Rage tore through me as I snatched a tissue from the dispenser on the vanity and wiped at the lipstick, mindful of the small hoop piercing in his lower lip. I tried to keep my touch gentle, but inside I was battling the urge to find Arthur and rip him limb from limb.
The red color was somewhat smeared, but mostly gone. I threw the tissue aside and stepped back.
“Feel better?” Isaac asked dully. “Because it won’t undo what you saw.”
“Why?” I asked, because that was the only word I could get out.
“What difference does it make?” he asked. “It’s what you wanted, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You knew I was shit from the moment you saw me. A thief, a troublemaker, a fag… why should whore be such a stretch? Now you can run to your brother and tell him you knew it all along. Don’t worry, Newt and I will be gone by tonight.” He nodded at the door again. “Now, unless you want to stay and watch, which will cost you by the way, you need to go.”
When he went to reach for his phone, I grabbed it and threw it across the room. I stormed toward the door but stopped abruptly when a man pushed open the broken door.
“Blaze?” he asked in confusion.
“Yeah, here,” Isaac called. “Come on in. My friend here was just leaving.”
“Oh, okay, cool man,” the guy said, then he actually started entering the room. I grabbed him by the shirt collar and propelled him backward so hard and so fast that when I released him just outside the room, he stumbled backward and hit the front of Dallas’s truck. When he opened his mouth to protest, I glared at him. Then he took off like a bat out of hell.
I slammed the door shut and used a side chair to prop beneath the knob to keep the door closed.
“You asshole!” Isaac screamed as he came up behind me and shoved me hard. “I needed that trick to pay for my fucking car so Newt and I can get the hell away from this town!”
He didn’t say and you, but I suspected he wanted to.
But I was still stuck on what he did say.
Jesus fucking Christ.
He’d done this because of his car?
Pure fury went through me and I wanted to rip the room apart. “You foolish—” I began, and then shook my head. Because as fucked up as all this was, it wasn’t actually his fault. And that just made my anger so much worse. Never in a million years would I have thought my decision would have such an ugly consequence, but it had. An image of Isaac’s pretty mouth wrapped around that old fuck Tomlinson’s dick went through my head and before I could stop myself, I slammed my fist into the wall and yelled, “I fucking tampered with your car so you couldn’t leave!”
Chapter Six
Isaac
I was still reeling from both Maddox’s discovery and his show of temper, so his words didn’t register at first. In fact, I’d just grabbed ahold of the wrist of the hand he’d put through the wall to check the bloodied knuckles when my brain began to process what he’d said.
“What?” I whispered in disbelief a solid fifteen seconds later. “You did what?”
“Jesus, I just wanted you to stick around long enough so if you wanted to ask for help you could, or so that you could see that you could trust Dallas and Nolan… fuck!” he snapped. I released my hold on him and he immediately began pacing.
Humiliation coursed through me as I realized what I’d almost done because of his actions. I felt the telltale sting of tears, but I forced them back. I hadn’t cried in a really long time and hell if I’d give him the satisfaction of seeing me do that.
“Get out,” I whispered.
“Isaac, I’m sorry—”
“Get out!” I screamed. “You don’t get to say those words to me! You had no right!”
“I know, I shouldn’t—”
I ignored him and snatched Dallas’s car keys off the small table in the room. I didn’t bother with the condoms or any of the other shit that was part of my “toolkit.”
But when I tried to storm past Maddox, he grabbed my arm. “Don’t touch me!” I shouted, hating the panic that began to take over me.
“Please, Isaac, just listen—”
“Dallas,” I spit out. “He was in on it, wasn’t he? He looked at my car yesterday. Kept putting me off about it today! Did you guys laugh about it behind my back? Was all this some stupid, fucked-up way to get back at me?”
“No!” Maddox said. “Jesus Christ, no!” He ran his free hand through his shorn hair. “God, even if that was true, which it isn’t, do you think we’d do that to you after what you did last night? For Dallas?” His voice softened just a little as his eyes held mine. “For me?”