NOVEL NEXT Chapter 685: Escalation
Lila said nothing. Her silence was defiance carved in ice.
"WHO?" he roared.
The sound cracked through the foyer like a whip. Every body below flinched
Lila's voice came low, steady, lethal. "I did."
"Bullshit." He lunged, seizing her wrist in a grip that turned her skin white around his fingers. She flinched—an involuntary, practiced recoil that sliced me deeper than any scream could have. "You don't have a key."
"I picked the lock," she said. "With a bobby pin. Funny… you never had to teach me that."
His face twisted, ugly with rage and disbelief. "You ungrateful little—"
"Careful," she interrupted, voice soft but razor-sharp. "Finish that sentence. Say it loud. Let everyone hear exactly what I am to you."
The crowd had become a single breathing organism—tense, horrified, phones trembling in outstretched hands. Someone near the stairs started forward; a friend grabbed his sleeve and hissed, "Don't, you'll make it worse."
I was already moving. Slow at first, deliberate, cutting a path toward the staircase. Ava stayed glued to my side, her drunken haze burned away by adrenaline.
Dex leaned in close, breath sour and hot. "You're property."
Lila laughed—sharp, brittle, heartbreaking. "Property doesn't bleed when you hit it, Dex. Property doesn't beg you to stop."
Gasps exploded below. A girl started sobbing openly. A guy shouted, "What the fuck, man!"
Dex released her wrist as if it suddenly scalded him. "You wanna air our laundry? Fine." His hand rose, open, ready.
Lila didn't back away this time. "Do it," she said, almost gently. "Show the world the real Dexter."
His arm froze mid-swing. Red light bathed them both; every phone in the house was a spotlight now.
She stepped closer, voice pitched low but the balcony carried it perfectly. "You keep me on the third floor so no one sees the marks. You throw these parties so the music drowns out anything that might escape the walls. You're not a host, Dex. You're a warden."
"Lila," I called, voice slicing clean through the chaos. "Come down here. Now."
Her head snapped toward me. For the first time, her mask slipped—relief flooding those ice-blue eyes, chased immediately by fear.
Dex's gaze followed hers. Recognition hit him like a slap. "You." Rage purpled his face. "This is because of you."
"Let her go," I said.
"She was mine long before you crawled onto my beach!" he screamed. "Locked away. Safe. Obedient!"
"She's not a fucking doll," someone shouted from the crowd.
"Call the cops!"
"Keep filming—everything!"
Dex whirled back to Lila. "Get your ass upstairs. Now."
She smiled—slow, venomous, beautiful. "Make me."
"You think he's gonna save you?" Dex sneered, swaying. "You think the Beach King wants damaged goods?"
I did. God, I did.
"I ASKED WHO LET YOU OUT OF THAT ROOM, BITCH!"
The roar cracked her composure. Lila shrank back against the balustrade, shoulders curling inward, voice suddenly small. "I… I opened it myself."
Dex barked a wet, triumphant laugh. "You don't open anything. You stay where I put you."
He moved—faster than the alcohol should have allowed. One lurching stride. The balcony creaked.
"Dex, d—"
"Don't?" he mocked, voice climbing into something unhinged. "You think 'don't' gets you out of the cage I built?"
Three steps. Below, I saw Colt and Jaxon bulldozing through the crowd, trying to reach the stairs. The foyer had become a storm of shouts, panic, flashing cameras.
Dex took another step. Broken glass glinted in his fist like jagged teeth.
"You're upstairs when I say. Locked. Silent. Mine." He thrust the bottle neck toward her face. "You come down here, parade yourself like some desperate whore—think that's allowed?"
Two steps.
Lila's knees buckled. "I just… wanted air—"
"Air?" he bellowed. "You get whatever air I decide to pump through the goddamn vent!"
He lunged.
His free hand clamped around her throat.
Squeezed.
Her strangled gasp cut straight through me. Hands scrabbled at his wrist; nails drew blood. The lace robe slid off one shoulder, exposing a map of bruises—fresh purple, yellowing green, old faded shadows—like violent constellations across her pale skin.
