My chin trembled, and I wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t special. We’d all suffered loss.

But one thing was pretty clear. She was the reason he was here. Much like Will could saddle me with that honor, possibly, as well.

A woman happened to them both.

“I couldn’t look at her, much like he can’t look at you,” Aydin said.

My stomach coiled, and he released me, backing away.

I turned and looked at him.

“I just wonder…” Aydin said. “If he ever decided to run from here, would he care to take you?”

He turned and walked away, leaving me there and feeling more alone than I ever had in my life.

Will would leave me, and he would be right to.

• • •

I stood there next to the pool for I didn’t know how long, Aydin’s words hanging in the air even after he’d left the room.

Was Will planning on running? What would happen to me if he weren’t here? Or if he were sent home?

Would he fight for me?

I’d left him once. I’d let him be arrested and sent to prison, and in his head, I hadn’t cared at all. Maybe I deserved the same.

I walked to the pool’s edge, descended the steps into the water, and jumped in, sinking my entire body below the surface.

The water held me, warm and weightless, and I drifted back up to the surface, floating on my back.

The saltwater stung the cut on my lip, but the pain filled me with anger and memory, and I knew this was coming. I always knew.

I just figured it would’ve come after he got out of prison, and as the subsequent years passed, it didn’t. I got comfortable.

Where would both of us be if he had just left me alone like I told him to?

I stood up, walking to the side of the pool as the shorts and shirt stuck to me like a second skin and tears hung in my eyes.

I used to think that if I got out of Thunder Bay and lived my life for me, doing what I loved and inviting only the people into my life whom I wanted, everything would be perfect someday.

But I hated everything I had, and loved nothing as well as what I’d given up, all of it tainted from the moment he was charged seven years ago, because I knew I didn’t deserve to be happy.

Despair sat on my heart as warm tears streamed down my cheeks, and I didn’t even realize the shower had stopped running until I noticed him standing there.

I looked up, seeing a towel wrapped around his waist as he stared at me. The air thickened, I almost couldn’t breathe, and I was torn between wanting to run to him and run away from him.

Just go.

I begged him in my head, meeting his hard eyes with my blurry ones, and there was so much to say, but if I didn’t explain, then maybe I wouldn’t have to feel him spit on me and throw me away for good.

Please just go.

He charged over instead, not going, and I gasped as he reached down, grabbing me by the collar and hauling me out of the water.

“Will,” I cried.

He picked me up under my arms and lifted me up, nose to nose with him, glaring at me as he dug his fingers into my body.

Another cry escaped.

My legs dangled, and I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.

I was frozen, waiting for what was to come.

I could see it inside of him, ripping him apart, his lips tight and his brow narrow.

But instead of spitting, he shook me hard, growling like he was frustrated with himself more than me, and I broke into more tears.

“I’m sorry,” I cried.

I was so sorry for all of his pain.

But when I thought he was going to throw me back into the pool, he brought me in instead, wrapping an arm around me and pressing his forehead to mine.

His hard muscle nudged my thigh through the towel, and he took my face in his hand, breath pouring out of him as he hovered over my mouth.

“Will…” I started.

But he lifted my thighs up around his waist and backed into the shower again, slamming me into the wall as he took my bottom lip between his teeth.

I opened my mouth to argue, but the heat of his breath made my whole body shiver, and I sucked in a breath, tightening my thighs around him.

He ripped open my shirt, and a whimper escaped me as he pressed his chest into my bare breasts and thrust up into me, grinding hard.

I dug my nails in, but when he came in for my mouth, I turned away.

“Get off,” I told him. “I—We can’t.”

He wrapped his fingers around my throat and squeezed. “This is how it should’ve gone,” he whispered up to me, cutting me off. “You were a hot little piece of meat, and I know you liked it.”

He let my neck go and grabbed my breast instead, plumping it up and out for him as he dipped down and covered my nipple with his mouth.

I moaned as the heat of his tongue covered my skin, my clit throbbing as I grinded on him.

“We should’ve just kept it this simple, huh?” he said. “But you didn’t want people to know the shit we did.”

His mouth covered mine, stealing my breath as he slid his tongue inside and completely took me over, moving across my lips like I was a car he was shifting into gear.

“Why did you do it?” he asked. “Ashamed of what you liked me to do? There was still so much more to come, but you cut us short. We didn’t even do half of everything I had planned for you.”

I rocked into him again, panting. Yes.

But then suddenly, he dropped me to my feet, and my knees shook, everything going cold.

Huh? I opened my eyes.

I barely even registered him peeling my bottoms down my legs and taking my panties.

What?

“And now that you’re here,” he said, grabbing the back of my hair.

I gasped as he brought me in nose to nose again, slipping his hand between my legs and caressing my pussy.

“We have all the time in the world.”

Then…he turned and left, his threat echoing through my ears as it took a moment to realize what had just happened.

I blinked, locking my knees under me as I quickly closed my shirt and covered myself.

Dammit.

Aydin was right.

Will wasn’t an ally.

Will

Nine Years Ago

“Arion Ashby’s having a party,” Damon told us, lying on the hood of his car and blowing a stream of smoke up toward the sky. “Her parents will be out of town.”

Kai groaned, and Michael laughed at him under his breath.

“What?” Damon taunted. “Are you bored, Kai? Restless? Need a new kind of fun?”

“Me?” Kai retorted. “Never. I’m perfectly content. Loving life.”

Damon smiled to himself, taking another drag off his cigarette, looking like he didn’t believe Kai for a second.

The school parking lot swarmed with students, all of us hanging out and trying to soak up the rare, warm October morning before classes started. A calm breeze swept through the trees, clouds rolled in, the air charged, and I looked around for any sign of Emmy Scott.

Without looking like I was looking for her.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want my friends to know that I was into her, because they already knew I was, but if she got the slightest attention for it, she’d get scared off, and she was already constantly bolting away from me.