I force myself not to look down, thinking, in this moment, I might have preferred Dad picking me up from jail over this.

Just another one of my stupid fucking decisions, and this time, I’m suffering the consequences for it.

When the top of the tower comes into view, I step onto the small platform ringed by a waist-high railing. The wind lashes violently up here, throwing me off-balance, knocking me into the railing.

Unable to stop myself, I peer down, seeing just how far up I am. Bile wells up in the back of my throat as I look over the forest. I can see flashlights dancing between the trees far below. The sound of shouts drifts up, barely audible over the roar of the wind.

My mouth feels dry, the weight of my tongue heavy as I step back before spinning to slam my chest into the turquoise-colored tank. Spreading my arms wide, I attempt to hug it, even though this thing is so wide it would probably take at least a hundred people to encircle it.

Desperately, I press my body as close as physically possible to the metal in order to put distance between me and the edge.

My forehead drops onto the cool surface, shutting my eyes as sweat begins to pool at the back of my neck. Hot tears swell up, and I can feel them threatening to fall.

I’m not in control, and I can’t fucking breathe.

Hands—hands are all over me.

My body, my mind, prisoner to these hands. They are everywhere, groping, grasping, suffocating me. They are unrelenting as I beg to be let go, but they don’t listen. Their brutal touch left bruises on my skin, so deep I can still feel them aching years later. I can still see them every time I look in the mirror.

It didn’t matter how much I begged to be left alone, they didn’t listen. They never listen. They seize what they want with no mercy. With a malicious grip, they take, take, take…

A noise that sounds an awful lot like a whimper tumbles from my lips, tears streaming down my cheeks.

A swarm of bees rages in my chest, their tiny wings thrashing with frenzied anger in my rib cage. Brutal stingers prick at my heart, injecting potent amounts of terror straight into my bloodstream.

I can’t do this. I don’t want to be here. Not on this tower, not trapped inside my head like this.

Those hands, the ones that bring shadow in the brightest days and snuff out any light that remains in the dark, have stolen everything from me.

They killed me. Took my soul and made me an empty well with no bottom. Destruction and despair are the only things that exist in me.

Seraphina Van Doren died. The girl I was, the girl I loved being, died a remorseless death.

I’m simply bones and vicious memories now.

“You planning on jumping?”

Believing all sanity has finally left me, considering the wind has started talking, I crack my teary eyes open.

Except it’s not the cyclone of air that spoke—it’s a person, with a voice like crackling embers, the echoes of heat touching my skin. In my peripheral vision, there is a tall shape cloaked in shadow, and only a sliver of his silhouette is visible to me.

“Does it look like I plan on jumping?” I choke out, voice raw with sarcasm. “Did my clinging to this stupid fucking tank for dear life give it away?”

Leaping to my death was obviously not why I came up here, and I think he knows that. But I can’t say this is the first time I’ve thought about ending it.

Sometimes, I think death might be easier than living with the constant mental torment.

“No, I can’t even see you,” he says. “Your tears were disturbing my solitude.”

The smell of rust fills my nose as I choke out a laugh. I’ve always appreciated honesty.

“Yeah, well,” I breathe out, “you can go back to your side now. Leave me to die with some of my dignity intact.”

“Unless you plan on jumping, you’re not dying tonight. This water tower’s been here for years. Hasn’t fallen yet.”

“Why do you care either way?” I ask, shutting my eyes again, keeping my body plastered to the front of this tank. “You gonna be my knight in shining armor and try to stop me?”

I can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, “Never been the kinda guy who keeps a girl from what she wants.”

This conversation feels like a life vest, and I’m hoping it’ll be enough to distract my mind long enough to get me out of the situation I’ve put myself in. Hoping it’ll keep the hands that torture my subconscious at bay.

“And they say chivalry is dead.” A scoff shakes my chest. “I’m not jumping, but I’m not sure it matters. Life is meaningless anyway.”

The familiar sound of a lighter striking hits my ears before the smell of cigarettes drifts toward me.

“Is that right?” The teasing in his tone makes me roll my eyes.

“Yeah,” I mutter, my brain too tired to be anything but brutally honest. “We’re on a rock that’s floating in an infinite oblivion. Endlessness has no end. It keeps growing regardless of whether I jump, this falls, or I live till a hundred and three. There’s no difference. None of it matters to the universe.”

