Ecstasy

“I admire your effort, baby girl, but I know you don’t really want him. And now you let him stay the week with you? Let him try to sober you up?” There’s real anger in those questions. It makes me feel physically sick. I didn’t think he actually cared. I thought this was all a game. A game for a boy with strange tastes. But he’s mad?

“I don’t know what—”

“I think you should stop playing games now, Zara.”

But now it’s my turn to be angry. The rage flushes white hot through me, and that rush of irritation that I’ve felt all week comes back in full force. I push off the counter, turn fully to face him. His eyes light up with amusement because he wants this fight.

“You don’t get to do this,” I tell him, pointing his way. “You fucked this all up!”

He steps forward, but I don’t falter, even as he cocks his head, his expression still full of amusement as he listens to me.

“You don’t get to come back here after you fucking fucked me over. And besides, I’m fucking done with you. I am so done with you.”

“You wanted me.” His tone is plain, his words simple. “You still do.”

I close my eyes tight, trying to think. To breathe. Dammit, I really want some more orange juice. Or, more than that, I want to chug down one of these damn bottles beside me.

“Come on, baby girl, this was the plan all along.” His voice is soothing and when I open my eyes, he’s a foot from me.

I try to swallow down my rage, my confusion. My fear. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

He swipes his hand over the counter, sending all the bottles of alcohol I have lined up crashing to the floor, glass bursting into pieces. But he doesn’t stop there. The glass crunches under his shoes as he steps toward me, yanking me by the collar of my shirt, my bare feet on the broken glass, sharp pain stinging under the arch of one foot. I whimper but he doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t let go and he doesn’t look down.

“I gave you space,” he breathes down close to me. “I let you breathe. I let you...live. I didn’t know all this time you wanted me to take it away from you.”

I grab his hand, digging my nails into his skin. But he suddenly sweeps his leg behind mine, knocking me off my feet. I fall against the glass, shards digging into my back. My lip trembles, tears springing to my eyes as he kneels down, too, still fisting my shirt.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to suffocate you, Zara. I didn’t know you wanted me to kill you. Why didn’t you just fucking ask?”

He leans down close, and my head is inches from the glass that’s currently slicing into my back, only his grip on my tank top holding me up, and my own core muscles, straining.

“Now I know, Zara.” He runs his tongue over my mouth. “Now I know, and I won’t ever fucking forget it. You want to be treated like a stupid bitch without a brain?” He yanks me up until my forehead is pressed against his. “I can do that for you.” He kisses me but I clamp my lips closed.

Fuck him.

“The thing about Alex, baby? He shows his crazy. But me? I like to hide mine. I like the fear in your eyes right now because you once thought I was something better. You once thought I was the good one.” He laughs, pulling on my lip with his teeth. “With the three of us? There’s no such thing.” He lowers me down onto the glass, pi

The glass digs into my scalp, my back, my thighs. The pain is burning, stinging, sharp. “Let me up.” My voice is little more than a whimper.

Eli laughs, pressing me further into the ground. “I don’t think so, baby girl. Not yet. Not until you remember what it was like.”

I frown, the pain momentarily numbed with my confusion. “Remember what what was like—”

“I know you’re stupid but you’re not that fucking stupid, Zara. Remember what it was like when I met you. What it was like when you were all over me and you wanted to do anything I asked. When you let me hold you down in that pool? When you agreed to this, Zara.”

My stomach twists. The pain of the glass makes my eyes water. “But this is…this is all wrong, Eli. You know this is all wrong.”

His hand shifts to my throat. “Yeah. You fucking knew that, too, huh? But you wanted to experience everything, didn’t you, baby girl?”

“You fucked me over. You fucking fucked me over and—”

“I gave you an out.”

“No. No. Fuck you. You have no right. No fucking right!” I try to scramble upright but glass lodges itself into my palm and I hiss between my teeth, Eli still pressing down on me.

“You think Alex is go

“But I know you. I know you and I know you’re a sick fuck, Eli Addison. Fuck you. Get out of my house.”

“End things with him.”

“No.” My jaw clenches. “No. You’re fucking sick, Eli. You’re fucking sick and you need help—”

He slams me against the counter, then wraps both hands around my throat, fingers digging into my skin as he leans over me.

My heart is going to shoot out of my chest. Eli was always this quiet, simmering darkness. Always. It’s why I was drawn to him. It’s why I fucked with him in the first place.

But he was more than that. So much more.

He was fucking insane.

My mom’s words echo in my head. “One of them doesn’t want you, Zara.”

“If you don’t break up with him, I will kill you. He can’t even stand watching someone else fuck you, Za. How’s he going to put up with your bullshit?” His hands dig deeper into my throat, and my head starts to swim, brain desperate for oxygen. “Only I can do that, baby girl.” He brushes his lips over mine. “But you know what? I kind of like you like this. Stealing your breath.” He turns his cheek against my mouth. “I kind of like feeling nothing where your life should be.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I dig my nails into his arms, and he laughs as he turns back to me.

I’m going to die.

He’s going to kill me.

And in this moment, something occurs to me, and I don’t know if it’s a gift from God, right before I take my last breath, or if I really am stupid, but I can’t stop the thought that blares in my head like a warning too late. Riha