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This is real.
“Fuck. Halen!” Stella screams at me, falling to her ass and swiping the tears from her eyes. “Goddammit.”
“I’m sorry, Stells.” I rest my hand on her arm.
The misfire of her sob has her exhaling loudly. “It’s not your fault.” She collects herself. “It’s okay.”
Except it isn’t.
War’s arms slip beneath my thighs as he scoops me up from the sand and cradles me against his chest.
He carries me up the steps against the cliff that lead back to the top. “You need to explain everything, Halen. To all of us. I mean it.” His eyes come to mine.
My hand catches the back of his neck. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“And with everything else going on between us all, you couldn’t find a better way to tell us?”
Saliva burns my throat when I swallow. “I know. The EKC comes first. I know.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he growls, and I know he’s fighting with himself. He wants to yell at me. “I mean, you’ve been dealing with this on top of that.”
“Oh.” I blink, as we finally get to the top.
I tap at his neck to let me down, but his eyes snap to mine with a harsh snarl.
My eyes roll.
His arm tenses around me. “Roll your eyes like that again, Halen, and I’ll toss you off this cliff myself. This time leaving you there to fucking drown just to teach you a lesson.”
We reach the car and he holds me with one arm while using the other to open the door. He slides me inside as Priest shuffles out of his hoodie and throws it to my lap. As soon as I’m nestled in warmth, I sigh.
“The girls filled us in on a little, but not all.” Priest leans forward, just enough that I can feel him close. His eyes soften around the edges for a moment. That one percent that still exists inside of him is the only reason why he isn’t locked up in a padded room. “We need to know everything, and you need to talk right now.”
My throat crackles when I try to clear it as Stella hands me a bottle of water, her thigh pressing against mine. I relax knowing she and River are close.
A sip just enough to coat my voice, before holding the plastic in my hand. There are moments that happen in your life that you’re met with one of two options. Kind of like a crossroads. If you take one side, the road is bumpy, and you’ll get lost. You may even get a little scared when you can’t see around the tight bends. There’ll be times where you’ll want to turn around and wish you took the other way, but when you look around, you have the most important people in your life beside you.
Then there’s the other. A narrow, flat road with no bumps or hurdles. You’ll reach your destination quicker because the surface is smooth and straight. There are no sharp corners to fear, wondering what you’ll find on the other side, because everything is out in the open. But when you look beside yourself, not everyone will be there.
Because they’d be dead.
I’d decided what road I chose.
“It started when I was fourteen. I remember waking up in a place I don’t remember going to.” Arms snake around my belly. “I came to in a field. I don’t remember how I got there, just that I was—”
“You were with me,” War says gently. “We were at the chapel in the town center. We were all talking, and you were tired, so you went to the bench to chill. None of us thought it was weird since you had started pulling away a lot.”
A smile touches my mouth, but I don’t want it there. I want to carve it off my face and throw it away. “I remember turning around and War was standing on the other side, staring at me. He was mad. I don’t know why. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“So you just black out?” Vaden asks with a curved brow. “Thiscursemakes you black out?” He’s staring back at me with an empty void, one I’d never seen on him before. Speaking of changing…
I shake my head. “Not so simply. I guess I get sleepy, and then I see figments in my mind.”
“What are you trying to say?” Priest leans back in his chair. “That you’re hallucinating?”
If only.
Forcing away my tears, the muscles in my body tense when everything closes in around me.