When we were growing up, Andromeda, Reign, and I used to go to the Styx Bridge late at night. They’d sit as I’d ramble about the laws of thermodynamics or explained, for what was probably the millionth time, why my favorite episode of Doctor Who was about the creation of the universe from a single point and explored the nature of the Big Bang.

The both of them let me talk for hours. They listened and just allowed me to be, to exist without judgment. The last time we did that was the my fourteenth birthday. It was also the last time I can recall being wholly myself, sincere and uncaring of how little anyone understood what I found to be so fascinating.

This moment? Reminds me of that feeling.

I’m not sure if I like it or hate the way it makes me realize how much I’ve missed it.

“Are you always on the verge of an existential crisis, or is this all for me?” Humor laces his voice, making the corners of my lips tip up at the edges, a smile fighting its way to the surface.

“Oh yeah, just for you. The random stranger I can’t see, who only spoke to me because I fucked up his peace and quiet with my crying. Totally for you. It’s serendipitous, kismet even.”

His laughter is smoke, drifting to my ears before it’s carried away by the wind. It makes my stomach flip; this warmth spreads in my belly, soothing the earlier knot of panic, making it unfurl. If I wasn’t dead set on trying to hug this water tower to death, I’d smack myself in the forehead for the nervous yapping.

I’m not sure why it matters. It’s not like I care what this dude thinks of me. I mean, short of hanging out at the top of water towers and smoking cigarettes, I don’t know him. At least, not yet—I’m sure he’s some local who thinks he knows everything about me solely based on my last name.

But I can pretend he’s the perfect stranger, just for now.

“What the hell are you even doing up here?” I ask, curious what drives a person to need this level of solitude.

“Don’t really like people. This is one of the only places lacking them.” I can hear him take a long draw of his cigarette before he continues, voice gruff from the smoke. “Typically.”

“You sound like such a cliché loner.”

“And you sound like someone with terrible luck running from the police.”

My eyes roll, but I can’t help but smirk at his quip. There is only one thing I love more than a set of killer back muscles with tattoos, and it’s a guy with witty conversation. And this one has banter down in fucking spades.

“You’re lonely too. All that endlessness bullshit? It’s a cover-up. If it wasn’t, you’d know we give meaning to the universe, not the other way around,” he says, the accusation shocking me.

Not because it’s not true but because he’s the first person to notice, and he can’t even see me.

“You don’t know that. Not beyond a shadow of a doubt.” My eyes open slowly, head turning to rest my cheek on the water tower as I glance at the outline of his silhouette around the corner. “We might be microscopic wiggling rubber bands.”

“With feelings. Science can’t touch emotion, Einstein.”

“Veneziano,” I correct quickly. “String theory is Gabriele Veneziano, not Einstein. Also, chemicals cause emotions. Chemistry is a science, so technically⁠—”

I freeze, my words cut short by the sudden touch of his fingers on mine. It’s featherlight, a ghost of a graze as he traces over my knuckles before outlining each digit. Almost like he’s trying to count each and every bone in my hand.

“What are you thinking right now?” His words are tinged with a gravelly bite, making my spine rattle as a violent cold chill races up my body.

I don’t blush. Boys do not make me blush. They are boys, for fuck’s sake.

They are placeholders to briefly fill a void. Except I can feel heat rise to my cheeks like the first blossoming rose after a deadly winter.

“How freakishly warm your hands are,” I breathe out truthfully because they are, in fact, ridiculously fucking warm.

The heat of his touch reaches my wrists as he moves beneath my flattened palm to trace my pulse. The contact makes my skin feel like it’s dancing. A thousand invisible molecules spinning in pirouettes against my flesh.

“Now?” he urges, drawing along the lines etched into my palm.

Swallowing the knot in my throat, my earlier fear waning away like an ebbing tide, I say, “How this is the first time in a while that I don’t feel alone.”

This is the most connected I’ve felt to another person in four years. This fraction of a touch from a stranger. The secret part of me that believes in fated souls says it’s romantic, but the piece of me that shuns any form of true intimacy says it’s simply fucking pathetic.

“Mmmhhh.” The hum comes from the back of his throat. “Feel like science to you, Geeks?”