The crowd detonated.
"STOP HIM!"
"SOMEONE HELP HER!"
"HE'S CHOKING HER—OH MY GOD!"
Dex's face was inches from hers, veins bulging at his temples, spit flecking her cheeks with every word. His breath steamed in the blast of cold AC. "You breathe when I say. You dance when I say. You fucking exist when I say."
Lila's eyes bulged, red threads bursting across the whites. Tears spilled in thick rivulets, cutting clean tracks through the sweat and smeared makeup. A thin, reedy sound escaped her crushed throat. "You're… hurting me…"
"Good." He shook her like a rag doll, her head snapping back and forth, blonde hair whipping across her face. "Maybe pain finally teaches you to stay the fuck put."
Her toes scraped desperately along the balcony floor, searching for leverage that wasn't there. They curled over the edge, heels lifting, body teetering on the brink.
Fifteen feet of empty air below her.
"You wanna test me, princess?" he snarled. "Let's show everyone how far you fall when you forget who owns you."
Her mouth gaped. Nothing came out but a wet, whistling wheeze.
Ten feet.
He let go of her throat—just long enough for one desperate, gasping inhale—then slammed both palms into the center of her chest.
"LILA!"
The shove was explosive.
Her body snapped backward over the balustrade like a bow drawn for war. The white lace robe burst open, seams ripping with sharp pops, fabric tearing away from her shoulders. Her spine arched impossibly, vertebrae cracking in a rapid-fire staccato that echoed over the screams below.
The robe caught the updraft, billowing like a failed parachute, exposing the savage topography of bruises across her ribs—fresh plum-purple blooms, older yellow-green shadows, fingerprint-shaped welts that told stories no one in the crowd had wanted to read until now.
Her blonde hair exploded outward in a wild corona, lashed by the strobing red LEDs. One thick strand snagged on the railing, ripping free from her scalp with a sickening wet pop. Tiny beads of blood hung suspended for a heartbeat before pattering down like red rain.
The scream that tore out of her was animal—raw, guttural, a sound scraped from the bottom of her soul. It warped as she plummeted, stretching into a banshee wail that punched the air from every lung below.
The broken Cristal bottle spun from Dex's hand, champagne spiraling in glittering ribbons. It tumbled end over end, label flashing, until the jagged neck struck the railing and sheared clean.
The razor crescent whirled downward, catching red-white-red in the strobes like a falling star made of glass and malice.
Lila's body flipped once. Arms pinwheeled, fingers clawing empty air. Her left hand smashed into the chandelier—crystal detonated in a deafening crash, thousands of shards erupting outward like lethal diamonds.
One dagger-sharp piece carved across her cheek, splitting skin from temple to jaw in a bright red smile. Blood jetted in a perfect arc, droplets suspended in the lights like rubies.
The robe tangled around her thighs, lace shredding further, baring more of the brutal mosaic of old and new damage.
Her right knee clipped the edge of the lower balcony with a wet, grinding crunch—ligaments snapping, joint hyperextending backward in a way no joint should ever bend. She spun again, slower now, the scream gurgling into a choked, bloody cough as crimson filled her mouth and spilled over her lips.
My brain ran cold calculations in that frozen second: thirty-two feet to unforgiving Carrara marble. Headfirst. Skull fracture. Cervical snap. Instant.
The crowd below became a single, horrified organism—mouths stretched in silent screams, bodies rooted, someone retching violently onto the floor. Ava's nails sank through my sleeve into flesh, drawing hot lines of blood. Her eyes, wide and suddenly stone-sober, fixed on the falling girl.
A phone slipped from someone's hand, tumbling in eerie parallel with Lila, screen still flashing RECORDING in futile red.
Her body finished its last, lazy rotation. Hair fanned out like a broken halo. Those ice-blue eyes found mine across the void—pupils blown wide, tears streaming sideways across her temples.
Her blood-slick lips moved. No sound reached me, but I read it clear as day:
Eros.
Then gravity took her completely.
I moved.