𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐒

[saltburntmods]

MISFIRES

a rambunctious duo in salt has stuck their nose where they shouldn't and now you can all reap the rewards! this is a MISFIRES meme. post a header for your character, and receive accidental texts from your local saltburntian guests. nudes, nasties, confessions of a certain persuasion? things you'd otherwise never write or send? they're all on the table. (meme threads aren't game canon, but they're not not game canon either, right)

Comments

[haggle]

you're telling me you haven't looked in the mirror lately??
your bullshit makes my jakey look like a boy scout, counselor

( no one hates embry moore more than embry moore. he doesn't have to admit it for anora to know it, see a worse self-destructive rhythm in his patterns than the ones she's lived by. he can't get off without pain as a shadow to his pleasure, can't exist if he isn't suffering, can't love unless it's the one thing incapable of loving him back.

she types, deletes, your checkbook is your only other redeeming quality. untrue; embry wears money as obnoxiously as he wears his entitlement. )

damn, a deadbeat dad 🩷
i'm so fucking wet thinking about it
who do you think taught koby all of his tricks, honey?? he's my understudy
nothin beats the original but he comes as close as you're ever gonna get

[hymen]

i've been under the weather. if you haven't noticed the lack of my presence around the place.
not that it'd make any difference to you if you found me face down in the lake next tuesday. i probably would've been lying there for three days already because you're so booked and busy getting your cunt eaten out by the love of your life.

[ he might even prefer it that way, so he can be bitter in the afterlife and haunt the shit out of everyone who's wronged him, which would be the entire population of the united states and beyond. ]

as someone who was raised by a nanny, i turned out just as heinous as you. proof that the parenting doesn't matter. we’re two peas in a pod, anora. you think jake would like me? i have the same gag reflex as you. arguably better. and we're both so pretty.
koby seems like he’s in a bind. good thing you both know the most generous man alive (me)

[haggle]

that why it's been so fucking peaceful? thank you for your public service counselor
if you're gonna drop dead, wear something pretty, okay?
i'm not hauling my ass all the way to your funeral just to see you in your ugly loafers one last time
least that'd give me somethin to cry over

aw that explains it. mommy didn't hug you enough, huh?
embry, baby. jake's used to stealing botticellis. why would he want a knockoff when he's already got the real thing?
but sure. go ahead and ask him yourself. should be fun

( koby's none of your fucking business. instinctively protective, a baring of teeth — ani files her teeth down. swallows. she'd ask, after all, if koby wanted dirty money or dumb money. embry has pocketfuls of both. )

uh huh
and i'm guessin your generosity comes free, right?

( fat fucking chance. the colchester-moores specialize in the art of trade negotiations. or, a less pretty, glitzed-up version of the word: extortion. )

[hymen]

i wouldn't wear loafers in my casket. i'd obviously wear patent leather oxfords, polished so shiny you could check your reflection in them. it's like you don't even pay attention to my wardrobe.

[ crash out avoided at the confirmation she'd come to his funeral. ]

maybe i will ask him. should we do a double date?
you and your jakey? me and koby so i can finger him under the table? he loved that last time. has he mentioned me? if he's your understudy, it all makes sense to me now. learning you two are so close warms my heart.

koby has enough to trade. alternatively, you still have free access to my checkbook if you want to come and get it.

[haggle]

he didn't
i guess you must have been one forgettable fuck, huh?

( koby has enough to trade. yeah, she knows exactly what currency shitheads like alvida and embry deal in, hungry hands held out for more, more, more. the kind that bruises, bleeds. the kind that empties you out, wallet and soul, and is still never enough. she knows exactly what koby wouldn't ask her to sell, either. not even at the cost of his freedom. not even with a barrel aimed at the back of his head. not even if embry says free access like it isn't a deal with the devil, invisible terms and conditions written in fine print at the bottom of the contract.

there's always dumber, dirtier marks. embry might be a whale, but so is half of the estate. she can net another. )

i'm not fucking you

[hymen]

maybe my story will be like yours. he'll forget me for half my life and then come back when he remembers how much he loves my mouth.
or hey. maybe i'll die alone, and you're just one of the lucky ones.

