Red Thorns (Thorns Duet #1) by Rina Kent

Including your own mother. The woman you said immigrated, gave birth, and raised you all on her own.

You say your mother is always absent and doesn’t have time for you. But what do you do when she makes a dent in her schedule for your sake? You’re too uncomfortable to spend time alone with her anymore because you still hold a grudge against her.

Now, you didn’t tell me what type of grudge it is. Hell, you didn’t even mention that word. But I’m not an idiot. I know there’s bad blood between you two and you’re just taking it out on her.

You say you hate the cheer squad and the cheerleaders, but you mirror their nasty behavior the entire time. And deep down, you admire your captain because she’s everything you aren’t. You curse her any chance you get, but you’re in awe of how comfortable she is in her own skin.

Which can’t be said about you.

Not only do you hate yourself, but you’re also sometimes out to destroy yourself.

And your latest method for that is some sort of fetish about being chased and eventually caught, then raped. In what world would anyone consider that normal?

The fact that you want it in the first place should be a red alert.

Stop.

Go to a shrink and get some help.

Because you’re just spiraling out of control at this point. And soon enough, you’ll get bored of this fetish and destroy yourself by using another method.

What will it be next? Alcohol? Drugs? Prostitution?

Maybe you’ll end up in one of those psyche wards eating your own shit.

Oh, I’m sorry. Did that hurt?

I don’t care. I didn’t start writing to you so I’d be the only audience for your pity parties or attempts to make yourself feel more grandiose than you really are.

This is me, true and unfiltered, and this is how I’m going to be from now on. I’m done playing nice and pretending that I approve of the shitty decisions you make.

From now on, you’ll get a reality check from me.

If you hate it, I don’t give a fuck. Don’t write back.

But I’ll continue writing. Don’t read my letters if that bruises your fragile ego, but I’ll keep them coming.

Go complain at customs.

Seriously. I have zero fucks to give at this point. Going forward, we’ll do it my way.

P.S. This is my actual personality. All the previous letters were me playing it down and being nice. I’ve had a wake-up call lately and realized I was always a bastard, so it’s pointless to pretend I’m someone I’m not.



Until next time, Yuki-Onna.

Love (but not really),

Akira





23





Naomi





If I had a doubt about positively losing my mind, it’s gone.

I am insane.

It’s been two weeks of pure madness. Of running in the woods and being chased around my dark house when Mom isn’t home.

Two weeks of pretending my monster isn’t the same football star everyone drools over on campus.

Two weeks of drifting.

And in these weeks, I’ve felt more alive than in my whole life.

Or more accurately, since it was snuffed out of me during that red night.

But even the feeling of being alive is shadowed by something else. Something eerily gloomy and haunting.

Something…bad.

I recognize it even though I try to hang on to the fantasy, to the addiction. To the fact that I’m not just a floating existence in the middle of a thousand others.

I’m special. I’m different. At least, to him.

Not Sebastian, but the beastly side of him.

The one who doesn’t take no for an answer and gets off on having me cry and writhe as he chokes me with his dick, then breaks me with it.

The one who wants me so badly, he’s blinded to everything but me.

The beast and I have a common ground. He gets off on the hunt and violence, and I can finally admit that I get off on being chased and degraded. On being used, roughed up, sensually ravished.

The beast and I meet in the dark, in the forest, and do our taboo ritual on that rock or against the filthy dirt.

The beast and I have an arrangement. I take his darkness and he swallows mine. I get off on his unapologetic dominance and he gets off on my unconditional submission.

The beast abandons me battered against the rock and doesn’t look twice in my direction.

But soon after, the man appears.

Sebastian.

He carries me to his car, cleans me, and drives me home. He sometimes even buys me ointments from the pharmacy. But he never once looks at me with pity or guilt.

I don’t think he’s capable of those emotions and I’m thankful that I don’t have to deal with that side of it all.

In that moment, after the beast in him and the fantasies in me are satiated, I swear there’s some sort of a glow that surrounds us.

A high.

A warped sense of satisfaction.

We get to pretend whatever depravities that happened between us didn’t actually happen. We get to pick back up as normal, functioning college kids.

But maybe I do need help, as Akira so bluntly put it.

Ever since I received his letter a week ago, I’ve been fuming. Not only because of his hurtful honesty and all the things he’s bottled up for years but also because he waited all this time to say anything.

I’ve always wanted someone I could bare my soul to. Someone I could tell anything without them judging me. Lucy can’t be that person, because deep down, she’s pure. Normal. She wouldn’t understand.