Save You to Own You (To Reach You Book #4)

Chapter Three:This Can't Be Good For My Liver

Roe-

Now-

People can't be trusted. I mean...you can pretend like you trust them, but never actually give your heart to anyone. How long did it take me to figure that out? 

Too long. I'm such an idiot. 

But I mean...I wish I wasn't. I wish I could scar people without giving a damn. I wish I could hurt them and never hesitate in doing so. 

But I'm too weak and I always get my punishment. For nineteen years I'd managed to somehow resist. I refused to hurt the innocents they brought in here. Because if I could damage their memories then I destroyed them. And I would never hurt anyone like that. 

The punishment my mind provided me with was millions of times worse than the punishment they gave me. The destructive energy that my mind was supposed to release was not released because I didn't want to hurt anyone else. So that destructive energy contended itself with destroying what was left of me. 

Even Malcolm had killed what was left of me. 

He was supposed to be my friend. But he never was...

Or may he had been. But what had changed? What had I done?

He'd started IT that day. The day the Queen had told me that my siblings had disappeared and it was all because of me. That had been her way of punishing me. His way too. 

He'd taken me then, causing nightmares for a continuous week every time he touched me like that. Every time I went numb and tried to block him away. He'd hurt me in the best ways possible and he could never mend our friendship, not after what he did to me. I didn't even have the energy to hate him, I was too numb. I just didn't care anymore.

"Why don't you just go?" I whimper, avoiding his eyes.  "For once...take someone else,"

It was a sharp tug on my skin that made me look up and it was that moment that I realized who I belonged to. Him. Not by will. By sheer force. Because he would never let me belong to anyone else.

Because I was sick and tired of fighting back.

***

Dylan-

"I just, I want to make sure--"

I don't even try to smile, because I'm done caring if she feels unease or not. "Tate I'm fine, I promise,"

She flinches just as I realize my mistake. "What did you just call me?" she hisses.

Oh, well, there goes my entertainment for the night. "Sorry, what was your name?"

"You're a fucking prick," two seconds after that I get a slap to my cheek and then the click clack of her stripper like heels as she storms away. Was she hot? If she was I can't feel the loss, I'm too buzzed.

"Until two months ago, I would never have believed that a girl--or anyone--could call the holy Dylan Monroe that," Pen cackles.

I give her an excellent view of my middle finger and she cocks an eyebrow. "You need to get your shit together, son,"

"I'm not your son," I don't even recognize my voice. "But Tatum has a son, and it isn't mine, it should have been mine,"

"He's hammered, can't go home like that," I hear Ale's husky voice somewhere in the sky. Because I'm high in the sky right now. Yup.

"Take him upstairs," Pen's condescending voice says.

I grin, sticking my tongue out her just for fun.

Ale and Pen are best friends and siblings, they lived above Skyline and blah blah blah.

I needed to sleep. Or barf.

Possibly both.

Whatever.

I follow Ale upstairs. stumbling and mumbling incoherent sentences about Tate. My baby.

That isn't quite mine anymore. I hear something crinkle and look under me, picking the paper under my shoe.

Pen's a sketcher, so this is probably hers, but before I put it down...I look closely. Something weird happens in my chest, like my heart just...jolts, as I look closer at the picture.

The sketch is brilliantly drawn, a kid, maybe eight years old, with ridiculously long ashen blond hair, and possibly the most angelic face in human history. Like kids don't look that innocent and beautiful. It isn't normal. And her eyes.

Big yellow saucer wide eyes, with long black eyelashes.

Lemony colored eyes. Gorgeous eyes.

Man, Pen really has an imagination when she wants one.