[ so maybe ten days of radio silence didn't cure him, but made him worse instead. his renewed energy for destruction has grown sharper claws and longer teeth. koby is soft, sweet, a bruised little peach that could fit one of the blown out holes in his heart, just like the way his cunt is a sinkhole for embry’s fingers. he’s fond of him. but he’s not the prize. anora isn’t something that fell from a tree. she’s a diamond. she’s a botticelli. ash would laugh at the way embry is convinced she belongs in their world instead of the shit heap one she wants to go back to. ]

i didn’t say anything about sex
with you
but clearly YOU’RE thinking about it 😏 💋
you miss it?

you know married women are still allowed to come hang out with their friends
just because you’re not fucking my brother anymore doesn’t mean our relationship is over

[haggle]

you don't know shit about my marriage

( forget me for half of my life. the implication: anora mikheeva is just loose change jingling around in the dryer, the crumpled $20 bill you forgot you had in the back pocket of your favorite jeans, an old ring you find buried at the bottom of your jewelry box. a small delight to rediscover, the endorphin rush of finder's keepers, losing and regaining a treasure in the span of a single breath — but not important enough to notice it was ever missing in the first place. disposable, until you remember you can spend it.

he's wrong. the proof of it sat against jake's chest for who-the-fuck-knows how long: a wedding band, suspended like a moment in time, pressed against his heartbeat. metal warmed by skin. a promise kept in a display case, as important as any relic in a museum — full of history, safe from smudging fingers that want a closer look.

the words still dig fingers into a mottled bruise on its way to healing. she still knows better, too, than to flinch when the colchester-moores dig their fingers in. he's no different than ash — in love with the power to destroy and remake. a wannabe god in his little playscape of pressed suits and american politics, bedrooms run like tyrants at a war table. )

i'm not that good of an actress 🩷
maybe if you paid me more, i'd start feelin inspired

lol
"friends"
"relationship"
are you fucking serious with that shit right now???
the two of you don't have friends. you have employees

[hymen]

whose fucking fault is that?
we should start weekly phone sessions so we know everything about each other’s lives.
you know, since you’re not gonna be around the oval office as much anymore.
or i could send a car. or i could come to you? i’ll bring a vintage wine and a stinky cheese.
pencil me into your busy calendar. and the clothes stay on, anora. i am not your sex object.

[ the truth: he’s terrified that she will actually disappear. ash doesn’t seem to give two fucks, so it’s up to embry to convince her to stay, and his competition is apparently steeper than mount fucking everest — jake seresin, a nobody from fucking nowheresville, who apparently gives the best tongue action in the goddamn world. (debatable. he’s had him looked up — how much pussy can a man possibly get in prison? embry has far more experience.) ]

paid you in what? you don’t even want my “dirty” money

[ his turn to feel her fingers in his bruises, his mouth tightening, cheek stinging with an imaginary slap. sure, maybe he told her he didn’t have any real friends. but that didn’t count her. ]

you know ash never cared about you
i did
i was the one who made sure you were okay
i was the one who kept both of your fucking mess out of the papers
and i was the only one who ever held you because he’s not even capable of doing that with anyone except

[ me. a narrowly avoided slip as his blood boils with wounded rage. ]

[haggle]

you can pay me in shutting the fuck up 🙂

( you know ash never cared about you. that's the fucking point embry's spongy brain can't absorb, the handshake of a silent agreement she and ash understood from the start.

he didn't need to love her. didn't need to make sure she was okay. he just needed to be cruel and cold, a marble statue holding still and unbreakable against the force of her — someone to endure it. someone who didn't ask for more than her fucked up parts scratching up against his, temporary allies to the same cause, the pleasure of mutually assured destruction. someone who didn't mind the ugliness — because there's nothing she could have done to make herself worse than ash colchester and embry fucking moore.

the difference between them: ash always liked her teeth. embry talks about her like a dog he's responsible for, made to sit on his leash. like she can't take care of herself without his guiding hand. )

ok? did anyone ask you to do all that? no? that's right
don't be so pissy about it, sweetheart. the three of us had fun together, yeah?
i'll send you a nice little postcard on my honeymoon
you want it from barcelona or paris?

