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Footsteps scrape on the stones behind me, and I glance over my shoulder in time to see Rory moments before he sits down beside me, arranging his legs over the edge of the bridge. Within seconds, Phoenix is on my other side, doing the same as he presses the length of his body to mine.
“We thought you ran away,” Rory informs me, leaning his shoulder against mine. “We almost went to your house to check on you. But then we heard someone talking about the crazy girl hiking to the bridge.”
“Figured the crazy girl had to be you,” Phoenix murmurs in explanation. “Are you okay?”
I scrape my nails against the stone under me, not sure how to answer just yet. “Two days ago, I killed someone for you.” I sigh, tapping my heels on the rock making up the side of the column I’m perched over. “To be clear, I don’t regret it. I don’t even really feel bad.” I look at both of them, catching their eyes while I say it so they know it’s not just a bunch of words meant to make them feel better.
“But things feel different. How do I go back to being best friends with the sheriff’s daughter after this? How do I look at them when they talk about how those five never deserved to die like that?” I scratch again over the stone, and wince when my nail protests. Thankfully, I stop before it splits, though I do examine my nails to make sure they’re unscathed.
“You fake it,” Rory replies. “You know, I’m sure we could come back here for a while. We could take a semester off, or—”
“Or you could do what you should’ve done years ago,” Phoenix smoothly interrupts on my right. He doesn’t continue until I tilt my head up to look at him, and even then his answer is just a raise of his brows, leaving me to work it out.
“You think I should leave Hollow Bridge.” The words feel strange when I say them out loud. As if it’s the natural conclusion of things. “You want me to run away.”
“What’s still here for you, Bailey?” he demands, voice persistent. “You can always come home to visit your parents. But I know you want to finish your degree, and you can’t do that here. Not how you want to. You could leave, like you wanted to when you were younger.”
“And it’s not like we’re totally running away,” Rory adds helpfully from my other side. “It’s not like we’re going far. You could come back to visit whenever you want, like he said. Just, you know, maybe let all of this die down first. Your parentsloveus, too. They’d so support you coming to live with us.”
“Coming to live with you?” I parrot; swiveling to look at him instead. “You barely know me. I could be a shitty roommate!”
“Probably not as shitty as me,” Rory replies sweetly. “And I don’t need to know you longer. That’s the cool part about having a fucked up brain, you know? I’m decisive. I knew the first time I laid eyes on Phoenix he was going to be mine. No matter what I had to do to convince him. It wasn’t that hard, in case you were wondering. He’s a romantic.” He flashes Phoenix a grin, the latter rolling his eyes. “But it was the same for you. I knew I wanted you when I saw you in the woods, standing over a dead bird like you wanted to play with it. How could Inot? And how can’t you see this town wasn’t made for you? There’s another big perk to coming with us, you know.”
“Not going to jail? Not being alone?” I offer, letting him drag me closer with a hand in my hoodie.
“Well, yeah,” Rory chuckles, but then leans forward so he can whisper loudly in my ear so Phoenix can hear as well. “Come with us, because we’ll let you play with all the dead things you could ever want.”
The shiver that trails up my spine should be one of fear, or at the very least I should be creeped out. But instead, I’m excited.
“What if you get caught? Or if I don’t want to kill people anymore?” I ask, needing the answers to those questions. “What if you decide you don’t want me around anymore?”
“What if the sky falls?” Phoenix breathes, pressing his face to my neck. “What if I tumble off this bridge? He’s good at controlling himself, and he’s right. There won’t come a day when we don’t want you around. Even if you’re a shitty roommate.” His hand loops around my waist, and Rory does the same, his long fingers twining around my throat so they can hold me between them.
“Come with us,” Phoenix urges once more.
“Staywith us,” Rory adds. “Where you belong.”
“And be more appreciated than you are here.”
They fall silent after that, and I let my fingers wander over Rory’s fingers, over Phoenix’s hands, until I can reach out for the two of them and pull them closer, the same way they normally do for me. But this time it’s my fingers at their throats, gripping them lightly, like they’remineand always have been.
“Yes,” I whisper, looking at one, then the other. “If you really want me to. If you’re really sure—”
“Until the sky falls, until we die, and then again when we reunite in hell,” Rory chuckles, pushing his face to mine and also letting me more firmly grip his throat.
“That’s morbid,” I point out, feeling Phoenix’s lips and teeth at my shoulder, even through my hoodie when he lightly bites down.
“It’s not morbid,” he laughs lightly, his smile sharp against me. “It’s romantic as hell.”
“Then if it’s romantic as hell, he gets to tell my parents,” I tell them both, marveling at the feeling of holding them here, against me, with my hands on their soft, warm skin. “Because they’re going to have questions, and none of the answers can evenmentionthe word murder.” But the smile fighting for life curves my lips upward, and before either of them can reply I’m dragging them both in for a kiss. Any thoughts of guilt or what I’d be leaving behind flit away on the wind that blows my hood back and stings my face in a way that makes me feel so damned alive, that there’s no doubt this, at least, is not a dream.
And if it is, it’s not one I’ll ever willingly wake from.
