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CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

RHENN

After everything, I was wrong. Things were never meant to work for me and her. She sees me as an evil asshole. It’s all I’ve ever been. The monster in her story. Maybe we were always better off as enemies.

That’s the only way we work.

It’s selfish of me to try working things out anyway. I heard the Reaper loud and clear. If Sumner escaped his nightmares, she would be mine to waste. Bad blood aside, I can’t be responsible for that. I can’t be the one to do it. I may not be whole now, but that’s something I could never come back from.

If she escaped. If. It was never a matter of if, because she couldn’t have escaped him. No one does, but Sumner, she did. Fucking how?

Maybe it’s better I don’t know. I can’t imagine what she went through to get out. What it was like trapped in his darkness.

No. Sumner and I can’t be friends. We can’t be anything, because being human, being associated with me, it nearly got her killed. How could I have been so fucking stupid letting her live with me when I knew damn well who would seek her out if he knew she was here.

She’s safe, for now, as long as my uncle keeps his word. Still, I can’t see her anymore. I shouldn’t be around her. She doesn’t want me anyway.

I shouldn’t have even come into the diner at all. But you know, bad decisions and all.

Now, if I could just get out of here before she comes back.

Aaannnd…

“Fries for dipshit.” Sumner slides the plate to Ashen, who ignores her comment and goes straight for the food. “Iceberry shake.” It hits the table with a clang. Saying nothing more, she sets down one final item. A second shake that finds its place directly in front of me.

“I didn’t order this,” I tell her, looking up to meet her eyes.

“Truce?” she asks. I look at the cup, confused by the gesture, then glance back at her. She smiles and it’s like air. The very breath I’d been gasping for. It fills my lungs and calms the hurricane inside me. Sumner is an entire ray of light and I am fucking putty for her.

How had I been so blind to it?

“Someone seems to have forgotten how little he cares,” Moxin mutters, sipping on her drink.

“Nah”—Ashen bumps me with his shoulder—“he loves gifts from pretty girls, don’t ya, buddy?”

The shove isn’t one I was ready for, and the cup I had just taken in my hand tips, pouring down the leg of Sumner’s pants. She lets out a gasp, stepping back.

It was an accident. I…I didn’t mean to. Fuck, is someone laughing? Why can’t I do anything besides stare at her? Stand up. Get her a napkin. Help her, jackass!

Sumner breathes in deeply, straightens her posture, then walks calmly back to the kitchen. My eyes stay on her until she is out of sight. Even then, I watch the place she disappeared through.

“Shit. Sorry, man.” Ashen grabs a wad of napkins from the table, dropping them on the ground to cover the spill. “That was my bad,” he calls after Sumner, though, I doubt she heard it from behind the swinging door.

That was it, my last chance. Fucking gone. And I did nothing…

Only moments pass before she steps into view again, followed by Liya, distress painted across her coworker’s features.

“Wait,” she pleads. “You don’t need to leave.”

Sumner turns toward my direction, but it isn’t me she looks at. I follow her gaze to Ashen, who watches her as I had been. Something passes between them. A silent understanding. Something only they know.

Before I can fixate on whatever it is, Sumner changes her focus back to in front of her. “I’m sorry, Liy. I quit.” Without a second glance to me or anyone else, she pushes through the door.

Her friend shoots me an angry look, and Moxin scoops one of Ashen’s fries into her mouth. “Jeez. Dramatic much?”

My fingers curl beneath the table, so many emotions I don’t understand crashing into each other. I can’t make sense of them.

I want to go back, to fix everything, but it’s like trying to hold onto smoke.