by Hart, Rebel
“No, you don’t.” He flashes me an eerie, suggestive grin.
He’s right. I don’t. And that’s the problem. “Let’s focus, okay?” I fly to my feet and begin pacing the room. I can’t let this spiral into a talk about us.
“I don’t know.” He sighs. “Have you heard from your dad at all?”
I shake my head. Up until a couple of months ago, my biological father was completely irrelevant to my life. But shortly after realizing he and my mom met at WJ Prep and that he used to be an Elite, my whole life fell apart.
Not long after the discovery of who my father really was, I was plagued by mysterious messages and endless threats from the remaining Elites. Their parents had been using the software company of the satellite Elites, the Hendersons, to cover up politician extortion and sex trafficking rings. My father, having been cast out of town and stripped of his fortune after he embezzled tons of money to pay off his gambling debts, returned with a vengeance. He killed Thomas Jameson, leaving everything in Emmett’s control, and sending the rest of the Elites to prison only to supposedly disappear again once he was done.
“No. Nothing. And I’m hoping it stays that way.” I shake my head, feeling sick from the all too recent memories.
When Emmett and I gave our statements to the police, framing his father’s death as a suicide, they cornered me about my father. They told me he was under investigation for a slew of federal crimes and that I should report any contact I have with him back to them. But around here, you can’t even trust the cops. I’d rather not be faced with the decision of whether or not to tell them, so I desperately hope my father stays away for good.
“Do you think he has something to do with this?” Emmett asks desperately.
“I wouldn’t rule it out, honestly,” I reply, my legs buckling underneath me as I plop back onto my bed. “I don’t trust him. But that’s what you get, Emmett. If you’re going to make deals with people like him, you have to expect shady things to come out of it.”
“So, you think he could have taken Bernadette?” he continues, reaching for any possible lead.
“I didn’t say that, but…” I stop myself, remembering who I’m talking to. Emmett was the one who worked with my father, offering to kidnap me for him and then letting him onto his property to kill his father. Who’s to say they aren’t still working together? That I know too much about their scheme, and when I refused to talk to either of them, they decided I couldn’t be trusted? This could all be some sick game to lure me back in close so they can take me out the way they did Thomas Jameson. My suspicions hang in a heavy silence.
“Have you thought about going to the cops anyway?” I ask finally, hoping to catch some hint of Emmett’s truth in all of this. After all, teaming up with my father again would explain his hesitancy to go to the police. And Lily did warn me that my father wasn’t really gone. “I know your mom doesn’t want you to, but…maybe they could help.”
“So many of them were close to my father,” he says, shaking his head in stubborn refusal. “I don’t trust that they’ll have our best interests in mind. Everyone knows my father didn’t really kill himself. They just got paid off and put that down on paper. They may be against me.”
“Could they have something to do with it?” I sit up, remembering not to rule anything out when it comes to the town of Jameson and its Elites. “Are they so corrupt that they might have something to do with Bernadette’s disappearance?”
“I can’t rule anything out at this point.” He collapses next to me, burying his face in his hands. “Which is the hardest part—I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Well, what we do know is that she is missing,” I recap with intense focus, scooting away from him. “And that there are plenty of people who are upset and nervous about your father being gone and the changes happening with Jameson Automobiles. You taking everything over.”
“People strike when you’re weak and vulnerable.” He groans. “When things are changing…when you’re distracted.”
“Tell me about it.” I turn away from him, rubbing my arm sheepishly.
I was weak and vulnerable when I came here because of my sheer ignorance. I had no idea Emmett and the others would make it their sole mission in life to make mine a living hell. I want to be over it all, but it’s too soon. And I’m afraid forgetting will only open me up to more trouble.
“I really am sorry, Ophelia.” He places his hand on my knee, but I quickly push it off and move further down the bed. “I know I’ve told you before, but…everything you’ve seen of me so far…that wasn’t me,” he continues earnestly. “I was under so much pressure from my father and the other Elites. I hoped that after a little time, we could start again. That you could get to know the real me, but now, with everything with Bernadette…I didn’t know who else to turn to. Who else I can trust.”
“I’ll help you figure out what happened to Bernadette,” I say bitterly, knowing even that much is far more than he deserves. “But after that, I’m done. I told you I don’t want you in my life.”
“But you do.” He reaches towards me defiantly, wrapping his fingers across my thigh. “You say you don’t, but I know you do. That’s why you’re helping me.”
“I’m helping you because it’s the decent thing to do,” I insist, closing in on myself and rocking back and forth. “But don’t worry. I don’t expect you to understand anything about the decent treatment of others.”
He recoils against my jab, exasperated and leaving me to study him carefully. I wish I could see into his head and know exactly what’s going on inside. So much of me wants to believe him when he says I don’t know the real him, that with his father gone he can prove to me that he is a good person who has sincere feelings for me. But every time I think I can open myself up to the possibility, flashes of everything he has done to me pull me back into disbelief.
