He doesn’t respond, just grins widely, smugly, knowing he’s won—again. He strolls off, making a beeline for Sydney. It takes everything in me not to chase him down and pummel the life out of him. Instead, I get in the car and crank the engine, backing it out of the circle and driving it around the corner of the building. I get back out, slamming the door and popping the trunk for my tool kit. I’ve got about twenty minutes to do some last-minute tweaks on the engine.
“Fuck!” I shout, scraping my knuckle on the hood latch. I wish he couldn’t get to me like this, but he does. Every fucking time. My chest gets tight, blood pumping through my veins like lava, nerves firing so rapidly that it makes it hard to even uncurl my fists. My teeth ache with how hard I’m gnashing them and my head throbs with the pressure of it all, vision tunneling.
Unthinkingly, I pick up the tool bag and hurl it across the parking lot, scattering tools with an echoing clang. “Fuck! Fuck! Motherfucking fuck!”
But I don’t stop there. When it comes to Heston, this burning, furious thing inside me won’t be satisfied until I’ve hurt—someone else or myself, it doesn’t give a shit. I strike out without really thinking about it, being driven by the knowledge that this car is just one more thing—one more tool—for my brother to use.
His.
The first blow is a hard punch to the hood. I kick out mindlessly, smashing the front side panel. Over and over, the dull thuds of my fists and boots sound in my ears, and it’s not enough. I grab a tire iron and slam it into a door. My muscles scream as I beat it into the car’s body, not out of exertion, but out of this rabid need to thrash and destroy. It’s like being hooked up to an exposed light socket, a constant feedback loop of shock and strike.
Everything.
He ruins fucking everything.
The more damage I see, the more I want to cause. I lop off a sideview mirror and keep slamming forward, raising the tire iron over my head to take out that fucking window next.
“Sebastian?”
I feel a hand on my back and I spin around, iron still held high.
Sugar’s standing there, face morphing into wide-eyed terror as she shrinks back, throwing her hands up. “Sebastian, stop! What are you doing?! Stop!”
It’s like the switch on that socket gets flipped. One second I’m boiling over with rage, and the next, I’m cringing away from it. She’s so small next to my car, up against my anger, that I suck in a shocked breath. The wave of emotion ebbs, pooling in my gut like a bitter, toxic waste.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Sugar! I could have—” If I’d hit her again? My life would be fucking over.
She’s still staring at me with those eyes. Those huge, alarmed, frightened eyes. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I—” There are no words for this. No excuse can transform this into anything resembling sense. There’s just me, with all my flaws, laid bare for her to see. I’m coated in sweat, still panting, the result of my outburst imprinted like scars upon the car, and I think yeah.
That’s it.
She’s going to run now. That stunt in Dr. Ross’s class was bad enough, but she could forgive it, because it was for Georgia. This? This is the exact kind of crazy, nonsensical, indiscriminate violence she’d accused me of. The perfect display of ‘I told you so’.
I wait for her to bolt.
Amazingly, she doesn’t. “What happened?” My knuckles burn and I flex them, wincing in pain. “Goddamn it, Bass, talk to me!”
Turning to brace my hands against the top of the car, I struggle for air. “I can’t fight him. God, I want to, so fucking bad, you have no idea. But I can’t. I can’t risk it, but I just…” I’m shaking and it’s not even just the anger. It’s that I could have hurt her. It’s that I’m wedged in this place I can’t get out of. It’s that I’m such a fucking slave to it all, unable to control this storm that’s always raging inside of me. “I hate him so fucking much.”
I choke on the words, hands balling into tight fists. It’s like I can’t fill my lungs anymore, breaths coming in shallow, barely-swallowed pants. I flinch at the sudden weight of her hand on my back, and I feel