Page 97 of Shattered In Darkness

He laughs. “You didn’t want me. Don’t fucking lie. If you did, you would have fought. You would’ve crawled bloody across the floor before you let him take you.”

I look down, too tired to fight. My hands shake in the blanket. I just want him to stop. I just want him to come closer.

“You don’t know,” I say. Quiet, bracing for the pain. “You don’t know what it was like. You could never know.”

His hand yanks my hair back tight. My chin tips up, tears streaking down my throat.

He leans in, skull to my cheek. “I know you’re a fucking coward. I know you’re a traitor. You let him have you. You ran back to him. Not even a week after you were in my bed.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t want to go.”

He lets go and my head knocks the wall. Stars flash in my vision.

Brody paces, boot scuffing the dirt, shoulders huge. He’s unhinged, rattling with hate and something worse. Maybe grief. Maybe just need.

I wait. There’s nothing else I can do.

He wheels back, snatches my jaw in his hand, squeezing so tight my teeth grind. “Don’t freeze up now. Tell me the truth. You want him? You want to be his little prize? Or do you want me, Bambi? Because the way I remember it, you spread your legs for him easy enough.”

I could scream. I could bite him. I just let it slide off. “He never asked what I wanted,” I say. “He just took.”

“I don’t care,” Brody snaps. “You should’ve fought. You should’ve clawed out his fucking eyes. You should’ve died before you let him touch you.”

His voice cracks. The only thing that still feels real. My cheeks are wet, but I’m done pretending. I let the tears fall. I let them wash over us. “You didn’t come for me,” I whisper. My heart shreds on the words. “You never came.”

He jerks away, wild. I see it. How my words splinter him open. For a second, there’s something softer, some old ache that almost gentles his lips. I can feel the heat rolling off him in bitter waves. I’m half-curled, half-defiant, heart pounding so hard the world blurs. I think he might hit me. Or maybe pull me in and make me beg. I can’t tell which is worse.

He just stands there, mask splitting the morning, all control and violence and something shattered underneath. His breath shakes as he says it again, softer, but it cuts deeper: “Don’t put that on me. I would’ve killed for you. I would’ve burned this whole world for you, and you—” His fist tightens in the blanket, knuckles bone-white. “You broke me. You fucking broke me.”

I pull the blanket up, shaking hands, and hide my face. Maybe if I go small enough he’ll forget I’m here. But he doesn’t. I hear his breath. The chair scrapes back. Boots on the floor, walls closing in. There’s nowhere to go.

He grabs my jaw. The skull mask floats above, like a nightmare. My pulse flares.

“You don’t get it?” His voice is poison in my ears. “You never did. You let him take you. You let him fucking ruin everything.”

“Not what happened,” I rasp. “You don’t know. You left.”

He snorts. “I left? No. I was forced out. Because of you. Because of that night.” He leans in, skull inches from my temple. I feel the heat in his words. “You could have come. You could have bled for me. But you didn’t.” I want to hit him. I want to curl around myself and never speak again. He shakes my head in his grip, like trying to rattle the truth out of me. “Tell me what you did. Say it. Say you liked it. Say you took him because you wanted to hurt me.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Tears break free, spilling warm over my jaw. I breathe, in and out. “Nothing like that. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want him.”

He lets go, my head flings back and hits the headboard. There are black spots in my vision. The mask stares, empty, awful. Brody is in pieces. He wants to glue himself back together with every scream, every shameful memory. He wants to eat my heart and spit it out.

His hands flex at his sides. Knuckles white, arms trembling with violence. “You’re a fucking coward,” Brody says. “You always were. Always running. Always hiding behind your pretty little lies.”

I clench my fists under the covers. My skin is buzzing with fear, shame, and something worse—a black hole where love should be.

“Do you want the truth?” I snap, voice gone. “Here it is. You scare me. You scare me more than anything. You tear me open every time you look at me.”

“Good. Maybe you like being afraid. Maybe that’s the only thing that makes you feel alive.”

“You don’t know what makes me alive.”

I can’t look up. If I look up, he’ll see every ruined thing inside me. He’s moving. Pacing the room, boot scraping concrete. Each pass, he gets that much closer. The blanket falls. My skin prickles with cold and panic. I don’t think. I move.

My feet hit the floor; I duck under his arm before he can react. My shoulder slams the corner of the bed. Pain spikes but I keep going. My body is on flight or flight mode, and terror is taking a hold of me.

The windows are thick with snow. I can’t see out, I can barely see anything but shadows and the blurred shape of the door. My lungs burn. I stumble toward the kitchen. Cabinets, table, stove. No exit. No escape. Only dark.