𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄

The rain poured down on us, soaking us and the ground. My breath was uneven as I looked at him, anger written all over my face. "Why do you always have to ruin everything?" I shouted at him. I hate the way he looks at me and that stupid cocky grin that was plastered on his stupid face.

Atlas didn't back down. He never did. "Maybe if you weren't so stubborn, you'd actually understand what's going on for once!" he shot back, his voice raw with frustration.

"You're insufferable," I spat out, my voice laced with venom.

Atlas smirked, his lips twisting into something almost mocking. "And you're no picnic either, Red."

That fucking nickname. He knows how much I hate it.

Thunder crashed overhead, and for a moment we were both silent, our breath mingling in the cold air between us. It was filled with tension, thick with unspoken resentment. I glared at him and he met it with the same intensity with his jaw clenched. We stood mere inches apart, so I took one step closer, daring him to push me away.

But he didn't.

Instead, something changed in Atlas's eyes—a flash of something unreadable, something dangerous—and before either of us could stop, his hands were on my waist, pulling me closer with a force that was equal parts anger and desperation. My heart pounded in my chest, and I felt my pulse roar in my ears.

I should have shoved him away. I should have said something snarky back, something for him to let go.

But I didn't.

Instead out of a sudden, our lips crashed together in a heated, messy kiss. Not from affection, but a need to prove something, to silence the other.

I gripped his shirt with my hands as I tried to resist the strange pull towards him, and Atlas's grip on my waist tensed, as if I was something he could control if he just held on tighter. There was something else simmering beneath—something neither of us dared to acknowledge.

When we finally broke apart, both panting for air, the hatred was still there, blazing in our eyes. But now it was tangled with something else, something dangerous, something neither of us could deny. It felt like a spark ignited between us as our hatred for each other burned into something more.

And I know that he hates it as much as I do.

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