composure, but his jaw is twitching and there’s a light in his eyes he can’t suppress—one I can’t quite read. I don’t know what’s going on in his head, and I feel like I’m on a speeding train with no brakes, the words spilling out of me in a torrent. It’s too late for me to stop them, to slow down, to think. It’s just all bursting out of me.
“Whatever your choice is, I’ll respect it, okay? But you need to tell me what you want. You can’t yank people’s emotions around and think they’re going to be okay with it!”
Dmitri folds his arms, almost like he’s trying to protect himself. “Sorry I’m not fawning all over you, Princess.”
“Ohhh, no! Don’t you fucking play that card with me! We are not playing this game. I am not asking people to fawn over me and you know it, dickhead.”
“Wow, real original there. Nice insult. I’m deeply wounded.”
“Would you rather I called you a coward?” I snap. “Because that’s what you are! You’re a coward who won’t stand up to his parents and won’t even tell me what’s wrong with him, with us—”
“There is no us!”
“There is, whether you like it or not, genius! There is!” My voice cracks a little, but I keep glaring at him, my chest rising and falling fast. “Now tell me what the hell your problem is!”
“You are!” Dmitri yells, his arms dropping, his hands curled into fists. His whole body is taut, like he’s about to fall off a cliff and ropes are holding him back, just about ready to snap. “You’re my problem, just—you. You’ve been fucking with my head ever since we met!”
“How is that my fault?! I’m not trying to do anything. In fact, I’ve been trying to stay away from you—”
“Right. That’s why you keep getting in my face.”
“Yeah, because I can’t take your bullshit anymore. Half the time you act like you give a shit about me, before you do an abrupt about-face and give me the cold shoulder! What am I supposed to do with that, huh?” I shove him in the chest, and Dmitri, startled, stumbles back a step.
He glares at me. “You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you? Not with me, not with anyone. Always sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” He shoves at me, lightly, not nearly at his full strength, more to get back at me than to actually hurt me.
“Sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong is how Raul got apprehended.” I smack his hands away. “I didn’t see you complaining all that much then!”
“Oh, yes, when you got to be the hero.”
My nostrils flare.
That’s a low blow. Dmitri knows I didn’t want all the attention that came from stopping Raul and then from being in the Trials. I didn’t do it for attention, I did it because it was the right goddamn thing to do. I hate the notoriety I got because of it, the reputation, the way people stared at me at the beginning of the semester.
“At least I’m true to myself,” I snarl. “I do what I want. I’m not under Daddy’s thumb, just giving in and letting someone else rule my life. I’m not a damn coward.”
Dmitri’s face flushes. “And at least my father cares enough to be in my life.”
…oh, I’m gonna kill him.
“Maybe yours shouldn’t be in your life!” I shout. “Maybe then you’d have the backbone to go after what you want.”
“And maybe you’d understand that not everyone can have what they want,” he grits out. “Some of us have to make sacrifices. We can’t have it all.”
“I don’t need a life philosophy lesson from you—”
“No, you need to learn to back the fuck off—”
I shove at him again, but Dmitri’s ready for me this time. He grabs my wrists and twists, whipping me around and shoving me into a wall, pinning me between the shelves and his body.
“Princess,” he growls, his face only an inch from mine, “you need to learn when to stop.”
“You want me to stop? I’ll stop the second you tell me to! I’ll never fucking talk to you again if you ask,” I growl right back. The emotional strain of everything that’s happened in the past few hours makes me feel raw, like someone scrubbed my soul with a wire brush. Angry tears burn my eyes again, and I don’t even bother blinking them away. “But you have to tell me. Say it to my fucking face. Is that what