Chapter 9

Everything else ceases to exist for me as I bolt from my hiding place in the hallway with zero thought in my mind, but to hurt Oliver. The taste of vengeance—coppery and tangy—sits heavy on my tongue. Revenge burns through my lungs. I’m laser-focused on Oliver with tunnel vision. All I can see is that familiar back, and shaggy brown hair.

Travis is the first to see me. His expression of shock shifts to hilarity, and he starts to laugh at me. He’s fucking laughing at me!

I can barely breathe through the rage incinerating my insides. Before I can do anything more than raise my hand into a fist in preparation to punch him, Oliver whips around faster than my eyes can register, catching my fist in his hand. And, suddenly, I’m just standing there in a ferocious stance, teeth bared, as he holds my fist.

“Hello, pet.” He smirks at me, a maniacal glint in his eye—the devil in disguise of my rocker ex-boyfriend.

Everything slows down around us. Oliver lets my hand go, and it falls to my side with no direction from me. I’m too busy staring at Oliver, eyes darting back and forth, searching for a sign that this isn’t actually my Oliver. Like he might be some decoy.

But I don’t find any evidence that this is some imposter. He’s my Oli, standing right in front of me, looking so real and so much like he did two years ago that it almost hurts to see him. His beautiful shoulder-length, wavy brown hair. His hazel eyes, tinted green and piercing into me—those same hazel eyes that I thought I would stare into for the rest of my life. The very same tattoos as before, but with some new additions to his neck and two complete sleeves. Tattoos I vividly remember spending hours tracing with my fingers after a night of passionate lovemaking. The same chiseled jawline that I loved to bite. The same beautiful smile that made my heart stop.

The only difference I can see in him physically is how sexual his body looks now. During high school, he was slender, lithe, and thin. Now, though, his body is much more filled out, his shoulders broader with toned, muscular arms and legs that make me want to strip him down and learn his body all over again. He looks like a man now. Not the young teenage boy I remembered falling in love with. His whole presence now radiates seduction, dripping with sweet sin that you can never get enough of and don’t ever want to leave.

From everything I can see, all that appears different is that he’s been working out. But something about how he holds himself, the way he’s behaving, is different. I don’t recognize any sign of the Oliver that I last saw, chasing after me and begging me for forgiveness. I don’t know if I’ll even like this new Oliver standing before me, although I suppose it really doesn’t matter whether I like him or not. He made sure we were done the second he vanished, if not the minute he let Hannah, the whore, deep-throat him while we were together.

With two years’ worth of rage and depression and complete devastation fueling me, I unload on him. “I really hope you have a good explanation for all of this, Oliver. And don’t fucking lie to me. It has been two years. Two. Fucking. Years.” My voice escalates in pitch and volume. “Two years of complete and total radio silence from you. No, actually, radio silence implies that you just weren’t talking to me. You fucking disappeared on me, Oliver. You vanished and left me alone to pick up the pieces of my goddamn life after you fucked around with Hannah. You can’t just show up out of nowhere and expect me to drop to my knees and beg for your attention.”

I can’t stem the words flowing from my mouth and am almost shouting now. “You show up at this party out of fucking nowhere . What the fuck are you playing at? Then you just demand that I leave with you because I’m not ‘ safe. ’” I sneer the word at him. “And I suppose with that one big, brave act, you see yourself as the knight in shining armor who’s come to save the day and rescue your damsel in distress?” An inelegant snort puffs out of me. “Yeah fucking right, Oliver. The only distress I’m facing now is because of you, you absolute asshole! Now I’m on a tour bus heading to god knows where. To safety, I’ll bet . Meanwhile, you kidnapped me and took me away from my only friend—which I really don’t appreciate.”

He’s staring at me, an arrogant smirk tilting up the corners of his mouth, driving me out of my mind. “Fuck you. Do you feel proud? You fucking broke me! You left me here with nothing, not a word, not a phone call, not even a fucking email. Literally nothing.” I’m sure I look crazy, screaming at him the way I am, weeping as I explode in his face. But I don’t care. He deserves every minute of my pent-up anger and undiluted rage of the hurt, loneliness, and isolation he caused me. Every goddamn minute of the last two years of pure agony. The emotions pour out of me and fuse together, morphing me into someone I really don’t recognize.

Oliver just stands there taking it with his arms crossed, a look of amusement spread across his features. He looks like he is just waiting for me to finish speaking, as if I’m not breaking in front of him. His lips tilt into a sly smirk. On top of all my fury, seeing Oliver’s callous reaction adds fresh wounds onto the old.

