CHAPTER 5

Jenna’s POV

“Baby, are you sure you're okay?” my mom asks me as she tucks me into bed.

“Yes, Mom, I'm fine,” I whisper, though my voice is cracked from all the crying. My eyes sting and my chest aches like it’s been stepped on.

She brushes my hair back from my forehead like she used to when I was a kid. Her touch is gentle. Too gentle. Like she’s afraid I might shatter.

“Oh, my darling,” she sighs, eyes glistening. “How will you comfort your friend if you can't even hold yourself together?”

“Her father was a good man,” I cry harder. Hell, what could I have said? That she and her fiance are the reason I'm going blind with tears?

I had to lie, cook up a fictional story about my best friend suddenly losing her father. I told my mom the man was just as loving as she is, to his daughter, told her my friend has no one else to rely on, and now my mom is barely hanging on.

Seeing her eyes shining with unshed tears breaks my heart but I can't help it. I curl into my comforter and she sighs again.

“Should I hold you to sleep?” she asks and I quickly shake my head. “Alright then, goodnight, love,” she kisses my forehead and turns off the light before leaving.

Just as the sound of the door clicks shut, a rattling sound from my window jolts me from bed.

“Jace?” I mumbled.

It can only be him.

He was used to sneaking into my room from the window, even when I lived on the fifth floor in the hostel.

He slides in like a shadow and before I can blink, he's beside me on the bed, kissing me.

I want to push him away but I can't, so I hold him close. His kisses are hungry, desperate, and brushing. I'm tasting blood but can't tell if it's from me or him.

The sound of our kisses echoes in the dark; wet, messy, frantic. Like we're trying to eat each other alive.

My fingers twist into his messy, thick hair as his hands roam roughly and urgently on my skin, like he’s scared I might vanish if he lets go.

“Jace,” I breathe against his lips, but it comes out like a whimper.

He groans, pulling back just enough to look at me and that is when I notice the bruises on his face.

His eyes are wild, glassy, haunted. The soft glow of the moon slices across his face, highlighting all the bruises on his jaw, nose, brows, the hand print on his right cheek…

My brows crease and anger and ache surge in my chest. Whoever is responsible, I hate them already. “Who did this to you?” I ask, brushing my thumb over the one on his jaw.

He doesn’t answer. Just grabs my wrist, presses a kiss into my palm, and mutters, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

My stomach flips.

The injuries are fresh, which means he got them on his way here.

“Jace, did you get into a fight again?” I frown.

Talk about the typical bad boy who always gets into fights, is competitive, has girls – both good and bad drooling over them, is smart and intelligent but rather skip exams and tests just to fail and spite their parents, give teachers and principal headache but nothing can be done about him, rides black sport's motorbike and loves outfits and ripped faded jeans, leather jackets, and silver rings on his fingers. The kind of boy who smells like danger and cologne, who talks with his eyes more than his mouth, and whose smirk alone can make a good girl forget why she was ever good in the first place.

That is Jace. I love everything about him, but fighting. I don't like to see him bruised and hurting and right now, I'm mad. Mad at him, at his opponent, at the whole damn world for letting a boy like him carry this much rage in his chest and no place safe to put it.

His silence is heavy, almost punishing. He leans his forehead against mine, breathing hard, like he ran here with all the hurt still dragging behind him.

“You promised,” I whisper. My fingers skim his jaw again, softer this time, like I could erase the pain if I just touched it enough. “You said no more fights.”

“I just want to have sex, Jae,” he mutters, voice wrecked and low. “I just want to feel something that isn’t pain.”

The words land like a punch in my chest and my breath slows.

I blink up at him, heart aching. “Jace…”

He cups my face with both hands, fingers trembling. “Please,” he rasps. “Let me pretend, just for a little while. Let me lose myself in you.”

My throat tightens. Because I know this frantic, broken, and bleeding version of him that no one else sees. They see the rebel, the fighter, the heart breaker, but never the shattered pieces he hides under all that bravado.

“But we're going to be step–”

“Screw that,” he groans, cutting me off as his forehead presses harder against mine. His breath is ragged. Desperate. “He can marry your mom. He can play house and smile in family portraits. But he’s not my father. And you’re not my sister. Don’t say that word. Don’t—”

I flinch, but he pulls me tighter, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go.

Did he fight with his father again? That's only when he disowns his father.

“I don’t care what title they put on us,” he breathes, voice breaking. “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”

A tremor runs through my spine, not because I'm scared, but because every part of me aches for him.

“Come to bed, I'll hold you. I'll cuddle you to sleep.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not enough,” he whispers, almost like he’s ashamed of needing more. “I can’t sleep, Jae. I'm losing my damn mind. I need to feel alive again. I need to feel you.”