on his shoulders so I don't fall. He huffs out a breath.
"I was never asking because I thought you'd answer me. Your actions were answer enough."
His dark eyes—the ones that bear the most truth and tell the most lies—devour me. He stares at my tear-stained face, as if mapping the entire galaxy with every inch of available skin. My body flushes with his inspection, especially when his gaze connects with my throat.
"Seems you're okay with people watching," he ruminates aloud, gaze darkening even more so.
I shiver at the stormy resentment in his voice.
My Bridger, with all his masked glory, numb and incongruent with others, shows me his true self, the one he buries beneath mendacity hollowed in a sacred place only we know the passcode to. It only comes to light every so often.
Like now.
Emotion flickers in his eyes, the kind neither of us understands, him more than me. He's forced to silently feel, whether he understands the notion of sensibility or not.
"How would you know, B? Do you watch, too?"
His glare lands on my lips, his face agitated with chagrined fallacies, ones he must repeat as a mantra over and over, just so it's replicated in his head.
"Never," he seethes, baring his pretty teeth.
I smirk, small and happily. His hands haven't left me, haven’t flinched or softened. They've only dug deeper, touched more, and brushed lower.
"Kiss me, Bridger. Let me taste the lies on your tongue."
A low reviling noise leaves him swiftly, and his mouth conquers mine in the next beat. His palms hold me hostage, while my arms cage him in. Our tongues fight, slashing, cursing, hating each other with each jab, but it's so damn beautiful, learning the taste of him, memorizing each flavor as a new palette to exhaust until I can no longer partake.
He's sweet. He's bitter. He's a Bridger sour patch, stealing my breath and giving me life in every second spent under his thrall. It's lurid in its addiction, and all I want is more—more dark, more depravity, more Bridger.
Don't catch me. Watch me fall.
The dark abyss of desolation sings to me, bewitching me as I fall.
Take me away, darkness.
When we break apart, his eyes are dilated and animalistic, and degradation paints his boyish features. Boy, do the lies taste cloying, disguised by his emotionless features.
"I kiss you when they're not around because the moments are mine," he rasps, his voice all sex.
In this moment, I'm intrinsically his, and that's what he's always wanted.
"I may share your body, your heart, and everything else, but these moments are mine. No one can take them."
My breath stutters out of me.
He turns and shuffles away. "Pack your shit, Freak. Don't make me tell you again."
And with the moment, my fondness dissolves into the air stale from his bitter kiss of death.
After fifteen minutes pass and he doesn't come for me, I sit on my bed with hesitation. Why the fuck am I packing? They have no control over me.
Yes, Elijah Edgington threatened my life in so little words.
Yes, the guys are involved somehow.
Yes, I'm fucked in all the bad ways.
But that can't stop me from fighting, right?
Even if they weren't involved entirely with Cassidy's death, Yang's too, they're doing some sketchy shit with Jordan's dad. Knowing that much scares me. What if they killed Cass for that fucker? He's scary and intense. How easily he threatened me bodily harm worries me that they're not opposed to holding me against my will.
"I'd ask why you're sitting on your ass, but I know you'd only respond with lip," Bridger grumbles, walking back into my room.
Trepidation lines every crease of my face; I'm sure of it. I can feel the fear emanating from me, making the air acrid with its headiness.
"Don't be a dick, Ridge. It's not like I know why the fuck I'm moving out or why they picked me for a scholarship I never applied for," I complain.
He gawks at me as if I'm a child. His nostrils flare a bit. It's the only indication he isn't happy about something.
Could be me.
Could be the situation.
Either way, he's only able to hide so much from me before I claw it out of him.
"Don't call me that," he finally speaks, fixing his expressions to icy indifference.
"Ridge?" I muse. "That's your name." It comes out mockingly, exactly what I wanted to offer him after he's been a dick to me. He chose to help Elijah.
"It's not," he hisses, getting into my face. We're so close that he's stealing my oxygen,