“Just tell me where you were first. Tell me why you abandoned me. I’m dying to hear your excuse.” Oliver was supposed to be the greatest love of my life. That thought, more than any of the other poison I’ve spewed at him, hits me in the stomach. All of a sudden, I have no fight left in me—except to fight back the tears.

A broken sob escapes me before I turn to look at the rest of the band, wearing matching expressions of disbelief. Join the club, boys. “Where the hell have you all been?” I laugh as I look at each of their faces, but the sound is anything but funny. It has the ring of utter defeat to it rather than humor. “No one has anything to say to me? Not even you, Adrian?” My breathing ragged, my voice hoarse from screaming; I grab onto something, anything, to ground me, to bring me down from the panic and despair. I’m clutching the front of my shirt, pulling and twisting it, tears blurring my vision. “You just… left me, Oliver,” I whisper, voice shaking and cracking. “Why?” I’ve got nothing left to say, nothing left to give this man.

They’re all just staring at me, stupid smirks on their faces as I stand here pouring out my heart and breaking in front of them. I’m such a fool. A silly little girl to think they would care about my pain.

I lift my head proudly, holding Oliver’s stare as I slap him across the face with as much force as I can manage. He doesn’t move an inch. It’s as if I didn’t even touch him.

The smirk on Oliver’s face slowly fades into a frown, his eyes darkening. Malice clouds his gaze. His stare is cold and lifeless, like there’s nothing there. The shade of his eyes deepens to a burnt orange. A gasp of shock escapes me as I lift my fingers to my lips. He looks like he… like he actually wants to kill me. Or hurt me. Or fuck me. I can’t really tell. I don’t know this Oliver, don’t know what makes him tick or all of his reactions.

The bus bounces violently, and I lurch clumsily to the side, losing my balance even as I try to regain it.

Oliver catches me before I fall, steadying me. When I peer back up at him, his eyes are the same magnificent shade of green-tinted hazel they’ve always been. Maybe I’m just hallucinating from the stress. He pushes a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. “I have missed you, pet. I miss your beauty and your laugh. Your eyes and your kindness.” He pauses. “You’re much more violent than I remember you being, though. I’ll admit, I like this new edge to you, pet.” He holds my face in his hands. “I’ve missed you so much, Dani.”

“Then why are you acting like this? You’re all staring at me and laughing like I’m the crazy one here. This whole time I thought all of you were dead.” I back away from his touch, knowing that I need him to stop touching me before I make some extremely bad decisions.

Oliver slides his hands into his pockets and lets out an exaggerated sigh.

I clench my hands into fists at my sides. “Why won’t any of you answer me? Please give me something! Anything.”

“All in due time, my sweet Danica. Can’t two people who were once madly in love just enjoy each other’s presence before the conversation becomes all doom and gloom? I’ll admit, though, I kind of enjoyed it when you were yelling at me. It was hot, and you all lit up with rage is sexy as fuck. Let’s not be so hasty and ruin our little moment.” He flashes that wickedly sexy smile.

“Don’t be so hasty? You can’t be serious right now. You vanish off the face of the earth and just show up one day. Acting like a complete prick when you do appear, just in case you were wondering. You just expect me to, what? Laugh with you and hang out like old times, after you kidnapped me. Drop to my knees in front of the great Oliver Shaw. I don’t think so. You’ve seriously lost your mind.”

That smug, arrogant smile is still plastered on his face, but it takes on an edge at my words. “Oh, pet, I would love to see you on your knees in front of me. Give that violent little mouth of yours something to do.” This is not the Oliver I fell in love with. I don’t even recognize this person.

Oliver turns to Noah, “Mate, tell the driver to go faster. We wasted too much time making that pit stop. That bitch is fast as hell. She probably gained on us when I was fetching Dani.” He turns back to me, still talking to his friends, even though his eyes are piercing my soul. “I’ll be taking my adoringly sweet lover to my room for a long overdue chat. Turn up the bloody music. You all don’t need to hear the shit I need to say.” He licks his lips, leaning into me.

My skin tingles at his closeness. I may be furious, and I may even despise him, but that doesn’t change the fact that my body still reacts to him. I brace myself against his attempt at charm, scoffing at him.

With a slight turn of my body, I extend my arm, overly exaggerate the motion, and gesture towards the bedroom door. “After you then, lover .”

Noah and the rest of the boys burst into laughter at my snarky remark. Oliver nods his head towards the back door, indicating for me to walk ahead of him. “Go on. I’m right behind you.”

I glare but follow his order. As I stride towards the bedroom, Oliver’s ominous presence looming large behind me, I can hear the boys moving about, following Oliver’s direction. With a frustrated sigh, I walk into the bedroom.