Page 13 of Fractured Memories

But one word can give us away even if our faces are covered. And Lochlan, more than Rohan and I, is shite at hiding it. It’s on full display right now.

“You should have been there, Ro!” he continues, sounding far too excited. “They were scurrying like little bugs. I’ve never had so much fun picking off the pricks⁠—”

He freezes as I turn around, dark blue eyes going wide. “What the fuck are you doing here, Kier?” He stalks closer, and I spot blood smeared in his blond curls and down the side of his face. I’m sure he had the time of his life down there. “Where’s Eden?”

My jaw works, and I swallow back the glass of whiskey I just poured. Instead of answering, I turn away to refill it.

Rohan takes the opportunity to cut in. “You’re going to have to wait on telling me what all I missed, Lo. Kieran was just about to explain why he’s in here instead of with his wife, and why he’s saying that Eden didn’t recognize him.”

Lochlan lets out a low whistle. “So she’s here?”

Oh, fuck it.

“She’s here,” I snap, finally tossing the glass. It shatters against the far wall, but that doesn’t ease the rage clawing beneath my skin. “She just doesn’t fucking want to be.”

I pick up the bottle. I’d rather drink myself into a stupor than keep admitting that. I can’t handle the way it feels like a blade is cutting through my fucking chest, ripping me apart from the inside.

Lochlan and Rohan laughed when they realized I had fallen in love. But it had been worth it. Eden was worth it. Only, now I’m drowning in shite I don’t want to feel, and the only person that could ever look at me and understand what was going on in my head without me having to fucking say it won’t be in the same room as me.

My life is fucked.

I thought it was when my dad died. I thought it was when my mother started training me to be her perfect little leader—and those were not lessons any child should endure. But no. What is sending me over the edge is knowing what it is like to have Eden and then lose her.

If this is my life, I don’t want it.

I’m really starting to empathize with Lochlan’s mom. I always thought she was selfish for abandoning him after his father died, but now I get it. If I can’t have Eden, I don’t want the air in my lungs.

But I’m never going to say that kind of shite out loud, so instead, I start trying to literally drown myself in whiskey.

“Woah.” Lochlan snatches the bottle from me and darts back as I swing at him. He knew it would be my reflex. “You need to tell us what happened.”

“Before you are too drunk to do so,” Rohan adds.

I snarl at them, but Lochlan dances back. He has that look in his eyes that tells me he’s about to piss me off. He’s just barely younger than Rohan and me, but he plays the little brother role so well.

“I’ll down the whole thing if you come at me again.” His eyes are challenging me to do it, too.

Rohan kicks out a chair. “Lochlan, sit your arse down, and quit provoking him.”

Lochlan hesitates, but he finally drops into the seat and tips the bottle back. I’d rather launch myself at him, lose myself in a brawl, than tell them the sordid story that has unfolded, but I suppose I owe them the truth.

I land in my own seat, running a hand over the scruff coating my jaw that is far thicker than I like. In the week it took me to find Eden, I didn’t shave. At first, I thought that was the source of her confusion, but it should have only taken a second for her to recover from it. The sound of my voice, the rest of my face, me calling her mo chuisle, should have been enough to clue her in to who I was.

But it didn’t.

“I saw Eden running,” I finally start, not liking the way my stomach immediately drops. Even with these two, I don’t know how to let my guard down like this, not really. “So I went after her while Lochlan and Jude handled the rest.”

“I got a few good kills, too.” Lochlan smirks. “Couldn’t get my hands on Parker or Damian, though. They’re probably regrouping in the woods.”

“Not the point,” Rohan hisses under his breath.

“She had a rock in her hand as a makeshift weapon.” A smile tugs at my lips, but it doesn’t ease the pain in my chest. “When she tried to fight me, I pulled my mask off so she could see it was me.”

“Kieran,” Rohan growls in warning.

I hold up a hand. “It was brief.” I swallow hard, itching to yank the bottle back from Lochlan. “But she just stared at me. I thought it was shock. I thought she’d finally crack some wise-arse remark and tell me she was ready to go home. But then she just swung at me.”

My fingers prod the sore spot on my jaw. I was unprepared for that second attack and didn’t move in time before she got me.