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I gotup from my desk for the fifth time in as many minutes, running a palm over my face as I circled my room.
It had been almost twenty-four hours since Ava Jade walked away from us at the Docks and still it felt wrong being back here. Here without her.
Her, alone, wherever she was. With her stalker possibly still out there.
Maybe I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. Even after everything. After she protected the friend that betrayed her and could’ve gotten us killed. Even after finding out that she was talking to a cop. Not just talking to him, but seriously considering ratting us out.
It didn’t matter that Colin wasn’t a real cop. She thought he was and that was enough.
It hurt.
It hurt more than I thought I could hurt anymore. This was why I didn’t form attachments. The reason none of us did outside of the family.
You get attached, you get burned.
And I knew from firsthand experience that those scars never fully healed.
I shouldn’t care. But I do.
I still wanted her, and even though there was a loud voice shouting in my head that she could no longer be trusted, there was another voice. One that whispered how badly we’d hurt her, too.
The voice insisted I consider what she had to go through in the last forty-eight hours and view the situation through that lens. Through her eyes.
If she could forgive us, could I forgive her?
It didn’t help that I’d barely slept more than a few hours since we got home, if you could call passing out head down at my desk sleeping. My rest-deprived brain throbbed with too many unknowns. I pulled at my hair, and the pain grounded me.
Blond threads drifted down to the carpet when I let go, and I inhaled deeply as I watched them fall, remembering a time when I was so malnourished you could count each one of my ribs without even needing to remove my shirt.
How my hair had begun to fall out in clumps near the end, when I was close to death. Too stupid to leave the house and get help. Naively convinced that if I just kept waiting, my mom would come home.
I growled before sweeping the contents of my desk onto the floor, breathing hard.
A sharp pain bloomed on my arm as I pressed my palms to my eyes, trying to gain control. Liquid dripped down to my elbow and I found a thumbtack jutting out of my biceps, a little pinhead of green.
Rolling my eyes, I ripped it out and went to find a paper towel to clean the damn mess.
I sat on the floor when I was finished, the room reeking of stain remover. That was when I noticed the little flick of black nail polish on the side of the spray bottle and sagged.
I needed to talk to her.
But if I were being honest, I knew the real reason I was about to march my ass down to Briar Hall. Because I still felt a keen sense of responsibility for her safety. Or maybe that wasn’t the right way to describe it. It wasn’t responsibility. It was worry.
She was exhausted at the Docks. It was written all over her face. What if she went back to Briar Hall and took a nap. What if, tired as she was, she didn’t hear it when someone broke in. Was too out of it to stop the stalker when he tried to inject her again.
What if…
Fuck it. I was going. Now.
I stood, and as I tossed the spray bottle and wad of paper towels onto my barren desk I noticed Corvus from my bedroom window overlooking the drive. He was wheeling his motorcycle out of the garage, looking down the road like it might grow teeth and bite him.
I leaned over my desk and hammered the side of my fist on the glass until he turned, looking up. I held up a hand, shouting at him to wait through the glass.
It took me all of two minutes to throw a clean shirt and deodorant on before I was outside.
“You going to see her?” I asked as I shut the door behind me.
His hands tightened on the handlebars as he threw a leg over the seat.
