kai parker • villains of circumstance ✔️

CHAPTER EIGHTY EIGHT

"You were never supposed to know." He swallows.

Daisy felt another gasp creeping up from her throat, but she held it in. "Do you even hear what you're saying?!" She shakes her head. "Kai— you lied to me. And you used me for power, for—" she swallows harshly, as if hearing herself saying this out loud made it all officially true. "For decades. And you told me you loved me. And you're—" her chest fell heavy after she searched for the right words. A powerful, overwhelming feeling of anger, betrayal, fear, sorrow and everything in between clouded her thoughts. "I hate you." Was all she could get out.

Kai felt his heart as it began to physically ache, like the hurt was spreading to the entirety of the rest of his body. Up his throat, like a knot that he couldn't just swallow away. He stared at the girl in front of him, as nothing but hatred clouded her eyes. That was it. No desperation, no regret, no fear. Just hatred.

Strands of her wet hair fell in front of her face, and he felt the urge to move them out of the way because he knew she wouldn't do it herself. She wasn't crying, and he didn't know if he should take it as a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe this didn't hurt her as bad as he thought it would.

But the pain he felt inside of him was so overwhelmingly strong— yet he wasn't crying either.

He could tell the tremble in her lip was due to the freezing cold, a purple hue began to replace the usual pink and all he wanted to do was guide her inside somewhere warm and dry.

"Kai." Daisy spoke, and for a split second he felt a spark of hope. That somehow her words to follow would be those of forgiveness, or at least understanding. "If I see you again— if you—" Daisy redirects her train of thought. "If you touch me, or Josette again," she took a breath before speaking again, and her eyebrows were stitched together in what looked like worry, but her words told otherwise. "Believe me when I say I will kill you."

Kai's blood ran cold, and he felt his heart beat begin to pick up. This moment felt so familiar, like they'd done this all before. He hated that he couldn't ignore that although he felt this newfound feeling of guilt and hurt, that there was still a tinge of excitement that her words brought him. No merge could take that part of him away.

And she saw it, too. That sparkle in his eye that her threat brought. She wanted to kill him there and now, but knew she couldn't. At least, not right now. Not only because she knew fully well he had the high ground, but because she knew how much she loved him not ten minutes ago. It still lingered, though rapidly fading.

Kai stumbled back, reserving his sorrow for another time. She didn't want to hear anymore pleads or excuses, she wanted a fight. Maybe he'd give her one, eventually, it's worked in the past for them— it could work again. "You need me." He says, raising his voice, but for no reason other than the fact that the rain was too loud for her to hear him at a normal volume.

Daisy swallows, shaking her head as she eyes him. He'd lifted his chin slightly, as if to come off unfazed, but she saw right through it. "You need me." She corrects.

Kai runs his tongue over the bottom row of his teeth for a second, taking slow breaths to try to slow his rapid heart beat. She was right, in more ways than one, and he walked himself right into that.

Daisy knew there was nothing else that needed to be said, not from him at least. She felt her weight shifting backwards to where Josette lay only a few feet away, and as she began to turn— she felt a hand wrap around her arm.

She was pulled back towards him, and he had leaned down towards her with wide, angry eyes. He looked as if he had something to say— but when he met her eyes he couldn't get it out.