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Alyssa’s the last thing on my mind right now.
“I want to speak to Roslyn. Not you.”
I try to look around him, but he steps into my path.
“She’s going to come out. Reese is barely holding himself back. Try not to accidentally kill the girl’s father,” he says dryly.
“I can fucking take him,” Reese snarls from inside, to which both Dray and I roll our eyes.
“Roslyn,” Dray calls, acting like he fucking knows her when he doesn’t.
He moves out of the way just as Roslyn walks out with her head down and her arms crossed over her chest. Instinctively, I move to walk toward her, but stop short of the porch when I realize I can’t go any farther without getting knocked back.
Dray stands at my side like a fucking chaperone, and I turn to glare at him.
After clearing his throat, he says, “Right. So, I’ll just go back in.”
My eyes move back to Roslyn, and my chest tightens when I see her tear-streaked face. She won’t even look at me.
“Can we talk?” I ask her, uncertain how to apologize for almost killing her mother.
They don’t make handbooks for shit like this.
“Talk,” she whispers, her voice scratchy and raw and slicing me to the core.
“Will you come farther out here so we can have some privacy?”
“You mean so you can try to do to me what you did to her?” she asks bitterly, still not looking at me.
Yeah, that fucking hurts.
“Roslyn, I would never—”
“You would, Thad. I know that now. I guess I was still trying to forget the truth, but now I see it. I understand why Slade wants me dead so badly.”
Her broken whisper is killing me, and I take another step closer, pushing my limits. I know I’ll be hit with power if I even move an inch forward now. Even though only three feet separates us, she feels miles away from me right now.
“Roslyn, I fucked up. I didn’t know Sadie’s motives, and in my defense, all signs pointed to her being involved or running this new threat we have. I—”
“My mother never had a choice, Thad. She did what she was told,” she interrupts. “Her life was twisted, considering her bitch mother, but she sacrificed everything to keep me safe. And she sacrificed even more to free everyone else from the hell I lived in for two years.”
I’d freaking love to have Alyssa here to help me out with the right words right now. Or Frankie.
“I repeat: I fucked up. I didn’t want to risk you—”
When she glares at me, I shut the hell up before saying something as stupid as “I tortured and was about to kill your mother for you.”
The fury in her eyes ebbs, and pain fills them again as she looks away. Slowly, she takes a step off the porch, and I take a step back as she puts one foot in front of the other until she’s right in front of me.
“I was worse,” she whispers, confusing the hell out of me.
Fire shoots through my veins when she takes my hand, and I almost pull her to me, until she puts my hand on her throat, forcing me to squeeze it a little.
“So punish me,” she adds, her watery, guilt-ridden eyes meeting mine. “If you want to kill a monster, then here I am.”
I jerk my hand away, looking at her like she’s lost her fucking mind. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting her to do that.
With both hands, she shoves my chest, and tears start falling harder from her eyes when she yells at me.
