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“You and me both, Reaper.” He smirks. I fucking hate that word in every sense, except when it falls from his lips.
“Areyouokay?” I ask, hoping to distract him, but he cocks a brow at me and waits some more.
Attempting to organize the mess inside my head is futile, so I opt to just blurt it all out since he wants to hear it so much. “I’m hurting. Duffer is dead, likedeaddead, and I’ve never felt sad about anything like I do about this. I’m fucking furious that Declan was out here looking for me, and mad that he got a rise out of you. But most of all, I’m obsessed with you, but I'm scared to move or fucking breathe because I don’t want to trigger you and risk you pulling away. You’re making me fall, Axel. Hard. I don’t care if it’s never mutual, if this is all it can ever be, but I can’t deny that you mean more to me than I ever thought would be possible since you’ve been a major asshole to me from day one.”
His eyes widen with every word, his nostrils flaring, but it doesn’t feel like anger. “We’ll figure this shit out in the order you just spewed it,” he murmurs, and I roll my eyes. He knows he’s leaving me on the edge, unsure of what else is to come for us, but I still hold on for dear life as he sweeps his fucking thumb over my skin again. “Let’s start with Duffer,” he offers, and I gulp, squeezing my eyes shut for a brief moment as I try to focus on his words and not his proximity.
When I’m sure I’m not going to leap at him, I open my eyes again, finding the determination I had before I stepped out of my room. “I want to see him.”
FIVE
Scarlett
Numbness coatsevery fiber of my being as I stare at Duffer, or as my younger self remembers him, Dylan. The second I laid eyes on him here, it came rushing back to me. His skin’s already graying as blood blotches taint it.
Dead.
Four letters making up a single word that is such a part of life, especially mine, but for the first time, it stings like a bitch. The closest I’ve ever come to hurting like this was with his mom, but I was too young, too confused, and this is entirely different. She took her life, but this… Duffer was shot.
I can feel Axel’s eyes on me from the corner of the storage room, which is tucked away at the back of the compound, where they’ve kept him in a huge fridge. Since when was it even there? Now, he’s lying across a decorating table like it’s fucking normal or something.
“What will happen with him?” I ask, not tearing my eyes from him.
Axel takes a step forward. “He should be gone already, Scar. It’s the Ruthless Brothers’ way, but something told me you needed to see him first.”
My gaze flicks to his, and I struggle to find the words to explain how important that was for me. “So what does that mean for him?”
Axel rubs the back of his neck as he replies, “We get rid of the body.”
My gut knew that was what he was going to say, but I wasn’t ready for it, not at all. My chest clenches with irritation. “He deserves more than that.”
“I know.” His words are gentle, probably the softest I’ve ever heard from his lips.
I turn to face him, nostrils flaring as tears threaten the back of my eyelids. “He can’t die in vain, Axel. He can’t.”
“And he won’t, Scarlett. I swear it.”
But he’s still going to get rid of the body, just like they always do, and it doesn’t sit well in my stomach. “I want to bury him.”
He shakes his head, his gaze downcast.
“That’s not the—”
“I don’t give a shit whose way it is or isn’t. You can’t just get rid of him like that, he can’t just be forgotten.”
“He wouldn’t, Scar, he—”
“That man died for me.” I point a finger at Duffer's body, my chest squeezing so tight I can barely spit out the words. “He died for me, for Emily, for this fucking club. I. Want. Him. Buried.” My breaths come in short, sharp bursts as I try to keep my emotions in check, but it’s pointless.
“Scar,” he breathes, taking another step toward me, and I know he’s trying to let me down gently. “That’s not possible. Not without the risk of him being found.”
Dragging my fingers through my hair, I want to scream, but the second my fingers lock around my loose ends, it comes to me. “I have a spot.”
“It’s not—”
“I. Have. A. Spot. Axel,” I interrupt, a bite to my tone. It’s not aimed at him, and the gentleness in his eyes tells me he knows that too, but it still leaves an essence of guilt inside me. Yet I can’t find the words to apologize, not until I get what I want like a spoiled princess, but I don’t care. This is important to me. Duffer—Dylan—was important to me.
Axel gapes at me, trying to find the words to talk me down, but it’s settled in my mind now, there’s no turning away from it. With resolution in my veins, I exhale hard, a calmness clinging to me as I turn to look back at Duffer.