[hymen]

[ everything he wants to say evaporates at those last words. honeymoon. barcelona. paris. okay, fine. she deserves a vacation. she deserves to see the world. naturally, embry's been to both, dragged to paris against his will on a family vacation when he was twelve, and then fucked his way through barcelona during a summer at yale. honeymoons are temporary. she'll be back. ]

the guys are hotter in barcelona. paris smells like rat piss.
how long are you gonna be gone?

pick out some jewelry so i can get you a decades late wedding gift

[haggle]

( very politely, she keeps her immediate joke to herself: damn, really? paris must have felt like home to you. )

your two favorite things 🩷
hot guys and places that smell like piss

idk. probably forever if jake lets me have my way, and he always lets me have my way, so
the view's gotten old and boring. jake and i are gonna put it all behind us
play house somewhere nice. see how starting over goes. clean slate, no bullshit

you can send us a housewarming gift instead 💋
what the fuck do married couples even ask for? a fancy ass toaster?

[hymen]

[ forever.

anora leaving. fucking leaving. forever. after everything they've been through, everything he's done. the view's gotten old and boring. so goddamn casual about it, like all of this meant nothing, like embry means nothing, even after they've made up and agreed to be friends again. did ash know about this? ]

i don't know, anora. i'm not fucking married.
monogrammed soap seems like a good choice.











you can't just fuck off to europe. not forever.
you can't just walk in and walk out.
what about us?

[haggle]

( there it is — embry moore's expectation that his word is law. all that ivy league, blue blood pedigree, and he still hasn't figured out how to say the word please. )

i wasn't asking for your permission. i'm anora fucking mikheeva, sweetheart
i go where i want, and i'm going with my husband

( he says can't like he's new to her. like this isn't what she does: walk in, walk out. that's the rule for guests in her story — none of them are allowed to overstay their welcome, to think they're the ending she's after. )

you wanna wife me up? yeah? knock me up all for yourself? that it?
get real, embry
what the fuck did you think this was?

[hymen]

[ he doesn't. he doesn't want to wife her up and doesn't even need to knock her up. he just — wants her. wants her by his side, wants her to want to stay. or — fuck that, he doesn't need her to want it. being there, bitching and biting and screaming, is good enough. the evidence of what she really wants is already written in the tapestry of their history. ]

don't
don't act like i'm the fucking crazy one here
like you haven't been taking and taking from me, leading me on like a dog on a leash until you get bored and move on to some shiny new thing that's suddenly giving you attention.
he'll move on. he'll leave you like he did before. me? i never will. i'm fucking loyal. i'll be with ash until i'm fucking dead, and i'll do the same for you because i know what it means to stay the goddamn course.

if you wanted to go smell rat piss so bad you should've just said something. i could've taken you anytime.
in fact, we can go right now. you don't need to pack anything.
just make sure you're wearing underwear.

[haggle]

( she thinks, unflatteringly, of fp — aging, irrelevant. clinging to trophies of his youth, shiny superbowl rings and women half his age. thinks, even more unflatteringly: men like embry always think they're different, a superior breed. i'm fucking loyal, as if he's the one who earned her. as if he's the one who didn't have to buy her to keep her. as if he's the one who chose her through the bullshit — again and again — without ever hating her for it.

