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There wasno way in hell I was going to watch her walk away from us a second time. The pit in the bottom of my stomach clenched tight, walling in the darkness growing like an electromagnetic fog there. Like fucking poison.
“Rook?” Grey asked cautiously, sensing the presence of the monster within.
I turned to meet his stare and shook my head.
No.
I wasn’t going to let her go. How could he? How could Corvus?
A muscle twitched above my lip, and I clenched my teeth, shouldering past Diesel.
“Son,” he called after me, but I was done listening. My brothers liked to joke that whatever internal meter that read what was wrong and right in my head was broken, but they were wrong. Maybe it was their meters that were broken, because letting her leave felt like the most wrong thing on the fucking planet.
Sure, she was talking to a cop. Or at least, she’d thought she was, but she didn’t tell him anything. And I knew that she never would’ve. No matter what. Didn’t they know that, too?
Wasn’t it us who backed her into the fucking corner?
This wasn’t something she wanted to do. It was something she felt like she had to do. Probably because of what happened to her father.
It didn’t mean I wasn’t angry with her, of course I was, but I was willing to bet she was ten times more pissed at us.
I rounded the corner of the old pier warehouse and followed her. She was already a solid fifty paces ahead of me, but by the slight tensing of her shoulders, I knew she was fully aware someone was following her.
In fact, I was willing to bet she already pegged it was me.
Just like I could peg any singular sound at the Crow’s Nest as either her or not her. The soft sure sound of her stealth silent footfalls. The way she opened cupboards, whip-quick like she expected to find a monster behind the panes of wood. Her soft sighing sounds in the shower, like she’d never had a proper one before in her life.
Ava Jade paused by where the Rover was parked looking out over the lake, but then continued, leaving it there. Her hands clenched at her sides as she started up the road, but she forced them to unclench, splaying her fingers wide. Forcing herself not to give in to what she was feeling inside.
I knew what that was like. Better than anyone.
“Ghost,” I called to her, but she didn’t stop, forcing me to hustle to catch up with her. She didn’t bother acknowledging me when I slowed to walk alongside her, pushing my dark hair away from my face.
Her face, usually so composed, betrayed a raging hurricane of pent up emotions. Pinched, her eyes hard and jaw muscles working.
I opened my mouth to begin, but something made me pause.
She wasn’t ready.
I swallowed deep and turned my attention back to the winding side road ahead, keeping pace with her. I didn’t say anything, we just walked like that for a time. She didn’t tell me to fuck off, and I was taking that as a good sign, it kept me going.
That and the intermittent glint of sunlight on the black diamond bobbing against her clavicle. She hadn’t taken it off.
The dead thing in my chest squeezed, almost painful. The best kind of pain.
“I should’ve left Thorn Valley when I had the chance.”
Her voice sent a shudder racing down my spine. So hopeless. I never wanted to hear it sound like that again. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Was it really all bullshit?” she asked in a low voice, ignoring my question, biting her lower lip as she stared at the ground disappearing beneath our feet. “Was any of it real?”
“Hey.” I pulled her to a stop, and she let me, her cut glass eyes finding mine for only a fraction of a second before she looked away, disgust twisting her mouth. “I could ask you the same fucking thing. Talking to a cop…?”
“He wasn’t even a fucking cop,” she spat back.
“But you thought he was, didn’t you?”
She growled, tugging away from me but staying stationary. She wanted to have this out just as badly as I did, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