“Doesn’t even feel real.”

My biggest fear is not having control, and I’m standing probably a hundred feet off the ground, if not more, yet I can’t bring myself to really care. Not as the panic drifts far off into the corner of my mind and a newfound curiosity emerges.

Who is this guy?

His fingers curl around my wrist, and before he jerks my arm, my hood is whipped from my head as I’m gracefully plucked from my koala-like hold on the tank, pulled until my chest makes solid contact with his own. A dull thud echoes between our bodies at the collision, one of his hands falling down my side to palm my hip while the other holds my wrist to his chest.

Silently, I pray to the universe that when I look up, he doesn’t know me. That he knows nothing of the vixen, had heard only a little about my father’s reputation or the one I’d forged for myself to keep me safe from the vultures that swirl this place. I pray that we can continue being perfect strangers who had a happenstance meeting.

That I’m still going to be just a girl scared of heights, and he’s just a boy smoking a cigarette.

Our gazes clash.

The glow from the moonlight throws beams of silver light across the angles of his face. It snags on his carved jawline and high cheekbones.

I internally curse myself for ever even thinking about the word hope.

I knew the likelihood of us not knowing each other was slim to none, but this?

This is violently worse than me craving anonymity.

“Feel real now, Van Doren?”

My last name is soaked in venom as he spits it out of his mouth, the taste probably bitter on his tongue.

A vicious smirk lives on his lips as Jude stares down the bridge of his nose. Messy strands of dirty-blond hair get caught in the salty breeze, pushing it away from his face like gentle fingers. Lean, not bulky. All rough edges and sharp angles.

“This might be my worst fucking nightmare, actually.”

Literally.

A deep chuckle rattles his broad chest, and I feel its hostility vibrate in my lower stomach. The echo makes my thighs quiver the same way it might on my bike when I twist the throttle.

Being up here was a mistake before; now, it’s trouble. The kind I have a serious fucking problem saying no to.

“Who knew Ponderosa Springs’s Queen of Disaster isn’t just afraid of heights, but she’s all alone in her castle. All that money not keep you company at night?”

He takes another long drag from his cigarette, full mouth wrapped around the orangish-brown filter. His head tilts idly, watching me with hungry eyes, a predator who just trapped his prey, as the smoke curls lazily from his lips.

My jaw tightens, but it doesn’t prevent my stomach from lurching.

Weakness, two little secrets, had landed in enemy hands, and I know at the right opportunity, he’d turn it into a weapon. A gun he’d have no problem unloading into my skull.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” I bite, yanking my arm from his hold, except it’s not fast enough to be unscathed.

I can still feel the heat of his body lingering, embers from a dying fire scorching my flesh. The harsh wind sends my hair into a tornado of red across my face as I walk backward until my lower back hits the weathered railing.

Jumping from this fucking thing wouldn’t come close to how much distance I want from him.

“Quite the switch up. You don’t wanna feel how freakishly warm my hands are again?”

That entire conversation from earlier will be enough ammo against me for years, and he’ll use every single bullet. It makes me sick, knowing I let my fear make me naive. It forced my guard down.

Now, Satan’s fucking spawn got a glimpse past my walls.

He didn’t deserve to see me like that. He didn’t deserve to see me at all.

I roll my eyes, feigning indifference, before flicking my hands in a shooing motion. “Scamper back to the pound, fucking mutt. This is Springs territory, Sinclair.”

“You know what they say about stray dogs, Seraphina.” He takes his time with my name, sounding out all four syllables, each one coated in simmering wrath. “They bite.”

I track the way his teeth nip at his bottom lip, revealing his naturally sharp canines. A mental image of them sinking into my skin invades my brain, all of the bruises and self-loathing they’d leave behind.

“Besides, the fun just started. Why would I leave now?” He arches a pierced eyebrow, a glimmer of light catching the silver barbell.

Jude Sinclair and I were born with hatred for each other in our DNA. Our existence is a continuation of a decades-old rivalry. An invisible string the color of blood coiled our souls in familiar resentment.

The Capulets and Montagues may have been Shakespeare’s famous foes, but in Ponderosa Springs? It was the Van Dorens and Sinclairs.

“Oh, you know.” I wave my arm in the air haphazardly, lips quirking. “There are a lot of people still pissed about what you did to their historic church. If the right person catches you here, it won’t end well for you.”

