Page 77 of Bound By Fury

“What happened?” I push. “How did it… I mean, what…”

He cuts his eyes to the window, his jaw ticking as he watches the leaves blow around in the autumn wind.

“Something about the brakes. I lost control of the car—”

I gasp, shaking fingers flying to my lips.

“Dad had a headache, and Mom was useless, as always, so I drove. And I lost control of the car. And we hit a guardrail and went plummeting down into the ravine. I killed Lexie, okay? I did it. Just like you said I would.”

Tears spring to my eyes, and I wipe them away furiously, desperate to reach out and touch him, to apologize again and again for my stupid fucking mouth.

“Kai—I—”

His eyes shoot to mine at the use of his nickname, water shimmering along the rim of his lower eyelids. He sniffs. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. You know it’s not fine. And you know it’s not your fault, right? It’s not your fault.”

“They said something was wrong with the brakes.” His eyes flicker between mine frantically. “They said they found something strange under the hood of the car.”

I shake my head in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

He blinks, once. Twice.

“I’m just saying,” he says, changing the subject. “You don’t understand what you’re getting yourself into.”

“What?” I ask, exasperated by the sudden shift.

His tone is harsh, and his foot is tapping wildly underneath the desk. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Malachi—”

He flinches.

“Stop being like this!”

“Like what?”

“Ugh!” I groan, turning back to the front of the room and gripping the side of my desk until the wood cuts a bruise into my palms.

From behind me Malachi’s whispered words slither into my ears. “He’s not who you think he is. He’s changed just as much as we have.”

His words are reminiscent of our argument that last night together. His tears splashing against his shirt. What does Malachi know that I don’t?

I churn over his words, but they ring false. “No,” I say, twisting to face him again. “You’ve changed, and I’ve changed, but he’s the same. I’m only just now seeing him how he’s meant to be seen. Now that you no longer eclipse him.”

He’s tense, the lines between his furrowed brows every bit as defiant as they’ve always been.

His head tilts to the side, teeth grazing his bottom lip. “Okay.” He shrugs mockingly.

I can’t resist searching his eyes for evidence of the past. Does he remember it the way I do? The way it was before? He stares at my face plainly. Openly. The ache in his expression a painful reminder of all that has changed since last summer. Despite the anger filling my chest with the heat of a thousand dying stars, the quickening of my heart is completely unrelated.

God, why does he have to look like that?

I sigh. “Just leave me alone, okay?” My fingertips accidentally brush his as I lean forward, my necklace slipping from beneath my shirt. We both snatch our hands back with a hiss. I shiver against the shock shooting through me at his touch. “My life and who I’m close to is none of your fucking business.”

His eyes drop to the gold swinging in front of my chest, a look like recognition on his face as he reaches forward to grip the round pendant, his fingers barely grazing the skin at my throat in the process. It doesn’t matter though, because my breath hitches as fire burns in their wake.

His words are a deadly mix. Both hot and cold, a growl that doesn’t scare me but instead pulls at something deep within. They are a promise, or a curse, I cannot tell. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he murmurs. “You are my fucking business.”