Provoke Read online

  “Choose me,” I’d said in my head. “Choose me in front of them all!”

  She didn’t.

  She never would.

  Our love was impossible.

  And I knew more than her—how easy love could start a war.

  She still wasn’t pulling her hand away, so I took matters into my own hands, and literally scooted my chair back, then slid my fingers up her thigh, digging into her skin the entire way up until I felt the string of her thong.

  With a jerk, I tugged it until it broke, bunched her underwear in my hands, and then very somberly shoved them into my pocket all without looking away from my handy app.

  “Give those back,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Better not draw attention to us,” I said in a bored tone. “Wouldn’t want you to get detention on the first day—again.”

  “That was voluntary, and you know it!” She hissed.

  I chuckled under my breath. “Whatever you say.”

  “Junior, I mean it! I can’t walk around like this!”

  “You can.” I shrugged. “You will.”

  “Junior—“

  “—Just admit defeat, you tried to win, and instead you just lost—embarrassingly. It’s going to take more than your hand to get me off, or did you forget?” Then I did turn toward her. “I’d rather drink poison than have you touch me ever again.”

  Something sharp jabbed into my thigh. I winced and squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them and looked down.

  And there was her knife, stuck in my thigh at least a half-inch past my jeans.

  Perfect.

  I nodded slowly. “Is that the Abandonato crest?”

  “Beautiful, right?” She beamed then flipped her dyed golden hair in the air giving me a whiff of her cherry shampoo.

  I jerked out the knife and handed it back to her. “Don’t be creepy and lick the blood off—that’s weird, even for you.”

  She just rolled her eyes. “More like using it in a spell to make your favorite appendage fall off.”

  “Your favorite appendage,” I grumbled. “Remember? Oh God Junior, right there, so good, it’s so—”

  She clapped a hand over my mouth while a few students in front of us chuckled. “I get it, just. Stop. Talking.”

  I licked her hand and grinned.

  She smiled and looked away, down at her phone. “It shouldn’t be like this.”

  “I’ll hate you for as long as we both shall live,” I uttered the mantra we’d been repeating to each other for the last four years.

  “Hate you,” she repeated in a soft voice. “For as long as we both shall live.”

  And so the hurt continued.

  On behalf of 1001 Dark Nights,

  Liz Berry, M.J. Rose, and Jillian Stein would like to thank ~

  Steve Berry

  Doug Scofield

  Benjamin Stein

  Kim Guidroz

  InkSlinger PR

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  Asha Hossain

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  and Simon Lipskar