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I mumble, “I thought I saw…” My voice trails off. “Never mind.” I preserve the image in my mind. She looked happy and I’d like to believe that she was and that this was her way of telling me that she was finally at peace.
Jace holds me tighter to him.
I ask, “What’s going to happen now?” My eyes are roaming over the police sprawling over the area, and the medic that has Cam sitting in the back of the ambulance, a frantic Mia by his side. I don’t even have the strength to ask how she got here. My heart is in tatters and I stare at where my handcuffed father is laying in the ambulance, two policemen sitting right next to him to act as guards.
“There’ll be a trial,” comes Lucas’s voice.
Both me and Jace look over at where the lawyer is standing.
“He’ll try to plead insanity but I won’t let that happen. They’ll probably ask you to take the stand—”
“No!” I shake my head, my lips trembling. “I never want to see him again.” I can’t bear to see him again. It’s like my heart would burst with the agony of this betrayal that’s cutting so deep inside of me. I bury myself into Jace’s warmth, seeking comfort from the man who hasn’t left my side throughout. His scent is familiar and reassuring and it reminds me I’m not alone.
Lucas studies me. “I’ll try to arrange something.”
This whole situation seems unreal and my eyes move towards the second ambulance whose doors are closed. “They’re going to do an autopsy, aren’t they? On Mom and Jet.”
Jace nods, gripping me tighter as if he’s afraid I’ll scatter away like the leaves in Fall.
My heart is heavy, filled with the kind of grief that just leaves you exhausted, making you want to curl up somewhere and just be left alone forever.
But I know I can’t do that.
If I do, I’ll lose myself.
“Jet and Mom, they really loved each other. They were going to take me and run. Jet wanted to give me his last name.” The memories have been coming back in a steady stream and each one hits me like a punch in the gut.
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Jace is silent for a few minutes and then he forces me to look up at him, holding my chin. “If you want to leave, Halley, I’d understand. We can go somewhere far away that won’t hold any reminders of your past. You just have to say the word.”
I stare at him and I know he’ll do it. For me, he would walk away from the sister he’d just found and the friends who loved him.
And in that moment, I know.
I reach out to cup his face and pull it down towards me, pressing a kiss to his lips. “I love you.”
He stiffens at my words and then holds me closer as if he wants to sink into me, his lips loving and affectionate, tearing at my heart, trying to heal what he can, and I adore him for it.
When we part, I murmur, “I want to stay.” I look around me, before saying slowly, “I don’t ever want to come back to this town, but I’ll stay in DC. Mia and Cam are there. And Kendall, Elise, Lana, they’re all there. I don’t want to run.”
We watch the proceedings and feeling Jace’s arm around me, I know that maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday, I’ll be able to put this whole thing behind me. And he will be right here with me.
Love is like a balm on a wounded soul, and right now I need it the most. And I know that Jace will provide it. He’ll drag me out of my darkness bit by bit, teach me to trust again, show me how to be myself.
I hold his hand and he presses a kiss to my forehead, his eyes filled with tenderness and love.
And my lips curve, softly, a smile not completely whole, but willing to be healed.
Epilogue
Jace
“Halley, we’re going to be—What are you wearing?”
I stare at the woman I’m supposed to be marrying today.
Her dress is a stunning white, embedded with diamonds that Kendall assured me were fake while Caleb had just smirked in the background. But it’s not the dress that has me gaping at her—I did enough gaping last night when I stripped it off her after she’d modeled it for me—it’s the two blue things that are dangling from her ears.