Despising one another may be ingrained in our DNA, but we built this animosity all on our own, no bitter family history required. My hatred for Jude had only little to do with his last name and everything to do with what he knows and the company he keeps.

And his distaste for me? Probably had something to do with the fact we both know who set the fire at St. Gabriel’s, and it wasn’t him.

Jude hadn’t been there that Halloween night four years ago, but his best friend was. Oakley Wixx had stolen nearly everything from me, ripped it from my body with unforgiving hands, and Jude? Well, I’m sure he helped him keep it locked away.

The muscle in his chiseled jaw twitches, shoulders tightening as he pushes off the water tank behind him and towers in front of me. Beams of moonlight slash through the shadows on his face.

“Careful,” he warns just as the water tower groans, shaking beneath my feet.

My heart sinks a little as I reach my hands behind me to grip the railing for stability.

I need off this tower, right now.

Before I don’t just spill my guts to Jude and I let him up in them.

A scoff shakes my chest. “You’re a glorified puppet. You’re not gonna do shit without orders from Oakley. Tell me, how far is his hand shoved up your ass these days?”

With ease, he flicks the cigarette butt over the edge of the railing. “About as deep as the stick up yours, sweetheart.”

“Sweetheart? Fucking gag me.”

“Conniving bitch felt too obvious.”

“Boring. But hey, I wasn’t expecting much from an unoriginal prick,” I say with a shrug. “This was super fun. Let’s never do it again.”

Releasing my grip on the railing, I take a wobbly step to the side toward the exit. My legs feel like Jell-O beneath me, but I refuse to show this asshole any more weakness tonight. I’d rather eat razor blades.

Except his long legs are much quicker than my shaky ones, and I don’t even get close to safety. No, as his hands come to rest on the horizontal bar behind me, I am thrown very violently toward danger.

I’m caged in by his body. The heat rolls off him in waves, wrapping me in a burning fog. My head barely reaches his shoulders, dwarfed by him by probably a foot. The harsh breeze carries an addictive smell to my nose, like old books with leather-bound pages dipped in smoke and Black Ice air freshener.

Danger. Danger. Danger.

That internal speedometer living inside of me screams. I swallow roughly, staring up at his eyes. I think they’re blue or maybe green, but in this moment, all I see is two black holes, their gravity so strong that nothing can escape them.

“What’s it like, Phi? Making yourself so fucking untouchable only for it to turn you into a miserable, lonely bitch?” he asks with a sardonic smirk, pieces of his hair falling onto his forehead.

“Move,” I grit through clenched teeth.

My hands look pathetic against his chest as I try to shove him back, feeling his toned body beneath his baggy hoodie. I need to create space, to give my brain oxygen that doesn’t smell like him so it can think clearly.

But he doesn’t move an inch. I think he moves closer, barely an inch between us now. I sink my teeth into the inside of my cheek, biting down so hard the taste of copper hits my tongue.

92, 93, 94, 95…

The red line on my gauge is topping out, shaking violently. My heart is hammering in my chest, and it’s not fear. It’s locked-up desire that is being lured out of its cage.

That appetite for hearts swells in me because his is a flavor I’ve never tasted before. One that is ripe, hot, and every bit of forbidden.

96, 97, 98, 99…

I’m going too fast. Too fucking fast. The yellow lines on the road are a blur, and I can’t decide what I hate more.

Jude or the fact every hatred-covered molecule in my body wants to fuck him.

I’ve never liked him. Not ever in my life.

But.

As we got older, it got difficult to deny how hot he is. It didn’t happen subtly or in pieces. I’d seen him around after the fire and never thought twice.

It happened instantly, in a moment of chaos at the Graveyard a while ago. It was a force I couldn’t stop, no matter how badly I wanted to. But he’d just gotten into a fight after a race, his hair a mess and blood leaking from his mouth.

There was an edge, a hunger in his eyes that made my stomach flip. This toxic mixture of GQ pretty with a natural edge that Rolling Stone would kill for and every bit of my type.

“Or what? You’ll go tattle to the Judge?” he murmurs, voice rough against my skin. “Go on, run and tell Daddy. It’s all you’re good for, Van Doren.”

100.