Echo (Black Lotus #2)(26)

“Just stop,” I bark. I can’t take any more of this shit, but she doesn’t stop.

Her words come out in a rush of panic, “When I told you I loved you, when I gave you those words, I meant them. I didn’t want to use you, not at that point. I wanted out and to keep you from doing what I initially wanted you to do.”

“But you didn’t, did you?!”

“Everything spun out of control so fast.”

“Were you happy? When you found out Bennett was dead, were you happy?”

“It destroyed me to know I pushed you so far,” she counters.

“Answer my f*cking question!” I belt out, standing up and searing my eyes into hers as I look down on her. “Did it make you happy?”

Her body trembles when she closes her eyes and admits, “Yes.”

“So you got what you wanted?”

“No.”

“No?”

She tilts her head back to look up at me, and my bones beg to impale her, to beat the living shit out of her, a punishment she’ll never forget. One that would mutilate her for life.

“No. It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t worth sacrificing you because saving you was all I wanted to do at that point.”

I sneer at her ludicrous words. “You wanted to save me so much that you left me in a pool of blood to die?”

Her eyes radiate horror.

“That’s right, darling. I was conscious. I felt you, your touch, your kiss. But all it took was for that guy who shot me to say Go for you to leave me to die. Was that your idea of saving me?”

“No, Declan,” she says through her tears that never stop. “I was scared. It all happened so fast. I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought you were dead!”

Her words spit venom, and I can’t look at her face any more without hammering my fist into it.

“You f*cking left me there to die, you bitch!” I roar, grabbing her arms with force and yanking her up, shaking her as I fume, “Your words are lies. Nothing you say makes any goddamn sense.”

Rage takes over and I lose it, slinging her body around and throwing her to the floor. She crumples, falling hard to the ground. I step over, grab the bitch by the sweater and yank her back off the ground as I hunch in her face. She doesn’t protest my afflictions; she takes them willingly, the same way she has the past few times I’ve been rough with her, and I take advantage of her submission.

Her hands clamp around my wrists as I rip her off the floor and shove her away from me.

“Get the f*ck out!”

“Please!”

Her voice pierces my ears so harshly I can feel the razor of it in my gut. The pain rings sharply in my head, and I boil over in red-hot revolt, clenching her frail neck in my hand, choking her. My body burns in a pyre of grief and fury as she clings to my arm, and her touch spurs me to plunge my fingers deeper into her flesh, clamping the trachea that lies beneath, cutting off her air supply.

A hoarse gurgle is the only sound she makes as her tear-filled eyes lock to mine. They shine bright from crying, and my tendons yearn to squeeze even tighter. There’s so much colliding inside of me, I can feel it in my teeth, so I grit them to keep myself from biting and ripping the skin off her.

I want to kill her. I want to punish her in the worst way possible, but when my arm begins to violently shake, her mouth and eyes instantly pop open wider, and I release my hold.

I can’t kill her.

She falls to my feet, gasping and coughing wretchedly as I rake my hands through my hair.

What the hell is happening to me?

The touch of her hands around my ankles gets my attention. Looking down on her, she’s resting her cheek on top of one of my loafers. My breathing is heavy as emotions swarm, and it’s in the moment she looks up at me, broken at my feet, that I give my final word.

“Leave.”

I kick her hands off my legs and walk out of the room, leaving her to show herself out because if I have to look at her for one more second, I won’t be able to forgive myself for what I might to do.

This woman has ruined me.

I’m a f*cking monster.

Obliterated beyond my own recognition.

And it was all for naught.





MAKEUP COVERS MY marred neck as I give myself a once-over before heading out. My body is wounded in delicious bruises and scabs from the man my heart still yearns for. When I look at them, it’s like he’s still with me—his lingering touch I feen for on my body.

It took me a while to collect myself and leave his home the other day. Hopelessness consumed every inch of existence—it still does. I was weak, curled at his feet, sobbing on his perfectly polished shoes when he kicked me away and left me lying on the ground. My words did nothing but enrage him to the point he lost control. Declan never loses control—he thrives on it, needs it to function. But I could see the chaos swimming in his eyes as they bore down on me while he strangled me.

I didn’t panic because I’d gladly take a death upon the hands of true love.

My ticket is booked to fly back to Chicago. I don’t want to go, but I also don’t want to continue hurting Declan. He’s not the same man anymore because of me. His warmth has wasted away—no spark, no light, no love.

Nothing waits for me back in Chicago aside from a penthouse of hidden skeletons. I have no home. There’s no one waiting for me anywhere. I figure I’ll slip into town, pack up my belongings and leave the state. No longer can I live there because I’m no longer Nina. It doesn’t matter where I go though, and that thought is utterly depleting. So, I decide to attempt to escape my pitiful reality and go to Edinburgh for the day to meander around.