she let the insult ricochet off of her the first time, weak duds bouncing off an attitude hardened by worse, that's spent years armoring itself in kevlar. bitch-proof, bullet-proof. not this time. not when he keeps gunning for the same insecurity. he'll move on. he'll leave you. goddamn hilarious, coming from the one man who can't give her the one thing she's asking from him: to be left the fuck alone. )

get it through your sick fucking head, you delusional motherfucker
i was never gonna pick you. not before. not now. not ever

you're lobbying for a lost cause, counselor
i love my husband. and if you don't keep his name outta your fucking mouth, i'll take it out for you :)
that's the kinda loyalty your money'll never fucking buy

you get it now?
still confused, sweetheart?
cause i can break your fucking jaw if you're having trouble hearin me

cw assault from here on out ☹️

[hymen]

[ he says nothing, because his phone is pitched across the room and he’s reaching for the gin he told ash he cleaned out of his suite, swallowing down a mouthful to soothe the sting of anora’s words. he should have texted her back, if only to call her an ungrateful fucking cunt, an evil bitch who takes pleasure in grinding his heart to dust. she’s a goddamn harpy, moving from one prize to the next, leaving nothing but a carcass behind. ash knew how to protect himself, but embry? he’s always the one getting fucked. always the one getting passed over. he opens his heart and his wallet only for it all to get thrown back in his face when the next shiny thing walks by.

fuck her. let her go to fucking paris and fall into a sewer and let rats eat her body.

let her go frolic with her fucking husband who’s so much better than he could ever be.

let her make the biggest mistake of her life and regret walking away from this when she ends up alone again selling ass on a goddamn street corner.

he nearly convinces himself he can let her go, the bottle drained, his head swimming in a thick, cloudy haze. as sick as he is of the house, there’s no shortage of indulgences here, his mouth tasting like battery acid from whatever he’d snorted down at the coronal. he’s wasted in record time, looking uncharacteristically sloppy as he picks his way down the hall, shirtsleeves pushed up, his tie hanging loose and wrinkled around his neck. avoiding ash is a necessity. he won’t hear a word about goddamn rehab again.

this is anora’s fault, anyway. it’s all fucking anora’s fault. his fist hits the wall as he turns the corner, narrowly steadying himself as a familiar hall comes into view. his suite is on the other side of the house. he’s been here only once, the first week after arriving here, to knock on anora’s door and demand she show up for breakfast, running errands like ash’s fucking dog. his anger simmers as he stares down the hall, wondering if she’s in there, wondering if she’s with jake, wondering if she has her suitcase open with all the pretty clothes paid for with his money folded neatly inside.

fuck. her.

it’s easy to get the door open with a few shimmies and wiggles of his credit card, stumbling in while reeking of gin, a pearly smile on his lips. he slams it behind him and twists the lock. ]

You didn’t think I wasn’t gonna say goodbye, did you? [ no sign of jake. good. anora looks so fucking good in her slinky little lingerie dress, possibly the best she’s ever looked. did she listen when he told her to put on underwear? he strolls casually into the room, sliding cards out of his wallet and dropping them to the floor as he walks. ] Wedding present. Going away present. Housewarming present. Oh, and there’s this.

[ a wad of cash that gets thrown carelessly in her direction, green butterflies fluttering to the floor. his vision blurs before he steadies himself, tossing his wallet away and holding his hands out innocently. ]

Just wanted to see you one last time. That’s it.

[ blue eyes imploring, sharp edges filed down by being absolutely trashed. for a brief moment he just looks lost — miserable that he’s the one who’ll be alone. why does she get her happily ever after? why does she get her pick of ash and jake and him when it’s goddamn convenient? he sucks in a breath, suddenly livid, and lunges for her, his height giving him the advantage to topple her to the bed, landing in a tangle of pillows where she no doubt rode jake’s perfect fucking face. ]

You know what’d be fucking hilarious? [ the bed’s so goddamn slippery, attempting to cage her in with his knees, grabbing her jaw with one hand to force her face toward his. ] If I got you put on the no-fly list.

