A Slave to Broken Hearts (A Slave to Love Sequel)

Chapter 88: Collateral Damage

"You got rid of her?" the words were a choked whisper. "Did you..."

I couldn't say it. I really absolutely couldn't say it. Bile rose in my throat. He couldn't have. He couldn't. No no no no--

"Did I kill her?" he supplied, smiling impishly at me. "Don't worry, unlike you and your boyfriends, I haven't killed anyone before. She just thinks you hate her and think she's a horrible person and you regret ever hooking up with her and never want to see or hear from her again. 'You' said some really mean things to her honestly, so much so that she realized you weren't a good person, blocked you, and refused to step foot in your coffee shop ever again. Don't worry about her coming back or being an option or even trying to apologize to her, she'll never listen to anything you have to say. That bridge is completely burned."

I still felt sick even though I was dizzy with relief that she was okay. How easy it could have been for this plan to take a more deadly turn without any of us realizing. The death toll had already almost started with me, it would have been a snap for him to get rid of Abby that way without any of us noticing.

On the heels of my disgust over what he did and relief that she was okay came a wave of guilt. Just how badly had he hurt her? What kinds of things could he have possibly said to her to make her cut me off like that? I couldn't believe that 'I' was the one who had supposedly rejected her first and caused her to ghost me. How different things might have been if Bryce hadn't interfered.

But the fact remained; Abby was a kind person who hadn't done anything wrong. A completely innocent bystander who had nothing to do with this situation, nothing to do with magic or vampires or any of this, yet even she had gotten dragged into this mess and hurt by it.

"That stung, didn't it? Thinking she rejected you? Oops," he said, without even a drop of guilt. To him, Abby had been nothing but an obstacle to be cleared out of the way, so why would he feel bad? Considering he had spent all this time playing with our feelings, he still treated them as if they didn't exist. "It was better for you to think she ghosted you and get you back on track with him with no other distractions," he said, jerking his head Ace's way. "And it worked, because as soon as she left, you two got all cute and cozy again and finally kissed. Anyway, I learned my lesson. Trying to speed things along doesn't work, so you taught me some patience. And that Jaime is smarter than me."

Jaime did not soften the slightest at this attempt at flattery. She just kept shooting daggers at him with her eyes since they were both still bound in place and frozen below the neck and that was the only option she really had. 

"I can't believe you went behind my back," Jaime said, still outraged. Her earlier tears were definitely gone now. "I told you not to mess with them like that, it should always have been their choice, you weren't supposed to spell them--"

"Are you kidding me right now? None of this was our choice," I said. Abby was the last straw. "You guys made it seem like it was, but everything that has happened since you guys started interfering took that away, so we never really did have an actual choice. I showed up at that ball to try and see if there was hope for Blade and I, and you took it away. If I had decided to try and fight to get Blade back anyway, you would have made him reject me again. When he tried, you did the same. Over and over until we finally gave up and went the way you kept trying to shove us to go because there wasn't any hope left. The only options here were what you wanted, not us. And it was never even an option at all."

"You didn't have to lie to Blade for months. And you definitely didn't have to kiss Ace," Bryce said, leaping to her defense. "You didn't have to tell him to stay. You didn't--"

"For the love of God, shut up, Bryce," I spat. He looked suitably chastised, maybe even a little offended. "I cannot listen you anymore. How Jaime was able to stand you is a goddamn miracle. Having a real choice means we have free will, which you took away from all of us. So stop trying to excuse what you did with your warped logic because it isn't working. Even Jaime is looking pretty done with you right now so I'd suggest you cut the crap instead of making everything so much worse for yourself for absolutely no reason. It's annoying."

"Seriously? I'm not the reason you broke up, I'm just the reason you stayed that way. I didn't make you lie to Blade for months and I didn't make him dump you, you both did that. You can act like I did some horrible thing, but I didn't. You did this to yourselves."

"Did we? Blade wasn't the one in that hallway telling Eliza he loved her and I meant nothing to him which kept me from going home which almost got me fucking killed. You were. People have fights and get mad and then they cool off and deal with it and fix it, but you took that opportunity away from us and it nearly destroyed us both permanently."