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River’s fingers rake her hair to the top of her head. “It’s only affected her so far. We don’t know why, but we know it’s just on her. Halen has said that it will only affect her. We’ve helped her how we could over the years, but if she stops, they start back again.”
I shake my head. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Stella blinks at me from the side. “Why are all three of you so damn quiet?” Anger ripples over her face. “You think ourparents could just change history? Change generational damage because they could? No.”
They’re not making a shit lot of sense right now.
“And… You all didn’t think to tell us this from the fucking start?” The tires kick up dust when we stop and has barely settled before the door swings open. The soles of Priest’s Jordans fly over loose stones until I’m at the edge. Tracing the man-made steps that lead down the cliff face and to the bottom that’s only sandy at low tide, I find her.
“Halen!”
Her arms fan out, and she falls.
Halen
Drowning pain wasn’t enough.
You had to burn it first, and the easiest way to turn anything to ash, was to love it.
Flames flicker around my lungs with every inhale. The pain was unbearable. I knew I shouldn’t have let it in, and now I was fucked. I had to bathe in it to exist.
This would be my final attempt.
My final attempt at scrubbing my own memories of every goddamn thing they had not only put me through, but everyone else around me. I couldn’t fix this. I knew that now.
My lips parted as I counted the people on the field below. I was about to die on hell’s doorstep, and I couldn’t be happier.
I stopped counting after ten, my fingertips grazing the cuff of my bracelet. It was a gift. I still remember the day he gave it to me. Back then, it meant everything to get something from him.
Past
“Here.” He tossed the box onto my lap when I wouldn’t stop swirling around his computer chair. They hadn’t been back long from their trip to Perdita, but he had come back… weird this time.
“What’s this?” I asked, eyes wide on him. Priest and Vaden weren’t here yet and since River was once again late, I came to annoy War.
His shoulders lifted when he shrugged. “It’s your thirteenth birthday in a couple days.” He swallowed, his eyes glassing over as if remembering something he didn’t want to. They’d been through a lot already. It was probably something to do with training—
My eyes fell to the bruise on his neck, and my stomach tightened as if he had reached inside of me and squeezed with his bare hands.
He may as well have.
I guessed he’d had sex now. You didn’t get a hickey like that by just making out.
Whoever the fuck she was, I hoped her teeth fell out.
I collected myself, swiping the heartbreak from my face before he could notice, but when my eyes collided with his, I knew it was too late. His face had turned to stone, his jaw tight and eyes hard on mine.
“Open the gift, Halen,okay?” It was a plea. A desperate attempt at shutting me out so we didn’t have to have the conversation that we both had ignored since we were old enough to realize.
I wanted to say something, but the words were stuck in my throat.
Envy bloomed beneath my skin like liquid heat.
I knew my cheeks were red, but I didn’t care. Suddenly, I didn’t care if he wanted to ignore it. He and I had never so much as flirted. Never stepped out of line. But I knew that this wasn’tone-sided. That he felt what I did just as much as I did because it couldn’t just be me.
“Halen…” he groaned. It was supposed to come out as a warning, but instead it hit every trigger I had kept hidden inside of me and triggered the sparks that flew across my skin. How could we not say a single word, but both of us knew exactly what the other was thinking?
Fate was a fucking bitch. No doubt he’d fuck her too.