[haggle]

( he has eyes like a corpse.

it's the first red flag in a whole fucking field of them — the rotting stench of a man bloated with booze, all control decomposed. how his gaze has gone fish-eye blue, filmy and dead and unseeing. ani doesn't give him the pleasure of a cornered-animal reaction, but her hindbrain knows what this is. what it always is. men who come to collect the debt they think they're owed. look what i did for you. he doesn't have to say it for her to see it raining down on her floor in hard plastic and dollar bills — if she won't let him buy her, he'll find a way to make her pay back everything she took.

a muscle in her jaw clamps, as hard as if he'd stung her with a slap. everything in her body coils, fight-or-flight firmly stuck on fight.

fp wore the same kind of liquor as cologne — top-shelf shit on his breath, like even his pain refused to settle for less than what his money and reputation could buy. or — it's a close enough smell that it triggers the memory of it. different man, same scene: drunk fucking idiot enters from stage left, blames a woman for the way his pathetic life turned out. exits stage right, curtain closed. she's used to bracing for impact — thrown plates and thrown words, shattered plates and broken marriages. on familiar impulse, she reaches for the ashtray at her bedside table, a weapon on standby — heavy, imported glass — in the split-second before embry pounces.

the bed creaks like it's protesting his weight. somewhere in the scuffle, her hand slips. thumps the ashtray uselessly down into the carpet, instead of his fucking head. fury and frustration rip a guttural sound from her throat. not a wounded shriek of a rabbit in a trap — something with teeth, something with claws. something territorial, pissed to have him trampling on what's hers. a home, a plan, a sense of safety, finally.

he's too hammered to make it graceful, too fucking stupid to remember she won't go down so easy. her fists are already battering against his chest, her knee burrowed into his gut. anything to keep the threat of his full, dangerous weight off of her. )

Yeah? ( exertion turns it winded. she still finds the lung capacity for a jagged grind of laughter. feral. hard as a fist. defiance, in the face of the fear he must want to see in her eyes, the regret he can't bribe out of her, the power over her he'll never have. ) You wanna hear something really fucking hilarious? Come closer, I'll tell you.

( doesn't matter if he does. the tendons in her neck strain where they support the lift of her head. a sweet, flint-eyed smile — right as she spits a thick glob of saliva into his face, splashing wet and vicious onto his cheek. her lips curl back in a sneer, a show of switchblade teeth, a sharp edge of disgust in her eyes. a fuck you to any man who thinks they can lay a violent hand on her without reaping the consequences. )

You can't put me on the no-fly list if I bury you first, you crazy motherfucker. You think you're gonna walk out of this clean? You're so fucking dead.

[hymen]

[ she’s like a scampy little pomeranian, thrashing bruises against his chest, his ribcage, as he tries to play catch with her wrists. if he wasn’t so fucking drunk, he’d have her facedown ass up already, but there are merits to this too — the rage carved into her porcelain princess features is better than any statue in a museum, better than any stripper dancing on a pole. he loves to fucking see it, his dick giving a twinge in his pants right before she spits in his face, warm and thick and uncomfortably similar to the way the first spurt of ash’s jizz feels when it lands on his cheek.

it feels like a mockery. does she know? has she known the whole time, her and ash tittering away behind closed doors at stupid lonely embry, little baby brother who’ll always come dead last? the only way she could bury him is if she has ash in her pocket, and if it’s the two of them against him… he’s been blind to what’s been happening right under his nose. ]

You fucking bitch. [ he moves off her only to haul her from the bed, his hand closing around her throat, the gilded frames rattling from the force in which he slams her against the wall. ] All you do is take from me. You already got your fucking husband back. You think you can take my brother, too?

[ both hands squeeze her pale throat now, one thumb digging into her windpipe as he watches color flood her cheeks, her skin soft and damp and so fucking kissable despite the fury roiling in his gut. her nails leave bright scratches down his arms, but there’s no prying his hands away, not when he has her so close. ]

You think you can convince him to send me away? Lock me up in rehab again? You’d know something about that. [ his eyes are glittering slits of cut glass, his voice rough and low with the threat of his promises. ] I swear on my life, Anora, you try to bury me, you’re going in that grave with me. Kiss your fucking dream life goodbye.

cw: eye trauma 🥴

[haggle]

