My head hurts when I wake, much like it did that night by the water, except this time it’s from being hit by a car. Moving my legs, which feel heavy, I open my eyes. I want to scream until I see him sitting across from me. His hands are tied together, and he has a look on his face like I’ve never seen before. Contemplation, devastation. Maybe there’s a bit of both.

“Syler.” I check around trying to find Toska. She can’t be too far, she never is. He would have saved her like he always does.

“She’s asleep,” he says, answering my unasked question. He knew what I was searching for when I looked past him to his door. Sitting up on his bed, he stays where he is on his computer seat watching me.

“Let me leave.” His eyes hold mine and don’t speak a word. “You aren’t going to say anything? You hit me with your car and what? You want to keep me here?”

He mumbles something, but my head is too sore to make sense of it, so I say, “What?”

“I said... she hit you with my car.”

Of course, the bitch did. Of course.

I laugh, because what else is there to really do in this situation.

“So he didn’t end up killing her.”

I shake my head then remember he was also there that night.

Why, I don’t really know.

My eyes glance down next to me, and I spot a needle, more than likely one of hers. Picking it up carefully so as not to touch the end of it, I point toward him. “Why don’t you go insert this in her, much the same as she did to you?”

His eyes go wide, and he stands from where he’s sitting on his seat. Stepping forward he snatches the syringe from my hand, throwing it into his garbage bin then he leans in real close to me, so all I can breathe is him.

“You remember, Mouse, don’t you? You know I had nothing to do with it. Do you remember?”

My eyes roll at his words. He may not have stuck me with the needle, he may not have stripped me bare, but he was the reason I was there. He was the one who I woke up to, lost and afraid. He should have protected me, but instead, he did exactly what she wanted. Like always.

“I remember.”

He gets on his hands and knees in front of me. Syler’s hand touches my face, and he appears hopeful. I don’t feel hopeful, I feel broken and in need of escape. This time I need to leave and not look back. I need to go forward with my life and get as far away as possible. Pushing back, I climb off the bed, standing while he’s down on his knees looking up at me. What a funny position we’re in. He’s always had the control. Maybe I gave it to him too often, too freely. But now, now it’s mine.

“I never want to see either of you again. Do you understand the words leaving my mouth, Syler? Never.”

He looks at me like I have lost my mind. His eyes are crazy, and his eyebrow is raised. Stepping around him, I go for the door, but his hand clutches my midsection, and he pulls me back to him. At first, I thought he wasn’t to blame, that he was just as much a victim as I was. Then I remember him with her when I woke up. How he looked at me as if I was no longer his, just a possession he could easily rid himself of. How wrong he was.

Then I hear her voice, she calls for him. His grip tightens, but I pull it away, going to the room next to his and opening the door. Toska is lying on the bed, she’s bruised, battered and even missing a finger by the looks of the bandage covering her hand which is covered in blood. She looks up through dark bloodshot green eyes and stares at me. Toska actually smirks, and I know she thinks she’s won. Right now, though, I don’t care.

She can win.

This never-ending story that we’re stuck in.

It’s over.

I never want to start back at the prologue. I want it to be at the end. But like the Wolf he is, he keeps on trapping the Mouse, bringing it back to her each damn time.

“I hope you fall in love, Toska, I really do.” Toska’s smirk drops from her lips. “Then I hope he breaks and cracks your heart into a million pieces, you filthy fucking bitch. You don’t deserve love. You deserve whatever hell you crawled out of. And the only reason I don’t have your own knife to your throat right now like you did to me that night, is because unlike you, I’m a woman, not a girl playing in a grown-up’s world.”

Stepping back, I step into him then turn, pushing him back and walking around him.

“Jaya,” my name is uttered from his lips. It makes my steps falter, but I’m already bruised and battered. His sister has seen to that when she hit me with his car. It may not have fucked me up, but it hurt, and it still hurts a fucking lot.

That’s all the hurt they get from me, it’s all I have left to give. Putting one foot in front of the other, I walk out of his house and hers. Hopefully, never having to see them again. Ever.

***

MY BAGS ARE PACKED, it’s the right decision to make. I need to leave, and it has to be now, or it will never happen. My father’s going to drive me to the airport and actually smiled at me when I told him my plans. He left to go and withdraw the money for my car that he sold.

Betty is sitting across from me on my porch, rocking in my father’s chair while drinking lemonade as she hums some song I can’t make out.

“Nope. Nope, not today. Today is not the day.” She stands, leaving the rocking chair to rock as she makes her way to her house. I don’t question her at all. Let’s face it, she does weird shit all the time, so I just stay where I am.

The sound of a car pulling up gains my attention. Taj steps out. He straightens his sunglasses and pockets his keys. He begins toward me. My chair stops moving, my hands glued to my lap not flinching, as he comes closer. He lowers his sunglasses as he looks at me.

“She gave you enough that night to kill you.”

He’s addressing the question now, is he?

I don’t say anything to his words. Instead, I just watch him.

“You should have been dead.”

My eyes leave him. I should have died.

“Why?” I ask. I remember him being there, but why. I don’t really know.

“Sometimes I like to taste crazy.”

I shake my head at him.

“Why did you taste me then?”

He smirks at me. “You, my sweet, are just the right amount of crazy.”

He makes me blush even though I don’t want to.

“You gave her the ammunition she needed to kill me.” My cheeks are still red, but I won’t back down, not to anyone anymore. He steps up closer. His foot crosses over the other as he leans back on the post, glancing down at me.

“Did you ask the correct question? Did you really remember it all?” he asks me as if I’m forgetting something.

I could be. But am I?

“What am I missing, Taj?”

“I didn’t know the drugs were for you. If I had...” he shakes his head, “... let’s say she’s lucky her brother saved her. Yet again. Try to think of the night before, the reason you went to their house in the first place.”

“How do you know any of this?”

Taj smirks, shaking his head. “Toska has a big mouth. She thinks sharing her conquest is good for her rep. It isn’t.” He leans down, kisses my cheek. “If we met at a different time, things would have been different, Jaya. So for now... I want you to know, despite his sister, I think he loves you in his own fucked up way.”

He turns and walks away, leaving me sitting there staring off after him wondering what the fuck he just meant.