Knife's Property

F O U R

Strawberry is 17 years old in this chapter, Knife is 18 years old in this chapter.

I would like to say that Knife eased up the longer I knew him, but I would be lying.

One look into his eyes and I knew that he wanted so much more from me.

After the kiss we shared when I was fifteen, I was sure he would leave me alone since he had gotten what he wanted. I couldn't have been more stupid.

Maybe it was because before the kiss, I had only spent a day and a half with him and didn't properly detect how fucking annoying he was. Maybe this was just who he was, and it only became glaringly obvious the more time I spent with him.

And I spent a lot of time with him. In the two years I've known him, he's spent 90% of that time stuck to me. He once even followed me into the girl's bathroom because he thought I was upset and wanted to know who was upsetting me. It took all of five minutes to screech at him that I had gotten my period on the way to school and was trying not to completely ruin my underwear.

He finally left the bathroom to give me privacy after my small outburst but waited outside until I emerged.

A girl walked past, her eyelashes fluttering at him seductively. It was no secret that Knife was sleeping with half of the female population in town. He tried to not rub it in my face too much, but it was hard to avoid the topic when he was constantly having past flings throwing themselves at him and asking for a second night.

It hurt a little. While he was possessive and overprotective of me, he didn't try to kiss me again. He would hold my wrist and pull me into his side, nuzzle his face into my neck and sit me on his lap at every opportunity but anything romantic? Absolutely not. If I said anything about my feelings to my dad or Elliot, they would have told me Knife was a male and this what he had the right to do. If I tried to talk about it with Evelyn and Lana, the former would curse his ass and tell me to get my own back and Lana would blush like crazy and stammer out a motivational quote.

While on one hand I was confused and hurt, a large part of me was relieved that Knife was focusing his other needs on other girls'. I wasn't ready for anything to move forward with the two of us, while I was still under his iron clad protection, I wasn't as suffocated as I would have been if we were sleeping together. I had feelings for Knife, a warm hum filled my veins whenever I saw him, but I didn't love him. I knew sleeping together would cause my feelings to intensify and that just wasn't something I wanted to happen when I was only seventeen years of age.

I wanted to blame the males in my life for scaring everyone away, but I knew I would be lying to myself. Before Knife, I was timid and shy around boys. I was partly afraid of what my brother or father would do to the boy, but I was also more afraid of anything.

I wanted to kick myself for that fear now. With Knife an even bigger threat than the males in my family, everyone stayed away from me. A new kid once smiled at me and asked me my name, he didn't know who I was and was talking to me in the rare moment that Knife, Elliot or Kyle were not by my side. I had talked to him for a few moments before we both parted ways.

He was found outside of the school; beaten so badly he would need special attention for the rest of the school year and need to spend the rest of school at home. I avoided people as much as they avoided me after that. I didn't want to be responsible for someone else's injuries. While Knife was never named as the attacker, it was obvious to everyone that he was. No one would say anything though, if they did then they were basically signing their only death warrant with a sweet kiss.

" okay?" Evelyn asked me, nudging her thin shoulder against my arm. I had grown another few inches over the past few years. I now stood at 5'9, without shoes. Evelyn and Lana stayed the same height, making me feel even more like a giant compared to their tiny petite frames.