Page 79 of Rattle the Cage

Why can’t I just say it?

I. Am. Sorry.

Throwing herself back with a groan, Tess stood back up and started pacing the apartment. “There’s no fucking point with you.”

A sharp pain ran through me.

She wasn’t wrong; I’d been insufferable to her. In the weeks since she’d come back to Feverpoint, I’d hardly said a word to her. And the things I had said never landed quite right.

Tess scoffed as she strode back and forth like a ragdoll metronome. “You couldn’t even be normal in the fucking car. Can’t hold a normal conversation without bitching me out.”

Stepping out of the kitchen, I pointed at her. “Not true. I tried, you wouldn’t talk. That’s on you.”

Despite my instincts to hold a grudge, I’d done everything I could to be normal. But normal didn’t come naturally to me — not after I’d raised myself in an abandoned amusement park and took on drug dealing as a job with murdering men as a side hustle.

“On me? How could any of this be on me? You didn’t try to talk, you tried to blow all of this over with stupid fucking small talk, like nothing ever happened.” Tess’s jaw dropped as she stopped her pacing.

Her chest rose and fell quickly, like her racing heart might break her sternum and escape.

She wasn’t done. “You believed all that bullshit. Without ever asking me.”

My lips parted, words drowning in the bile that rose in my throat. But with every sentence that left her mouth, I felt the rage growing in my chest.

“And worst of all, you pretended like I didn’t want you to kiss me that night at Heirs. Like I was just some innocent⁠—”

“I believe you. I’m fucking sorry.” Finally.

Her forehead scrunched together. “What?”

Moving across the safehouse, my body set on fire with frustration. “Don’t make me say it again, Tess.”

But as I stood a few inches away, towering over her, she licked her lips and stared me down with all those icy blue eyes. “Say it. Again.”

My jaw tightened, my eyes narrowing on her as I took one more step forward. Our bodies were nearly pressed together.

She wasn’t going to relent. My Ragdoll would make me repeat myself.

And who was I to deny her any longer?

In a near whisper, I growled back at her. “I was wrong.”

I knew it was true the moment she said it. She hadn’t ratted on us, on me — never would have. All of us hated Heirs.

But knowledge was power there. And if it hadn’t been Tess, my mind couldn’t understand who else would have dared to cross us.

The look of betrayal in her eyes that night in cove was enough to convince me. Any lingering doubt was a mere rejection that other possibilities existed.

“I know you didn’t turn on us.” I let the words slip from my mouth. “I’m sorry.”

Her face scrunched up with anger. “Fuck you, Cyrus.”

But I watched as her chest lifted, anger rising in her body just as much as desperation rose in mine.

There was no telling if we stood like that for mere seconds or whole hours.

I reached my arm around her, pulling her close as she thrashed against my touch.

“Fuck you.” She whimpered as her eyes met mine. Even through her anger I could see what she really meant: please fuck me.