But he looks genuinely sorry as he watches me glare at him in distrust. More than that, he looks just as clueless and hopeless as I am. I have to remind myself that he is just a teenage boy, even if he is now the sole executive of Jameson Automobiles, with all the money and power that come along with that role. His sister is missing, and he has to know how big of a target is now on his own back.
“Ophelia, can we talk?” he asks with a pleading tone.
“We are talking,” I snap back, crossing my arms again.
“No, I mean…can we talk about us?” His head is down, but his eyes are burning into me.
“There is no ‘us’ to talk about, Emmett.” I shake my head in exasperation. I refuse to cave into him. “I said I would help you with Bernadette, but that’s it. And this whole thing better not be some ploy to get back into my life.”
He follows me as I rant and pace around the room. “Will you just look at me?” he begs, grabbing my wrists and pulling me towards him. “Just be still for a minute and listen to me. Please.”
“Okay.” I shrug finally, with an angry and impatient stare. “What is it? What do you want to talk about? Because as far as I’m concerned, you already said everything you had to say after the police station. It wasn’t enough then and it won’t be enough now.”
“I don’t know if I said everything.” He reaches out as if he might touch my face, but then pulls back like he’s not worthy. He steps away and looks at the floor, his shoulders slumping over his chest. “I don’t know how to explain how I feel about you,” he says slowly, unable to look at me. “It’s like…from the moment I saw you, I felt sucked in. And everyone around me expected me to torture you and do all of these terrible things to you because of who your father is, but I just couldn’t do it.”
“Oh, you did,” I retort bitterly.
“No, I didn’t,” he insists. “Not like I was supposed to and you know that. It was supposed to be so much worse. I tried to do what they wanted but…” He trails off and turns back towards me. His eyes are urgently taking me in. It’s like he started to slip off into too dark of a place in his memories and ne
eds to see me to anchor him in the here and now. “When I look at you, I feel whole. And I think I hated you for that for a while, because it showed me how empty I was before. But now that I know what that feels like…I can’t live without it. I need you, Ophelia.”
I push through the melting feeling, trying to envision my heart hardening into stone. I can’t let myself fall for this again. Even if I can’t fully control how I feel inside, I can’t show any of it to him. I can’t get sucked in again.
“It’s great that you realized you need more in your life and that you want to be a better person and all that,” I answer coldly. “But I can’t be responsible for you in that way. What happens when I can’t be there? You just slip back into being your old self? You can’t put that kind of weight on me.”
“And what about you?” he asks sternly.
“What about me?” I respond weakly, stepping away from him.
“You don’t feel different with me? Something you’ve never felt before?” he asks daringly, his voice growing frantic. “You know you do. You need me just as much as I need you.”
“No, I don’t, Emmett,” I lie as best as I can. “I have other people in my life who love and support me. You are not my only source of love.”
“I’m not talking about love.” He shakes his head vehemently. “I’m talking about feeling alive. The rush of everything that could happen. I know you feel that with me just as much as I do with you.”
“But people get burnt out on rushes like that,” I argue softly. “The rush can’t sustain you. It just feels good.”
“It’s more than that,” he insists. “It’s more than just some temporary high.”
“How would we know? Look at what we’ve been through together…All we’ve ever had are moments—fleeting highs.” I shake my head, hating that I’m even admitting this much. “This is just too much.” My eyes begin to water, but I quickly wrinkle my face and use my hands to hide them.
“That’s exactly what it is,” he agrees passionately, rushing forward to grab my wrists again. He pulls them down and forces me to look at him, watering eyes and all. “It’s too much. But you want it, don’t you?”
“No,” I swear, clinging to every ounce of resolve I have built up in our time apart. “Too much is just that…too much. And I don’t want it. I can’t handle it.”
“Oh, that’s not the Ophelia I know,” he dares me with a coy smile. “You can’t handle it? You know damn well you can handle anything.”
“Until I met you,” I bite back.
His eyes spark at the challenge, and all at once he swoops forward and presses his lips against mine. I try to pull back, but the reminder of how sweet he tastes is the last straw. I crash back into him and lose myself completely. I don’t know what it is that snaps me out of it. Maybe it’s the way he growls against my mouth or the way his hand kneads into my skin desperately. But something gives me enough strength to push him away again.
“No, Emmett.” My chin quivers. “I told you, I can’t do this.” I look at him and wait for my resolve to break again, but somehow I am able to stand firm.
The wrestling match inside of me continues, sending me flailing back on my bed with an enraged groan. One minute I remember everything from before and have no trouble hating him, the next I am softened by something inside of him and whatever this is that keeps drawing us together. I know my desire to help him goes beyond me trying to be a decent person. I don’t owe him anything. I just want him.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks gently, lowering himself beside me on the bed, but he’s smart enough to keep a couple of feet between us.
All I can do is laugh and try to hold back tears, completely overwhelmed in a way that only Emmett can make me feel. “Where to even start,” I scoff. “But I’ve said it all before. I told you how I felt when you chased me down outside of the police station.”
