TOP OF THE ROCK

☆ | 16.0

☆

A GLINT OF METAL blinds her.

She flinches, stumbling back as Blue closes in on her, crisp, cold metal grazing her cheek. An arm wraps around her waist, catches her, steadies her, and then he's there, the most violent version of him, the best version of him, that fucking predator that was always lurking beneath the surface of a cool, calculated mask.

"I did warn you," he whispers, reeling her into his chest. The warm threat caresses her ear with a veil of icy anger. Nothing feels right. "Don't try to fuck me over, Star."

"Hey, hey, what the fuck, man?"

Her heart hammers painfully. Cadillac. "Ramón, don't."

Because she needs him to stay inside, to keep the crane controlled, to be there when this all falls apart.

"Ramón." Teasingly, Blue traces the gun along her cheek. "How cute. Because you just had to break all the fucking rules, baby."

Tears sting her eyes, but a sarcastic smile toys at her lips. "Mmm. Always."

His grip loosens on her back, cold fingertips sliding up her back to tangle into her hair. When he yanks, she winces, biting back a cry that he would love to hear. "What happened to no real names?"

"Fuck you," she rasps breathlessly, her neck craning.

Blue shakes his head with a dry laugh. The gun stills, flirting against her throat dangerously. "It could have been just us, Star. That was the fucking plan."

That was Plan A.

"I didn't trust you."

"No, I know," Blue muses, and those soft words almost take her back to the first night. Because he knew then, in those first moments, that she would never trust him. "I know. You didn't trust me. I watched you trust Vegas an Vans and Cadillac, but you didn't trust me. You never trusted me."

A dizzy spell washes over her, a riptide of rage and disbelief crashing together, and suddenly, she's writhing, flailing, thrashing in his hold, struggling to break free and kill him. "Because you were going to fuck everyone over."

How the fuck had he expected her to trust him?

"Mmm. Maybe." He smiles. "But so were you."

That silences her.

Warily, she peers up through wet lashes, searching for Cadillac with an apology churning within her. Guilt burns violently in her chest. Because she was. "I... no, I..."

"Oh, don't." It's soft, a quiet command to silence her, and it works. Fuck him for that. "You and I... we're a lot alike, baby. Selfish."

Maybe. Maybe she is selfish.

She blinks, blinks, blinks, desperate to see him in the curtain of darkness, past the veil of tears, but everything is blurry, skewing into a dim backdrop of Jersey lights.

"I knew you'd never stay with me," he admits when she doesn't say anything. That cold sliver of metal travels up her throat, her jaw, her chin, resting at the seam of her lips. "I knew it, and when Vans came to me about your plan, I knew that you... you were playing everyone."

Fuck. Her teeth grind together. "Vans."

"Yeah, I know, I know," Blue snickers. "It hurts when someone fucks you over, huh?"