Book 1 - Page 47 (1/2)

“I’m sorry you—”

“Don’t you dare try that I’m sorry you’ve reached the wrong room act with me. I talked to your mom, so put him on the G.o.dd.a.m.n phone.”

Lucas is sitting up in bed now, staring down at the receiver with a blank expression on his face. “It’s Sam,” I say, hoping to elicit some kind of reaction from him. Nothing happens and a chill turns my blood to ice.

He takes the phone from my hands, grasping it as tight as I had only moments before. “Leave,” he says. There’s no cruelty behind it or any emotion at all, for that matter, but I feel numb as I slide off the bed. Leave the room. Draw the door closed behind me.

I sit in the living room, hugging my knees to my chest. I try to focus on watching television—some trashy talk show about a woman and the six men who were possibly her “baby’s daddy”—but I can still hear bits and pieces of Lucas’s conversation with Sam. Every snippet that reaches my ears only intensifies the cramps in my chest.

“ . . . you can’t keep doing this to me,” he yells.

Then there’s silence for a little while. I pretend like I’m interested in the woman on the giant, flat-screen TV weeping at another negative test result. I pretend like I’m not at all spying on Lucas.

“. . . it’s n.o.body, just—” He pauses, and I can hear a guttural noise rip from his throat. “I’m sending you money. I’ll send you whatever you want, but you can’t expect me to do this with you for the rest of my life.”

I flinch. Is Lucas in some sort of trouble with Sam? And then, a more frightening thought comes to me: is Lucas involved with drugs, just like Sinjin? I wipe sweaty palms on the hem of the t-s.h.i.+rt I’m wearing, Lucas’s s.h.i.+rt.

And then, I hear him say something that makes me shudder.

“You psycho b.i.t.c.h, sometimes I wish you would just go to them and get it over with.”

Go to whom? Get what over with?

I hear the sound of something slamming repeatedly followed by the pipes in the bathroom turning on. When Lucas comes out of the shower nearly an hour later, there’s a blood-stained towel wrapped around his knuckles.

“Lucas . . . is everything alright?” I whisper, hesitantly.

He gives me a strained smile and then motions me to him. “Come here,” he says, pulling him to me.

He covers my lips with his mouth, drowning out all the questions I have. He kisses me like I’m his last meal, like he’s never tasted me before, even though he had me many, many times last night. He pulls me into his lap and slides his finger into my mouth, between our lips. I nibble on the tip of it.

A moment later he stands, with me straddling him, and carries me back to the bedroom. There, he keeps his promise of eating strawberries and me. There, he finally gets the chance to cuff me, turning me over on my stomach and sliding his c**k in and out of my body until I’m sobbing.