Order (Nightmare Misfits #3)

1. Nova

Nova

Dark.

The hum of something moving under me. My wrists behind my back, long past hurting.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here.

It doesn’t matter.

They’re gone.

And I don’t know how I can live with it. I don’t know how I can live with myself.

They’re gone and it’s because of me.

I couldn’t think about it when I saw Locke drop — his eyes rolling back, the sound he made when he hit the ground — I couldn’t because I had to focus on the threat in front of me, that bastard Silas standing there smiling like it was nothing.

And as soon as I said yes, as soon as the word left my mouth, he killed them all anyway.

It took seconds.

Seconds and they were all gone and I was completely and utterly alone again.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

I don’t know how to live with that. I don’t know how to make sense of a Locke lying on the ground with the Locke that opened the door that first day like I was someone worth opening doors for.

I don’t know how to stop thinking about how many times Vaelor made me coffee, adjusting it every single time, never once making it a thing, just quietly trying to get it exactly right.

I don’t know how to forget the way Trey tastes or the way Kyron carried me down the street and I couldn’t make myself pull away from him no matter how hard I tried.

I don’t know how to stop thinking about my date with Rane and how I never wanted it to end.

And I will never know how to find calm again without looking into Beckett’s eyes.

I knew how to live before them. I did. Fifteen years of knowing exactly how to survive, how to stay invisible, how to need nothing and no one. And then the system found me and dragged me in and I was terrified.

But then I met them.

And for the first time in so long I actually felt safe. Safe enough to let my guard down. Safe enough to let them see me. Safe enough to want things. To let them do things for me. To stop flinching every time someone got close.

And then—

Oh.

Oh god.

I love them.

The realization lands in the dark and I have to stop myself from shaking because I know it in my bones.

Everything I am is theirs. It was theirs the moment I walked into that house. I just didn’t realize it until now. And now… Now they’re gone and I’m here and my heart is back there in the Hollow. In the middle of that road… And that’s where it’ll always stay.

I don’t know how to go on without them.

I don’t know how I’ll ever stitch myself back together. I’m not sure I’m supposed to try. I just know that the dark is the same no matter how long I sit in it and my face is wet and I can’t make it stop.

The vehicle slows.

Stops.

I don’t move. I don’t care.

Hands haul me out. My legs don’t work. Someone grabs me and I pull away anyway — just my body refusing to be handled one more time — twisting, throwing my weight, blind and broken and doing it anyway because it’s all I have left—

I freeze.

A mouth at my ear through the fabric.

“Keep that up,” Silas says, almost soft. “And I’ll go back.”

I go still.

I don’t know what’s left to go back for.

But I can’t risk it. Even now. Even like this. I can’t.

I stop.

With his hand on my arm, we walk. Inside somewhere because the floor levels out and the temperature drops. One foot and then the other. That’s all.

A door opens.

I’m jolted, shoved forward.

The bag comes off as my knees hit hard on the tile.

Light everywhere, all at once, after days of nothing. I can’t see. Just white burning into my eyes and I turn away and blink until the shapes bleed through.

White walls. Clean floor. The shape of a man near the far wall.

“Brought her just like you wanted, Father.”

He steps forward. Comes into focus slowly and then all at once.

I know exactly who he is.

“Ah,” Laith says. “Excellent.”

No.