Page 49 of Pucked Around and Found Out

Call Carnage.

Simple. One tap. One call.

I stand there for another ten seconds not doing it, because the second I do, the night becomes real. The beach conversation becomes something that happened and not something I'm still suspended inside of, some horrible ember holding me in place while I try to figure out how to breathe around the weight of it.

He told me to get rid of our baby.

I press dial before I can think about it again.

It rings once.

“Tor.” His voice is low and immediate, like he's been sitting there waiting, which he probably has because that is the particular torture of having Carnage De Santis as your closest friend. He never goes far. Even when you tell him to. Even when you beg him.

“I need you.” My voice comes out smaller than I want it to.

A pause. Short enough that someone who didn't know him wouldn't catch it.

“Where are you?”

“Parking lot off the coastal road. The one near—” I swallow. “The beach.”

Another pause. Longer this time.

“I know it.” His tone tells me he knows exactly which beach. That he knows who took me there and why. "Give me ten minutes.”

“Carn, he told me to get rid of the baby⁠—”

“Ten minutes, darlin'. Don't move.”

He hangs up before I can argue.

I stand very still and count the stars instead of thinking about the look on Xaden's face when his hand grazed my stomach and the whole thing broke apart. The way he jerked back like I'd burned him. Like the baby was something that could hurt him just by existing.

Maybe it can.

Maybe that's the only power I have left.

I hear him before I see him.

Not Carnage.

Xaden.

The sound of footsteps on tarmac, unhurried, deliberate, the particular cadence of a man who has never once rushed toward anything because the world has always been willing to wait for him. I close my eyes for exactly one second, then turn around.

He's standing at the edge of the lot where the road meets the concrete, hands in his pockets, gray eyes cutting through the dark like they don't need the light at all. His Stormsend Ravens hoodie I didn’t know he had with him is damp at the hem from the ocean. His hair is still wet. He looks devastating, furious and something else underneath both of those things that he will never once in his life admit to out loud.

“You're still here,” I say.

“So are you.”

I hold his gaze and refuse to be the first to look away. “I'm waiting for my ride.”

“Your ride.” The two words come out dipped in something cold. “Carnage.”

“Don't.” The warning in my voice surprises even me. “Don't say his name like it's something you're allowed to be angry about.”

His jaw locks. I watch the muscle jump beneath his skin.