( bright spots crack in her eyes like a lightbulb threatening to blow out, all fizzling and flickering pressure. it's bullshit what they say — how life flashes before your eyes like a movie cut short, cast across the projector of your mind. ani doesn't see the looping film reel of what led her here, highs and lows and the scenes spliced in-between. it's simpler stuff. sunshine kissing her skin. the waft of citrus on a salt-slick breeze. the edge of koby's grin, sweet and just this side of mean. jake's laugh when it's real and earned, lit up with the wattage of a thousand open skies. all the shit she hasn't fully lived. all the shit she won't see. all those sandcastle dreams she's built, all those sandcastle dreams embry wants to crush like a giant on the beach.

it's a sharper pain compared to the twinge in her spine, the narrowing passageway of her windpipe, the digging indents of his thumbs, a physical collar around her throat. how she thinks of his threat as the same. men with leashes, always trying to say sit, stay, beg. behave, anora, and i won't put you down. she never needed proof embry moore doesn't know a single fucking thing about her, but there it is, staring her in the face. like he thinks that pitiful fucking warning will make her back down, tame her, roll belly up for him.

like it won't just make her fight harder — her incentive to keep breathing around a thrashing, wheezing gasp, the bursting squeeze of her lungs, balloons set to pop between her ribs. her toes slip, uselessly, where she's all convulsive jerks against the wall, nails like hooks hitched into his skin. failing to find leverage, hauled up to hard, unforgiving plaster. wasting some reservoir of oxygen just to grit out: )

Big talk coming from a corpse. ( a flash of teeth. she strains harder — not away, but into his hold, a mocking cradle. all choking scorn, using up precious breath to hit where it hurts, an opening he didn't bother to guard: ) Who the fuck could ever love something like you? You think Ash does? Even he knows you're one pathetic, broken —

( an urgent squeeze of her esophagus closes the sentence off, strangled punctuation. provokes her into last-ditch, desperate, animal effort: her hands scramble for his face, wild, uncoordinated talons scraping into the meat of his cheek. a nail snaps. another. the next upward momentum slashes, finally, where she'd hoped: a sideways swipe toward his eye socket, a flip of blind luck. )

[hymen]

[ her words are like a mallet to the softest part of his heart — the heart she thinks is made of stone, the heart she thinks doesn’t exist at all, but she proves that her own theory is a steaming pile of bullshit (just like everything else about her) when she squishes his pulsing organ and bursts it right in his fucking chest. she doesn’t even notice, because no one ever notices the monumental amount of pain that embry spends every waking moment in. how he tries to mask it with snippy remarks and expensive clothes and top shelf gin and the best cocaine america’s war on drugs sweeps off the streets. or maybe she doesn’t notice this time because she can’t fucking breathe, but that doesn’t absolve her or anyone else for not noticing all the other times.

she saves him from crumpling into tears when her two-hundred dollar nails rake across his cheek, fire erupting in his eye. he drops her like he’s been burned, clutching his face with a howl of agony, his vision blanking as he staggers back, now with a far less embarrassing reason for the tears that well down his cheeks. ]

Jesus fuck, Anora, you fucking blinded me. [ he stumbles over the fallen ashtray, snatching it up and hurling it in her direction, his aim going wild. it hits the wall with brutal force, denting the plaster. he wishes it was her goddamn skull. ] What the fuck is wrong with you?

[ he moves his hand away, one eye bloodred, his face wet with tears. his gaze burns, dark and blurry on one side, lurching forward unsteadily with his breath tangled in his throat. ]

He does love me. You sick bitch. You selfish fuck. [ his words are like gravel, even as thorny doubt presses into him. who would love him like this? he circles her, two wounded animals. ] I was there before you. I was the one in his bed. I was the one he was fucking all night. Me. And then you had to come along and push me out, and I had no choice but to stand by and watch. And I still gave you everything you wanted, even when you took everything from me. I had nothing, Anora. You took him from me, and you made me fucking watch. His arms around you in public. Kissing you, holding you. Everything that I can never have, you threw it in my fucking face. You heartless fucking bitch.

