The guest bedroom is smaller than I expected—queen bed against the far wall, a dresser, a writing table near the window overlooking the garden two stories below.
No balcony. No second exit.
Tyler stands between me and the door, chest heaving, and I realize with sudden clarity that I've trapped myself.
"Nowhere left to run." His voice is ragged, barely controlled. "You wanted my attention so badly, sissy. Now you've got it."
I circle left, keeping the writing table between us. My eyes scan for anything I can use—a lamp, a book, something heavy—but the room is sparse, impersonal, nothing but neutral furniture and expensive linens.
Then I see it. A thin line of blood trickling down his temple, curving around his eyebrow and dripping onto his cheekbone. The vase must have caught him when it shattered.
I hurt him.
The realization cuts through my adrenaline, and for a split second, regret flickers in my chest. I almost apologize. The word sits on my tongue, soft and foreign.
Then I remember what he said about my parents—a viral video of their deaths, that's their legacy—and the regret turns to ash.
"You're bleeding," I say instead, my voice flat.
"Am I?" He doesn't reach up to check. His eyes never leave mine. "Didn't notice. I was too busy chasing the psychopath who threw crystal at my head."
"You deserved it."
"Probably." He takes a step forward, and I match it with a step back. "Doesn't mean you get to walk away from this."
"What do you want, Tyler?" I keep circling, my bare feet silent on the hardwood. "An apology? You'll be waiting a long time."
"It's not about what I want." His expression shifts into something darker, like he is toying with me. "It's about what I'll do to you when I catch you."
The words send heat rushing to places it has no business going. I shove the reaction down, bury it beneath fury.
But my treacherous mind spirals back to Zack's hands trembling against my skin, the way he pulled away before either of us could finish what we started.
That ache still lives in my body, unresolved, humming beneath the surface like a wound that never quite closed.
And now Tyler stands here, all that same dangerous energy with none of his father's restraint, and some twisted part of me wonders if he'd stop where Zack did. Wonders if he'd even try.
"You're delusional if you think—"
He lunges left. I scramble right, my back hitting the dresser hard enough to rattle the mirror above it.
The room shrinks with every breath he takes, walls pressing inward, the door impossibly far behind him. I'm a rabbit in a snare, and he knows it.
"You know what I think?" He wipes the blood from his eyebrow with the back of his hand, smearing red across his skin. "I think you like this. I think fighting with me is the only time you feel anything real."
"That's the stupidest thing you've ever said."
"Is it?" He grins "You've been sleepwalking through this house for weeks. But the second I push you, you come alive. Look at yourself right now—you're practically vibrating."
God, he’s handsome.
The realization disgusts me almost as much as it electrifies me.
What kind of person finds danger this attractive? What kind of person looks at a man who wants to hurt her and feels her pulse quicken with something other than fear?
"I'm vibrating because I want to kill you," I hear myself say.
"Same energy." His smile is sharp, feral, blood still dripping down his temple. "Different outlet."
I need to calm down. More importantly, I need to calm him down. His eyes are too bright, his movements too unpredictable.
Whatever control he usually operates with has shattered completely, and I'm trapped in a room with the wreckage.
"Tyler." I force my voice to steady. "Let's just—take a breath. We both said things we didn't mean."
"I meant every word."
"Fine. Then I meant every word too." I edge along the dresser, calculating the distance to the door. Eight feet, maybe ten. If I'm fast enough— "But this doesn't end well for either of us. Your father comes home, sees blood on your face, finds out we were—what, exactly? Brawling in the hallway?"
"You think I care what my father thinks?"
"I think you care more than you admit." Another step toward the door. He tracks the movement, his body tensing. "I think that's half your problem. You're so desperate for his approval that you—"
"Don't." The word cuts through the air. "Don't pretend you understand anything about me and my father."
"Then stop pretending you understand anything about me."
We stare at each other across the dim room. The morning light catches the blood on his face, making it gleam almost black. He looks like something out of a nightmare—beautiful and terrible and completely unhinged.
I want to run my tongue along that cut.
The thought surfaces unbidden, horrifying, undeniable. I want to taste the violence I caused. Something must be deeply, fundamentally wrong with me.
My muscles coil. I calculate angles, distances, the number of steps between me and freedom.
I run.
Three steps toward the door before his arm hooks around my waist, yanking me backward. I scream—actually scream, the sound ripping from my throat—and thrash against him, but he's too strong.
He lifts me off my feet like I weigh nothing, and then I'm airborne, the room spinning, the ceiling blurring past.
My back hits the mattress hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs.
Before I can roll away, he's on me—knee between my thighs, hands pinning my wrists above my head, his body a cage of muscle and fury pressing me into the sheets.
"Get off!" I buck against him, twisting, fighting, but he absorbs every movement without loosening his grip. "Get the hell off me!"
"Stop fighting." His face hovers inches above mine, blood dripping from his eyebrow onto my cheek. "Ellie, stop."
I don't stop. I can't stop. My body moves on pure instinct, animal panic flooding my veins as I writhe beneath him. My knee connects with his thigh—not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him grunt.
"I swear to God—" He shifts his weight, using his hips to pin mine flat against the mattress. "Would you just—stop—"
My hand wrenches free. I swing at his face, my palm connecting with his jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways. He catches my wrist before I can pull back, slamming it against the pillow beside my head.
"Enough!" The word explodes from him, loud enough to echo off the walls. "I'm not going to hurt you, you insane—would you just stop for one goddamn second—"
"Then let me go!"
"Not until you calm down!"
"I'm calm!" I'm not calm. I'm the opposite of calm. I'm thrashing beneath him like a trapped animal, my chest heaving, my vision blurring. "Let me go, let me go, let me—"
The first sob takes us both by surprise.
It tears out of me without permission—ugly and raw and completely beyond my control. Then another, and another, and suddenly I'm crying, really crying, my whole body shaking with the force of it.
Tyler freezes above me.
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