He looks away with a soft and stern nod. I still have no way of knowing whether or not he’s still working with my father. He claims he had no choice the first time, and he could just as easily be stuck in the same spot now. But he also claimed he didn’t care about anything my father had to offer—everything that came along with his position as one of the last remaining Elites. He said all of it meant nothing without me.
I watch the edge of his face as he stares out my bedroom window, his eyes darkened by too many thoughts too like my own. I am once again left with a longing to go to him and trace my fingers along his jaw, drawing him to me for some kind of comfort. He used to insist that I belonged to him, and I’ve never understood how he could make me feel so afraid at times, yet still make me want to be his.
Always seemingly aware of what goes through my head, he never misses an opportunity to play on my momentary weakness. Right on cue, he turns back to me and reaches his hand across the bed, leaving it just a few inches away for me to take or leave. I was able to resist him before when he stood in the rain, pleading for another chance; I have to believe that I’m strong enough to do it again.
I roll away from his touch and refocus, straightening my hair and steadying my voice with a sharp breath. “So, what’s next?” I ask. “I told you I’d help you find Bernadette, and I will. We need a game plan.”
He sits back up on the edge of the bed, looking disappointed and tired. “Maybe I can look through her things,” he suggests, raking his hands through his hair. “I know she keeps a diary. Maybe there’s some hint of some kind in her room.”
“You don’t need me to do that,” I snap back. “Why didn’t you try that before dragging me into this?”
I worry that while his fears for his sister may be sincere, this is an all too convenient excuse to get to me. He’s side-stepping my pleas for him to leave me alone, to give me time and space, and instead roping me right back into the dangerous games of his world―a world he knows I want to stay away from.
“Because I need you, Ophelia,” he insists, looking up at me with pouting eyes. “It’s not just about what you can do to help…I need to be close to you. Having you around helps me keep my head straight.”
I laugh sarcastically and look away, shaking my head as my arms fold firmly over my chest. “Forgive me if that’s just a little hard for me to believe,” I sneer over my shoulder. “I’ve never known you to seem like you had your head on straight.”
“What about now?” He stands urgently. “We’ve been alone in this room for how long? I could have done a million things to you. What about when I had to hold you captive in my room? I could have let Trey and Vincent have their way with you, or done things to you myself if I was really such a bad guy. I did my best to protect you and keep us both safe.”
“Are you delusional?” I fire back, my voice growing too loud.
“Shhh…your mom!” he hisses at me, stepping closer as we both fight the urge to fall into each other’s arms.
“I didn’t feel protected when you held me down…when your father put his disgusting hands on me. Punched me. You tied me down and left me at his mercy,” I remind him, my voice cracking from the pain of the memories.
“Stop it,” he growls, turning his back to me. “I can’t think about those things.”
“Well, I certainly can,” I shoot back bitterly. “Some days it’s all I can think about. And if I have to live with those memories, then so do you. You don’t get to just pretend like none of it ever happened. You have to face it if you want to be around me.”
“I did all I knew to do at the time,” he murmurs quietly, his voice dripping with conflict and regret. “I’ve told you before…you don’t know what my father was like.” He trails off into silence, looking at the floor in complete silence. But then, suddenly, he shakes his head and tugs at his shirt as he turns back toward me, snapping into a different state of mind far from the memories of his monster of a father. “Let me show you who I really am, Ophelia.”
His eyes are heated as his warm fingers brush along my cheek. I am frozen under his touch, always needing and wanting mo
re. He trails his index finger across the line of my jaw as I clench against his hard chest. I step up to my tiptoes and press my lips to his, lighting us both up with the heat of passion.
He murmurs something indistinct against my mouth as his hand winds through my hair, jerking my face upward, demanding that I be right where he wants me as I am left breathless and at his mercy. His lips come over mine in a deep kiss as his tongue opens my lips, sucking and nipping across my mouth in heated waves, growing more demanding and urgent. I tug him in closer, whimpering into his mouth and begging for more. He still kisses in the same confused way, always furiously switching between pulling me closer and pushing me away. Always punishing and brutal. I struggle to keep up and match the sweep of his tongue with my own. But it’s an intoxicating dance that I can never get enough of.
“That,” he blurts suddenly against my lips, with a groan of satisfaction.
“Hm?” I hum back.
“That’s what I was talking about earlier.” He grins. “The rush. Didn’t you miss it?”
“No,” I lie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He pulls me back in, eager to face the challenge. He begins kissing me urgently, with greed, pulling and tugging at me and sucking my breath away. I can’t help but whimper against the force of him as I feel myself surrendering.
“You still going to pretend you don’t feel it?” he pants, his forehead pressed against mine.
It’s too much. My chest tightens as I buckle under the overwhelming surge of it all. I push him away and retreat a few steps back. It’s surreal to be standing here with him in my room, feeling everything rushing back over me. I hate the way it makes me want to forget about everything from before, so that I can crash into him and revel in the way he makes my body feel. The primal urge outweighs the consequences I know he should face. He doesn’t deserve to have me again. I’ve already given him far too much just by letting him come here.
