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I look up, down, anywhere that’s away from him. “Please don’t.” My voice is a broken husk.
“Admit it.”
“I can’t.” I try so hard to swallow back the lump of tears growing in my throat. “Not now.”
“Fucking hell, you are a coward.”
“And you don’t understand how much I’ve lost already!” I cry. “How can I risk losing more?”
“So you’re choosing your sister over me?” He doesn’t blink when he asks. His face is stiff with that same stoic calm, but I can still hear the hint of emotion thick in his words.
“I’ve already lost you,” I whisper, a sob escaping my lips.
He turns back to the road. The silence is long and heavy. “You’re the one walking away,” he mutters. “Just because you pretend it didn’t happen doesn’t erase the fact that it did. You can tell yourself that you don’t love me, but we both know you do. Just like nothing will change the fact that you’re mine still, Taylor. You will always be mine.”
I open my mouth to argue, but instead, all that comes out is a heart-rending sob.
I scramble out of the car and slam the door. I run a few paces before my legs give out and I’m collapsed on my hands and knees in the dirt while tears turn the world into pixelated diamonds.
It’s impossible to blink them away. They just keep coming, and falling, and blinding me.
Get your shit together,I demand of myself.Mom…help me.
But I don’t feel an instant burst of strength or courage. I don’t even feel Mom’s presence around me. All I feel is alone, caught between when I want and what I know I have to do.
The question is…which one is which?
Hell if I know. So I let out the scream I’ve been holding in since that damned phone call.
When my throat is raw, I feel Ilarion approach from behind me. I hate how so much of me is comforted by his closeness. I’m not allowed to feel that. Not from him. Not anymore.
Not ever, whispers the guilt in my mind.
I scream again. And again. Until, eventually, I’m all screamed-out. The tears have ebbed enough to let me see straight. I stand up and turn around to face him. The skies hang above us, dark and dense, promising thunder and lightning, but no rain.
The rain has only ever been good luck for us.
That’s how I know there won’t be any.
72
ILARION
The sudden shift in her demeanor is alarming. She blinks at me as if there aren’t any tears still glistening in her eyes or smeared down her face. She talks as if I can’t hear the rough aftermath of her gut-wrenching screams and wracking sobs.
As if I didn’t just watch her fall the fuck apart.
My god, what I’ll do to never witness that again.
But if there’s one thing Taylor is always consistent with, it’s being a glutton for inflicting pain and torment on herself. Which is how I know the answer before I even ask the question.
“I assume you have a plan?”
She sniffs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “Yes. But you’re not going to like it.”
“No shit.”
She tenses but stands her ground. “It’s the only way.”
