Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy #3)

Epilogue 2. Blade of Rage

I crouch behind the bushes and peer through the leaves, their shades of green vibrant in the morning sun that breaks through the canopy of oak and ash. The group huddles together at the edge of the rocky outcrop, taking turns with the binoculars. Lachlan and his wife, Lark. Fionn and Rose, now engaged. Rowan Kane. Sloane Sutherland, now a Kane too. I still hear her name the way Rowan called out for her the one and only time we met. Sloane. Sloane! His voice echoes in my mind in the desolate hours of night. One of the many nightmares that haunt the shadows of my room in corners where the light never seems to reach.

I glance down at the plaid shirt I’m wearing. Burnt orange. Navy blue. Buttercream squares crisscrossed with lines that have faded with time and wear. I run my fingers over the stitches I sewed into the torn fabric of the sleeve.

I’m going to give this to you but I need your help to get it off.

I lift my gaze to the group again. I’ve watched them before. Their easy interactions. Sometimes, their harder ones. A faint smile crosses my lips as I watch them whisper and laugh in hushed tones. Rowan’s skin is tainted green from that ridiculous costume he was wearing last night. But when he wraps an arm across Sloane’s shoulders and presses a kiss to her forehead before returning to his conversation with Lachlan, I can see the way she looks at him. Like he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

I had love like that once too. I had Adam.

My eyes burn with unshed tears. Most days, I’ve learned how to swallow them. How to cut them up with the blade of rage. But today? Today is always the hardest day.

Three years ago, Adam was stolen from me in a storm of screams, in the roar of a chainsaw. He died to the final notes of the maniacal laughter of a deranged killer.

I would have died too.

Yes. He killed Adam. And I promise you, Adam will be the last person Harvey Mead ever kills.

I press my eyes closed. When I open them, the group is standing, brushing off their jeans, taking sips of water from bottles, shedding extra sweaters or checking knives or tightening straps on their backpacks as they get ready to leave the escarpment for the farm hidden in the valley. The one where a murderer lives. The next monster the apex predators have come to kill.

A spike of adrenaline drives through my heart, as sharp as the ones that Rowan drove through Harvey Mead’s hands to nail him to the floor of his barn. An offering to the woman he loved. I watched, hidden in the tall grass as she came back to the barn with her injured arm held close to her side, a mummified body tucked beneath the other. She looked broken. But gleeful. Indomitable. Fucking indestructible . Not just a survivor, but a reckoning. A woman with more power than I ever imagined possible.

I could be a woman like that too.

The group starts moving away, walking in single file down the narrow path. First Lark and Lachlan. Then Rose and Fionn. Rowan goes next. Sloane is the last to leave, casting a final glance toward the farm.

My heart catches in my throat as I move in slow motion, rising from my hiding place, a single step onto the same path that continues into the woods behind me.

Sloane’s eyes snap to mine. They widen with surprise. Her hand tightens on the knife she holds against her thigh. And then I see it. Recognition.

Her eyes track down the length of the shirt I’m wearing. The one she gave to me when I was naked in the dark. When she meets my eyes once more, she smiles.

She nods. I nod in reply. And then she turns and walks away.

I watch until she disappears after the others. When the forest has gone still, I turn and head in the opposite direction.

Once upon a time, my name was Autumn Bower.

And I have my own story to tell.