Chapter 49
For an hour, I sat curled up in the driver’s seat of the black car I’d taken from the mansion. I was across the road from the large, deserted parking lot of a theatre. It was closed right now, though the doors, I knew, would be unlocked.
But I was running out of time as fast as I was running out of conviction. My fingers shook as I clutched my temple, nausea turning my stomach, a breath of desperation slipping out as I tried to gather myself.
I’d left them again, sleeping in our bed. I hadn’t had much time to consider, knowing they could wake up any moment. But in the end, there was no choice.
Tears leaked down my cheeks, terror and hormones colliding like a storm.
“I don’t…” My voice cracked as I hugged myself. “I don’t want to leave…”
Knight had said it. The impossible. The inevitable. I’d protected them just like I always would have.
I’d done everything for them, and now…I was here again.
Because of it.
It wasn’t fair.
Nothing was fair.
Anger warred with dread, knowing what was coming for me. The hopeless, all-encompassing knowledge that I had no choice. Not last time, not this time.
I had to find my conviction. I didn’t want to give him this, too—and that made me so angry.
My family.
My pack.
A life I’d seen a glimpse of.
And it was over.
Trembling violently, I ripped the glove box open, searching through the car until I found a pen and a blank space on the back of the car insurance.
With tears wetting the paper, I found the words, and wrote. The letter I needed to write to Ace, even if he wouldn’t see it.
Because they were for me.
For my mates.
So they would know the truth.
It took me half the hour I had left to find the right words, the right sentences, but finally, I was done, and my breaths were coming clearer, tears finally drying up.
Not because everything was okay.
But because I would survive with the choice I made.
And now they would know that, too.
At last, I sat on the broad stage, legs dangling over the edge in the dim emergency lights and exit signs that flickered dully.
It was quiet and cold in here, representative of what the rest of my life would look like.
They’d tried.
They’d done everything in their power, and I loved them for it. I loved them more than I ever had, and each minute I’d had with them was a gift I never thought I’d get.
But now it was over.
I hated the idea that I couldn’t believe in them, but this was so far beyond that. This was about fear I’d been given over years, and I was so broken, no one could have taken that away from me.
And this was about love—the thing I would never trade. Everything Ace preyed on, and every vulnerability he would never have.
I wasn’t weak for that, and neither were they. In the world in which we were raised, it took strength to love. It meant making dares of devils that would never stop chasing us.
“I will never let you fall.”
Kyan’s promise sounded in my head. I had fallen for it, and I would never regret doing that.
Time ticked slowly on, and I knew he would be here soon.
Dust motes floated eerily in the cold air around me, and goosebumps pricked my open skin. I was suddenly so grateful for my pretence at nesting. Right now, I wore Zed’s T-shirt, one of Kyan’s bracelets on my wrist, and a lone bead I’d stolen from Knight’s locs. He only had three, and in my pocket was the one with the blade of grass.
Ace would take them from me, but I knew that.
I didn’t bring them to keep, I brought them for strength. My final nest.
The seats stretched out before me, red fabric staring back for row after row, like an audience of ghosts.
I had a gift this time.
I could see them all, a picture of a family—one that loved each other even without me there. And it gave me all I needed to do, what I’d never been strong enough to do before.
My mates would try to find me, but even that was impossible. Ace would make sure of it, but if I gave him everything he wanted, then maybe—just maybe—that would be all he took from them.
And eventually, they would go on.
They’d done it once, and now I knew they could do it again.
I shut my eyes.
Ace could take and take and take in this world, but behind every curtain, he would find nothing but dust and ash. He would lose, in the end, because he could never have what they did.
The only thing that truly mattered.
At last, I heard the creak of a door to my left, coming in from the side of the stage.
I didn’t look up.
I’d written my letter to Ace. I’d given every part of myself to those words, and they were lodged in my soul, my comfort.
There is no justice in power, but there is consequence. It asks for nothing but depravity, but it never comes free. We are all condemned to lives of our own making.
I’ve made my choice.
You’ve made yours.
Footsteps echoed upon wooden floorboards, nearing slowly. My fists balled in my shirt, and I swallowed.
This was it.
The beginning. The end. And I was so fucking scared, so I clung to those words, trying to find peace in hopelessness.
There is no loophole, or escape. You will forever settle for less of what makes us the best we can be, or mangle your own mind in order to convince yourself otherwise.
When you steal what should never be stolen, you become a more pitiable creature than you so desperately wish you could make me. There is no power that will allow you to claim what gives me my strength.
The footsteps to my left came to a halt, feet away.
Still, I hadn’t moved.
My mates would read it, too. To reach the end and maybe, just maybe, find peace.
You can take me from all that I love, but you will never take them from me.
And in that,
you will never truly win.
“A promise is a promise.” The voice echoed across the theatre, and my breath caught, head snapping up in shock as I looked back to the figure standing on the wing of the stage. As I’d expected, I found myself looking into ice-blue eyes.
Only, it was the ice-blue eyes of the wrong Maverick.