[ he pounces again, grabbing for a fistful of her hair. ] Why do you hate me so much? I’ve been nothing but generous to you while you drove the knife in every goddamn day. All I wanted was to be a part of what you had. I can never be married like you. I can’t walk out in the fucking streets with my husband like you. I just wanted to be let in. But you’re so fucking selfish you couldn’t even let me have that. And now you have a goddamn mouthful to say about how I’m pathetic and unlovable? Look in the fucking mirror, Anora. You screwed me. You’re just as shitty as I am. You’re just pretending you deserve better. Now guess how fucking easy it’ll be for me to make one fucking call and your Jakey goes back to prison.

[haggle]

( it would be a good play in a skilled hand, leveraging jake with the confidence of an ace tucked up the sleeve. she can give him that much, credit where credit's due, as cheap and obvious as it is. but embry is embry, and embry is fucking amateur hour — all bluster and bullshit and the balls to celebrate like the win's in the bag, the game of life rigged in favor of privileged, presidential pricks. like anora mikheeva has ever accepted there's a time to fold and walk for good when something vital is on the line.

what's a gambler, if not a desperate dumbass with too much hope, refusing to turn away from a hundred-to-one shot? nothing goes down harder than someone with something to lose.

she invests only a second of a thought into wwjd — what would jake do. flash that 24k grin, probably — the one that dazzles, distracts, doesn't give away a damn thing. makes you feel like you've come to bet against the devil, like he's calculated some triumphant outcome no one else planned for. but ani's not jake. no semblance of a collected poker face, not even a moment spared to pretend she would cut-and-run to save her own ass, she thrashes the blade-tip of an elbow at embry's side with such a sudden upswing of violence it vibrates into her molars.

there's no seeing red. just the rushing current of blood in her ears, the shake of adrenaline down to her fingertips. embry's hands snag at her hair, and ani's neck wrenches with the motion, tendons buckling tight in her neck — stretched like a hot, furious wire. useless instinct, her hand clamps to the flexors of his wrist. )

Boo fucking hoo. You gonna bitch and whine or do something about it, you crybaby — ( a shrill scratch, like savage nails raking into grains of wood. ) — cunt.

( impulse has her ripping forward, at first, against the stinging pinpricks in her scalp, the sensation of a thousand burning needles. the tinsel in her hair waves like tragic party streamers crumpled in his fists. her eyes strain skyward in their sockets, sparing him the pitiable disgust meant for aberrations of nature, for hollow-eyed monsters hiding in pressed suits. )

Say it again. Say his fucking name again. I fucking dare you. Try me, motherfucker. See what happens.

( — drawn from somewhere so deep it sounds more sharp-toothed animal than girl. she doesn't give him the opening, just a taste of follow-through on a threat; ani's skull whips back like a battering ram, biting down on the pained, serrated sound in her mouth when it cracks against bone. sends her vision swimming for a black, blank second. )

[hymen]

[ he’s too drunk to dodge, too far gone to even think to let go. her skull collides into his face with a nauseating crack, the gush of blood immediate as it spills from his broken nose and onto the expensive fabric of his wrinkled shirt. the room spins, bile in his throat, his balance a lost cause when his knees buckle and he goes down, dragging anora with him, her hair wound around his fingers in a hopeless tangle. he falls heavily atop her legs, blood dripping in comical, horror movie splatters across her silky nightie. ]

Fuck. Jesus. [ it’s, frankly, not the worst bender he’s had, but certainly in the top five — on the floor, bleeding, barely mobile. it’s not even the first time he’s broken his nose, but no one would be able to tell because his surgeon is that good. abruptly, he buries his face into her stomach, soft and warm, smearing blood everywhere as he moans. ] You can’t. You can’t —

[ panic floods his senses, shutting down every other thought. he doesn’t give a fuck about jake, or paris, or how much it stings that anora won’t admit to the feelings between them. it doesn’t matter that his nose is broken and he can barely see and if ash finds him like this, he’ll ship him off to rehab. none of that matters. he just dropped the biggest fucking secret of his life, one he’s been protecting since childhood, one he’s killed for, and it’s anora. it’s anora he spilled it to. ]

You can’t. You can’t know.

