After showering, I quickly blow dried my hair and then unceremoniously threw on jeans and a button up and left my hair to hang in soft waves down my back and finger combed my overlong bangs also making a note to have it recut.

The smell of food greeted me as I made my way downstairs. He really did make breakfast. I found Keiran in the kitchen spooning our food onto plates. I guess my stomach liked what it saw when it growled…loudly. Way to go, you. Very sexy.

He grinned at me and pushed my plate towards me. “Help yourself,” he stated, deepening my embarrassment.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I admitted grudgingly.

I picked up a fork and begin digging in to the delicious looking eggs when his phone rung and he left the kitchen to take the phone call. I was a little glad that he did because my table manners are atrocious when I’m hungry. I finished my food and considered seconds but he didn’t come back yet to eat. I mean it would probably be absolutely shitty of me to eat his food and mine. I canned the idea but then thought about how he tried to kick me out of his house. Maybe not.

I devoured his food and when he still hadn’t returned curiosity took over so I hopped off the bar stool to search for him. He wasn’t anywhere downstairs so I headed upstairs next and heard his low voice drifting from my bedroom. Lucky for me the door was cracked so I peeked.

He was standing by my desk holding a picture of me that was taken last year while he was in juvie. Willow and Aunt Carissa had convinced me to take an extremely long road trip to the beach when I started to become depressed for some unknown reason. Aunt Carissa had taken the picture of me standing, barefooted in the water, wearing the first smile I’d had in a long time. He was staring down hard at the picture with a tight grip on the frame as he spoke on the phone.

“No, I want you to keep a tail on her. Find out why she lied.” His voice was menacing and I felt sorry for whoever it was he was referring to. “Oh and tell your boss he’ll be receiving a new package soon and to do as he pleases.”

He dismissed the caller and I panicked, thinking I would be caught but he continued to stare down at my photo intensely. I took a deep breath and headed back downstairs as quietly as I could before I got caught. I didn’t have time to think about all that I heard before he was back in the kitchen. He looked around for his plate of food before he raised his eyebrow at me. I merely shrugged and took the plates to the sink. When my back was turned, I found the courage to ask the question that’d been on my mind since the game.

“Keiran?”

“Yeah?” I could feel his eyes watching me, amping up my nervousness.

“What are you going to do about Trevor and Anya now that you know they set you up?”

“You didn’t get enough information eavesdropping at the door?”

Busted.

“I uh...”

“Don’t do it again,” he ordered with a flat tone. I spun around, holding a soapy dish in my hand and felt the urge to hurl it at his head.

“Why can’t you tell me and who were you talking to on the phone?”

“Why do you need to know?” he asked with heavy disinterest.

“Because he tried to rape me in a locker room? Or because he framed me too? I’ll let you pick.” Sarcasm was laced throughout my voice and hard to miss.

His eyes narrowed menacingly but I didn’t flinch away. I’m getting good at that. Instead I held his stare until he rolled his eyes and pushed me out of the way to take over washing the dishes.

“Keiran, I need to know. I –”

“I’m well aware of what he did to you and what he tried to do to you,” he said, emotionlessly, as he made meticulous circles on the plate. He rinsed off the dish and moved on to the other.

“You don’t care do you?” I fought back the misplaced hurt I felt and grabbed onto the counter for strength to hold in my emotions. He continued to wash the dishes with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Caring doesn’t make a difference. It just gets people killed.”

“Maybe you’re just incapable of feeling anything.”

“I feel many things: anger, hatred, pain, lust. I don’t need to feel anything else.”

“What about love, compassion, and happiness?” He finally looked at me a smirk as if he was amused by my question. “I don’t believe in it.”

“Then I feel sorry for you.”

“I’ll live. Those emotions you carry on your sleeve are what makes you weak…but you also feel anger and hatred too, don’t you?”

“Who exactly would I have to hate?”

“Your parents. You think they abandoned you and left you here to suffer. You think that if they weren’t gone then the past ten years wouldn’t have happened. You hate your aunt too. If she didn’t take you in, if she didn’t love you, then you wouldn’t be here. You don’t believe in love but you are a hypocrite.”

“Get out,” I barked. He leaned against the sink, crossed his legs, and continued to watch me with a knowing look in his eyes and his ever-present smirk. Anger like I’d never felt before passed over me so I grabbed the motherfucker by the horns and held on.

A knife was in my hands with no recollection of how it got there. I charged toward him, ready to hurt him like he’d hurt me. When I was close enough, I raised my arm higher. His foot shot out, kicking my feet from under me and I was falling, the knife snatched out of my hands. He was on me before I could move, spreading my legs open and pressing the knife against my throat.

“You want to hurt me?” he said, unbuttoning my jeans and shoving them down my legs. “You wouldn’t even know where to begin because first I’d have to give a fuck,” he growled and thrust into me. His fist in my hair pulled my head back as he thrust savagely into me. My screams were just as wild and wanton as I pushed my hips back to take more of him. He pressed the knife deeper against my throat and leaned down to whisper in my ear. “I should kill you right now and put you out of the fucking misery you claim to live in every day but I can’t let you go. Fuck me, I can’t let you go,” he repeated with a single hard thrust and then he was coming, spilling his seed into my unprotected body.

* * *

“Hey, the fair tonight, are we going?” Sheldon drawled as she appeared, leaning against the lockers with a leg propped up behind her. I’d been distracted by the many thoughts racing through my head.

“Uh, I’m not sure…”

“Come on, Lake this is my only night off this week!” Willow exclaimed as she walked into our conversation. She never could resist the Ferris wheel. “Besides you owe me a prize,” she pouted.

“Alright, alright. Don’t lose your panties,” I snapped. Willow looked at me in shock, mirroring my own surprise. I never talked to Willow like that. I mumbled a quick sorry and opened my locker to store my books for lunch but it was slammed back by a small hand with red fingertips.

“I don’t know what you told my man, but you better stay away from him or you’ll be sorry. Keiran is mine.”

“Funny, I’ve heard that before.” I mentally gagged at the stench of pure evil coming from the she-witch named Anya. “You better move that hand,” I warned. I was still angry from this morning and the disaster that happened after the argument. To say I was scared shitless was an understatement and it wasn’t because he threatened to kill me with a knife digging into my throat.

“Or what, loser. You need to stop whoring –”

She didn’t get to finish that statement because she was eating metal at the moment. I subdued her with a strong hand against her skull, pushing her face into the locker. I swear I could hear her teeth scraping against the locker. Note to self: disinfect that later.

A crowd quickly gathered at the chance to witness a fight.

“Listen carefully, please. I don’t want to have to repeat myself. Keiran... isn’t… yours. He never was. So back off. And I would be very careful in the near future. I won’t be so forgiving. Mkay, pumpkin?” I smiled evilly at the back of her head. I realized I was totally out of character at the moment but I didn’t care. I needed an outlet and Anya elected herself as tribute.