20. Theo
Theo
S omething is wrong. Seriously wrong.
And the closer I get to that field, the more I can sense it. Beside me, Kennedy shrinks back into her seat. I wind the window down. “We need to stop, Kenny.”
Because I can fucking smell it. I can smell her terror, sharp and acrid as it fills the small space, and I feel like I’m about to lose my fucking mind over it. “That’s it. I’m turning around. You think I can’t tell that you’re absolutely petrified? Look at me.”
Her lips are thin lines, her face bloodless as she turns to me. Terror is painted across every line on her face. And her fucking nose is bleeding again. Shaking my head, I pull over and drop my head into my hands.
I can’t think. All of it – every bit of pain, and grief, and anger – it all batters my skull, along with the fear-soaked, twisted scent of my mate. Fear of me, of this place, I don’t fucking know and I’m about to lose my mind over it. “God, this is fucked.”
A soft hand touches my arm. “Come on.”
By the time I pull myself together, she’s already out of the car. It’s not cold – nowhere near, the sun blazing overhead – but Kennedy has her arms wrapped around herself. She looks… small , and that’s never been a word that I’ve associated with Kenny at all.
But she gives me a small, shaky smile as we face each other. “You’re not forcing me to be here. We could have had this discussion at the house.”
It feels like I am.
You forced her on her knees to try and get this information out of her.
“Am I not?” I say hoarsely.
She shakes her head. “Today… I need to be here. And I thought maybe you might need it too. I should have done this sooner, Theo. I shouldn’t have cut you off like that. I wouldn’t have…,”
“Why did you?” Something aches in my chest as I stare at her. “Why’d you push us out, Kenny?”
So many questions.
“Come on.” She tips her head in the direction of the field. “I think this is a conversation we should have there.”
My footsteps dog hers as we walk. Kennedy is slow, her feet trailing. Hanging back slightly, I watch her with a frown. Her feet almost shuffle, her back hunched. “Are you in pain?”
She straightens. “I… no.”
She’s lying. I can see it in the way she tries to turn her face from me, to hide her expression. But I follow anyway, my eyes seeing things that I didn’t see so clearly before.
Blinded by my own anger. Because every step is careful, the way she moves her body adjusting in a way that tells me she’s definitely in pain.
I reach for my phone, but I left it in the truck.
Oscar knows, whatever it is. Jake’s murmured words from the diner – from those hikers – float back to me, as if they never left. As if they haven’t haunted me since I read them for myself.
“She was in a terrible state. Catatonic. I’ve never seen injuries like it.”
We walk in silence through a copse of trees. Kenny nods at the hint of blue sky on the other side. “It’s through here.”
Maybe it would make her feel better, ease some of that fear still present under her words, to know how much time I’ve spent in this clearing. “I came up here a lot. In those weeks after.”
Not at first. The police investigation prevented it, the area cut off by tape and secured by officers that refused to let me through, even when I begged. By the time they’d gone, there was nothing left.
And according to them, no case to answer. A closed inquest followed, only my father attending despite our protests. Death by misadventure , he told us.
A tragic accident, but that never sat right with me. Not when I had a voicemail telling me the opposite.
The frown feels embedded by the time she stops at the entrance to the field. “You’re shaking.”
Badly. Her shoulders hunch forward, trembling enough that I step up to her elbow, my hand hovering. I don’t have the right to touch her. I’ve done enough damage. “Kenny?”
She folds over at the waist, her hands on her knees. “Just give me a minute.”
I glance out. It’s a beautiful place. Wildflowers spread out across the grass in bursts of color, leading up to the cliff edge opposite us. It’s a beautiful view, looking out over the mountains.
But all it makes me feel is cold. As cold as the sensation in my gut as I turn back to Kennedy. “Tell me what I can do. Please. Do you want to sit down?”
But she’s straightening, dabbing at her fucking nose with a tissue she must have tucked in her pocket. Her body stiffens. “I… no, I don’t want to sit.”
She walks ahead, getting closer to the edge than I’m comfortable with. Dread douses my stomach as I stride for her, pulling her back. “Close enough.”
That wrongness pulls at me again. Her eyes slide to mine. “I’m not going to jump.”
But she sounds as if she’s considered it. I hover beside her as she faces out across the mountains and her eyes close. She takes a deep breath. “I was going to lie to you up here. Tell you something to make you back off.”
My shoulders tense. But I bite back the anger that rises all too easily. “Why?”
That feels like the more important question. That’s… that’s the question I need the answers to, I realize. More than anything else.
I need to know why .
“It would have been easier.” She blinks, cinnamon hair tossing around her face.
“For you?”
“No, Theo. For you.”
Her words strike a blow in the middle of my chest, directly to my heart. And she looks so – so heavy , in that moment, that it physically hurts. “Let me carry some of that weight for you, Ken. Talk to me. Like you used to.”
“I thought it would be easier.” Her voice is low, low enough that I step forward, straining to hear over the whistle of the wind around us. “To lie. To give you something that would help you make sense of it.”
“All I want is the truth.” I find myself in front of her, my hands on her face. “Kennedy. Please. God – just… trust me. I don’t deserve it. But trust me, Ken.”
“I don’t trust anyone anymore.” She whispers it, and my stomach flips as tears trickle out of her eyes. “That’s the truth. It hurts less that way.”
She’s breaking me. And my head is shaking, that knowledge creeping into my mind, digging into my thoughts with clawed talons and not letting go. “He hurt you. He… he did something. Didn’t he?”
Maybe I knew all along. Maybe I’ve always known, deep down.
She takes a breath.
And I know that I’m never going to be the same again.