Cole, not amused by my expression, pulls the book from behind his back. Using the open flame and running it across the book’s edge.
This one acts like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. Frozen, stuck in my spot, watching as the flames grow. The once white edge turning to ash right before my eyes.
His fingers jump after the blaze grows too hot. Throwing it to the ground, stomping on it until there was nothing left but a charred nothingness.
My bottom lip wobbles but I hold it together. These jerks weren’t going to see me cry.
If they wanted to ruin my things, then I was going to ruin some of their fun. Snatching the matchbox from Finn’s hands. He hardly noticed, too distracted laughing at my misery to be watchful.
I take off, not hanging around for the repercussions. The odds of them chasing me slim. They couldn’t do anything worse now. Not after what they’d already done.
I throw the matches down in a huff, taking a seat on the sofa. The barn I’d stumbled past seeming like the perfect place to hide away for a while.
The second floor is renovated. Dark vaulted wood ceilings, large windows, and cream-colored furniture in the center. Calm and inviting. Perfect.
Long-awaited tears spill from my eyes and past my cheeks.
“Stupid jerks.” I hiccup, tucking my feet underneath myself.
How Eli hadn’t been mad, I would never understand. His assurance was the only thing not making me break down right in front of him. Handing me another book with a shrug and a smile.
I wipe away the large tears hurriedly, hearing a noise behind me. No one was supposed to find me here.
“You read too much,” Cole expresses, taking a seat across from me on the edge of the coffee table.
“Go away,” I reply, angling my head to the side. I knew my eyes were puffy and red. My nose a shiny, snotty mess.
“You’re always reading about fairy tales,” he says, mouth turning down. Voice charging in anger. “Filling your head with nonsense. Make believe things that would never happen.” His chest heaves. “Why?”
I flinch at his sharp tone, saying nothing.
A muscle in his cheek jumps. “Answer me.”
He hadn’t moved once. Waiting on me. His agitation growing the longer I made him wait. Malice filled eyes staring me down.
“I don’t know,” I utter, eventually. Still peeved. “They’re an escape from reality.”Myreality. The one I was trying to leave, coming here.
Cole’s eyes draw in. “You think this place is real. This place is nothing but a lie wrapped up in expensive packages and broken promises.”
I sniffle. “I don’t know, I kind of like it here. This house is better than mine.”
His face twists, darkening at my comment. A disgust like I’d never seen before settling across eyes too young to be so haunted.
Cole grabs for the book sitting beside me in a flash waving it in the air.
“All these do is fill your head with a one-sided perception,” he spits out. “They only tell you that the monsters are horrible, ravenous beasts. They don’t care about how they become that way.”
I pluck it out of his hands. Not trusting him, knowing what he was capable of. He lets me through stiff fingers.
“Why would they?” I blink at him, hugging the book to my chest. “No one wants to hear a story about that.”
Cole snorts, squaring his shoulders. “Everyone wants to read about the good. No one cares that the monster might be as trapped as the locked away princess.”
My brows crease, unconvinced. “If the monster wasn’t a monster, then what are they?”
Bending forward, he rests his elbows on his knees. His tone low but it carried the packed punch of someone much wiser. “Human.”
thirty-three