Page 36 of I Was Born Ruined (Death by Daybreak MC 1)
“Clearly …” Grainge begins, leaning down low and giving me this awful, awful sort of look accompanied with a dark smirk. There’s no joy in that expression. “You do.” He reaches down to grab me, and I lift the Magnum up, putting the barrel to his forehead.
To my credit, the move surprises the shit out of him.
Grainger stares back at me, just a shadow in the night, his rust-red hair bathed in darkness and starlight.
“Do it,” he purrs, staying right where he is, bent over me as I languish in a puddle of fresh blood. I press the gun hard against him, leaving a mark in his skin no doubt. But I don’t disengage the safety, and I most definitely don’t pull the trigger.
“I hate you,” I choke out as I drop the gun by my side and am forced to find my own feet. Grainger isn’t about to help me up now. “I hate all of you. I hate this life. I hate it; I hate it; I hate it.” I’m mumbling under my breath as I stand up, dripping crimson across the pine-needle strewn floor.
My very presence here has turned this sanctuary into a pit of perdition.
The very fact that my DNA is a byproduct of Cat’s wrinkly old balls has caused yet another death.
I wish I’d never been born.
Literally.
This is not me having an existential crisis: if I could snap my fingers and erase myself from existence, I would.
“Hate me while you walk then,” Grainge snaps, yanking the door open and shoving me out.
The first person I see waiting for me … is Cat.
“Girl,” he says, nostrils flared, dark eyes wide, “you are in for a world of hurt.”I’m forced to ride home on the back of Grainger’s bike. I’d much rather go with Sin or Crown or even Beast, but no. No, I get Grainge. Again. He’s like a disease I can’t cure, a poison I can’t treat. I couldn’t even take Fem with me. I had to leave him with Crown; half of me is terrified that Cat will shoot him to teach me a lesson.
“You are so fucking lucky you’re still alive,” he tells me as Nellie meets us at the front door, sobbing and throwing her arms around me. I stiffen up, and I only let her hug me for the span of a single heartbeat. Then I push her aside, trailing blood across the floor as I head for the stairs. Some of it dried in the punishing wind as we drove home at manic speeds, but not all of it.
I start stripping right there in the foyer, tossing aside my leather jacket and sopping tank, the bra that has … gore inside of it. Can’t think about what, exactly, any of that gore is because if I do, I’ll stop walking, sit down on the stairs, and refuse to get up for days.
“What happened?” Nellie’s asking, but even though I sort of feel sorry for her, the truth is this: neither Grainger nor I think she’s worth talking to. Neither of us like her. Fuck, that’s awful isn’t it? Shouldn’t a girl love her mother, especially when she’s the only daughter that’s left? But I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t forgive and forget just like that.
When Mom found out she was pregnant with Gaz, she should’ve ran from Cat and saved us all the heartache and the pain.
“Are you listening to me?” Grainge continues, following me up the steps as I kick my boots aside, peel off my socks. I try to take a stair or two between each item of clothing, but I feel so gross. I just need it off. Off, off, off.
“No.”
When I get to the top landing, Grainge digs his fingers into the back of my leather pants and yanks me back toward him, putting my back to his front. My breasts are bare; my breath is a panting, gasping mess, but none of that matters. The heart wants what it wants—even when that heart is black, broken, and bleeding.
Kissing Sin at the funeral stole all my pain away. What would happen if I fucked Grainge now? I hate him; I hate myself; I hate what just happened. I’m full of it, all of this wild, wild hate.
Nellie is watching us from the bottom of the stairs, but what is she gonna say? Cat is fifteen years older than her; Grainger is fifteen years older than me. My mother’s fucked other men in front of me while my dad returned the favor with other women in the same room. What pedestal does my mom have to stand on?
Grainger shudders from behind me, his breath stirring my hair. When he leans down and puts his lips near my neck, I almost fall to the floor. My legs are already shaky enough as it is. He leans into me, the bulge in his pants pressing into my bare lower back. His mouth moves to my ear, making me shiver.
