Page 74 of Where Angels Fall

She gasps as her back hits the wall, my hands coming up on either side of her face, caging her in. Her chest rises fast beneath the silk of her blouse, breath uneven, eyes falling shut.

My palms stay braced against the wall, close enough that she can feel the heat and anger rolling off me, close enough that every breath we take belongs to both of us. The city hums behind me, but here, in this narrow pocket of space, it all fades.

“You want to tell me why the fuck you're ignoring me?” I growl, faltering when I see the look in her eyes. She doesn't even look up at me, that glassy, haunted stare stuck on the ground. “Look at me,” I grit out, hand coming to grip her chin, raising her face to meet my gaze.

Lungs heaving, I invade her space. With our faces inches apart, she can’t pretend I don’t exist.

She looks so fucking beautiful, yet she's not the same Maddison that she gave me on Friday night. Of course she isn't. Who could be the same after what happened? My thumb brushes her bottom lip as it trembles.

“You don't get to ignore me,” I whisper.

“Enough, Ash, please,” she murmurs, her voice broken and soft enough that I pull back, my eyes narrowing on her.

“Enough, what?” I ask slowly, unable to keep the fury out of my voice.

“Enough of everything!” She pleads. “Enough death. Enough sin. Enough Devils... I'm done. This isn't me. That is not my life. This is my life,” she gestures back towards the restaurant, where the scum of the earth drink and laugh and talk about their disgusting endeavours. “I can't do this anymore. Ash, you need to let me go.”

Slowly, my head shakes side to side, and I feel my face twisting with the rage that is exploding through me.

“It's my fault...” I start, my hands squeezing down on her soft cheeks, “for giving you the impression that you had a choice,” I bite out each word, soft and slow. Pushing up into her space. “You did have a choice. You took it. There's no going back now.”

“And my choice killed someone, Ash!” Her voice takes on a panicked edge. “Killed someone in the most brutal of ways. Thomas... he...,” her voice cracks, her words pausing as she shakes her head. “I did that.”

I snarl, stopping her words. “You didn't put the knife to his throat. You didn't take his last breath from him. You are not responsible for his death, baby.”

Her eyes fall closed. Defeated. Opening back up only to give me that haunted reflection. It kills me, makes my breath stutter out of my lungs.

“I may as well have,” she whispers.

I step back, scoffing at her.

“So what, you're just going to work amongst the Malcolm’s and the Howard’s and the fucking disgusting elitist pricks, like before? You think you're better because your clothes have a higher price tag, your offices are in fancy buildings? You think that's better?” She doesn't reply. She can't. She knows the truth. She's not fucking stupid. “You think, just because we wear leather and ride bikes and we wear our wickedness on our sleeves that we are worse than the people you eat lunch with?” My head flicks back towards the restaurant where I know some of the sickest people sit right this second. “News flash. Angel, they're worse.”

Her chest heaves up and down as she tries to ignore what I'm saying. I won't fucking let her.

“Maybe you're all monsters. We are all monsters,” she corrects honestly, on a soft whisper that I barely hear, but the words sink in.

They hit their mark. Monster. For a second, I'm twelve again. For a second, I stand over my dad's dead body. Gun shaking in my hand. I see my mother's blue eyes widen as she screams in horror.

“What have you done, Ash? What have you done?” Her cries echo in my mind, her voice hysterical as she jumps on top of Dad and tries to stop the blood from pouring out of his throat as if he wasn't dead the second it hit him. I still remember the way her voice shrieked as she said, “You're a monster. You are a monster.”

My teeth grate as the memory assaults me so hard my jaw pops.

“Come to the club, Angel... tonight. We need to talk.”

“No,” she whispers. “I'll never step foot in that club again.”

I charge back at her, my hand wrapping around her throat as I shove her against the wall. I squeeze just enough to make breathing difficult for her. Her eyes are wide, mouth parted as she stares at me.

Finally, fear glints in those eyes.

It's not the way she used to look at me, but it's an emotion at the very least.

And maybe it's the emotion she should have had the entire time.

If she wants me to be the monster, then that is what I’ll be. I’m fucking good at it, at least.

“You will come to the club tonight, or I will find you in your workplace, and I know how much you don't want daddy dearest to see you with a disappointing, disgusting monster like me,” I snarl, inches away from her face.