[ he’s almost hyperventilating now, lifting his bloody, tearstained face, his hand fisting into the ruined fabric of her dress. everyone else who knows — he’s done what needed to be done. an overdose. a tragic fall. a freak accident on the freeway. someone went overboard while yachting and they’d tried everything to revive them. he hadn’t blinked, hadn’t faltered. because it was for ash. and he’d do anything, anything, for ash.

but looking at anora’s face right now, imagining tipping her struggling body out the window, imagining holding her underwater in the tub, imagining having to watch the life drain out of her eyes even though he’d come in here breathing bloody murder… it makes him want to vomit. but ash. ash. ]

Fuck. Fuck! [ he draws in a frustrated breath, ending on a near sob, his head pounding and ears ringing. he doesn’t try to hold anora down, crawling to be closer to her, his bloodshot eyes widening in wild desperation as he tries to cradle her face. ] You can’t know. It’ll ruin us. It’ll ruin Ash. His life will be over, and it’ll be because of me, and what if he — he’ll hate me. I’m always fucking everything up, but — I love him, Anora, I love him, and I don’t want to hurt you but I can’t let you ruin him. He’s my whole life. Please. Please. I’ll do anything you want. Please don’t make me hurt you. I can’t do it. I can’t just — I can’t treat you like everyone else.

[haggle]

( amateur hour: it's only now, panting and blotchy-faced from exertion, she realizes he's called forfeit. dealt her the missing card she needed for a royal flush, staring face-up at her: embry, ash. call it extortion, blackmail, whatever the fuck — ani just calls it jackpot. the right price to buy her freedom. the ticket to a clean getaway from the natural disaster that is embry moore's concept of love and consideration and generosity. realization skitters behind her eyes, overlapping the bright, burning match of hatred in her pupils.

he's everything she said he was. broken, pathetic — crawling to her like a vulture who's decided he wants mercy now that it's his own death he's circling, like he wasn't picking apart every entrail of insecurity that lives inside of her just seconds ago. setting her thumbs right to the beating beast of his carotid isn't satisfying, too much like putting down a sick animal who's given up the fight — much as she wants to bear down harder, split her knuckles open on his pearly, polished, public office teeth. make his outward face match his rotten insides.

her empty laugh grinds like hollow glass, because — )

God. You're perfect for each other. Go rot in hell together, you fucking monsters.

( ani doesn't have to do the heavy lifting for them — one day, they'll eat each other alive. two starved cannibals with bottomless hunger, a line of bodies stacked behind them. it's not ani acting like she deserves better; it's embry acting like he doesn't already have exactly what he deserves, his brother's first and loyal victim, too ruined to recognize it.

rearranging her grip, she latches onto the hinge of his jaw. unflinching through the bile churning in her throat, the sweet-sick smell of copper, the splatter of blood seeping wet heat into her nightgown. firm pressure wrenches his head down to the crime scene he's made of her body, forcing his eyes to investigate every violent detail. every line crossed. )

You did this. Take a good look, asshole. You still think you're better than me? You still think you're good for anything? Yeah right.

( don't make me hurt you. her fault in his twisted brain, even now. a flare of her nostrils, bullish. embry's hands palm clammy skin, slick-sweat beads of perspiration clumping wild strands of hair to one cheek. )

I want what I always wanted. For you to leave me the fuck alone. How many times do I have to tell you?

( sharper-voiced, a stab wound in the same wound, so the message will stick. )

Here's what's gonna happen. Okay? You're gonna go to Ash. You're gonna forget I exist. You come for me or Jake again, you even breathe in our fucking direction, you can kiss Ash's ass goodbye. I took everything from you? Think again, motherfucker. Got it now? Do you fucking understand me?