Her gaze flickers from the doorknob to my face.
I smile faintly, taking a slow step toward her. “You wanted to be alone with me. Now you are.”
She takes a step back without meaning to. I can’t imagine why she put herself in this position. She’s clearly still afraid of me. I can see my threats ricocheting around inside that pretty little head of hers as she struggles to meet my gaze.
Her breathing is picking up with her fear. I can see her regretting this decision, but she doesn’t back down from it. Instead, she lifts her gaze and meets mine.
I guess little Hannah found her courage.
“I want to talk to you about Aubrey.”
“I figured.”
“I know you and I don’t like each other, and we never will. But we both care about her, right? So…” She looks down like it kills her a little to have to ask me for anything, but then she meets my gaze, hers softer and more pleading. “Please let me be her friend.” She goes on quickly before I have time to tell her no. “I understand you’re the gatekeeper now. You’re in control. I get it. I’ll play by your rules.”
“Even though I’m an abusive, manipulative asshole?” I stalk closer.
She backs up. “My opinion of you hasn’t changed, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not suggesting you and I be friends. But I told you before I wouldn’t help you trap her, and while I won’t, I… I realize you’ll never let me be in her life if I’m constantly fighting to free her. I won’t interfere in your relationship. I just want to be there for her. It seems like being in a relationship with you will be hard on her. She at least needs a friend to help her through those harder times.”
“That’s the thing: it isn’t. I can see why you think that because when you come around, she pulls away from me, and I have to fight to get her back where she needs to be, but that isn’t what it’s like between us when you’re not around being a little troublemaker.”
She looks at me, wholly unconvinced. “If you’re starting down the same yellow brick road of absolute bullshit you’ve fed Aubrey, don’t bother. I don’t believe for one second that you are threatened by me. I am perhaps the least intimidating person in the whole universe, while you are… what you are.”
I smirk at her kind way of wording that.
I also close in on her.
She grips the strap of her purse like it’s a protective bubble she’s trying hard to trigger, but her back hits the wall and no bubble emerges to keep me away.
“Understand this, Hannah. I will do whatever I have to do to keep you out of Aubrey’s life. There isn’t a line I won’t cross. There was a moment in time when I thought I’d let you stick around because you are a glowing opportunity to control her. As protective as you are of one another, I could use you indefinitely. I could win every argument. I could play you off one another for the rest of fucking time and it seems like there’s a bond of love between you that, even then, I would not be able to break. I believe that she would endure immense pain to protect you from me, and I believe you feel the same way.” I touch her shoulder and watch her shudder, refusing to meet my gaze. “Can you imagine me turning down a gift like that?”
She swallows.
“And yet, I am. You’re the perfect tool and I still won’t use you. That should tell you that your pleas are falling on deaf ears.” I catch her bottom lip with my thumb. She gasps and presses her head back against the wall to get away from it, but I follow, pressing harder on her lip, nearly forcing my way between them, but I stop just short of penetrating her mouth. “You can’t be friends. I won’t let you. And I won’t change my mind, no matter how prettily you beg.”
I pushed her a little far there. Her gaze darts to the door and I see her thinking about fleeing, but she makes no move to.
I drop my hand from her face. “I’m not sure what it is, but there is something profoundly incompatible about us, Hannah. I don’t know if it’s the balance of good and evil—perhaps we’re just too far on opposite sides of the spectrum. Whatever it is, it feels impossible for us to exist in the same space without being at war with one another. You don’t want to go to war with me. I will blow you up time and time again, and you’ll keep coming back until there’s nothing left of you because heroes are fucking idiots. You won’t win. You won’t succeed in saving her. All you’ll do is make me hurt you both over and over again until you’re gone. So, we’re going to skip ahead to that part.”