Chapter Thirty-Three
“M orning, beautiful…” I yawn, kissing a line across Byron’s shoulder.
I know he’s awake, what with his constant shuffling about. Byron doesn’t seem to sleep well as it is, but with everything going on, I’m lucky if I catch him passing out for an hour or two.
“Babe?” I rumble to him when he doesn’t answer me, grazing my fingers up and down his back.
He grunts by way of response. And now I’m on a mission.
Sitting up, I wince at the soreness in my back. This couch isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever slept on, that’s for certain. Still, it’s not exactly one of those incredibly luxurious beds up the hall.
It’s fine. I suppose I understand why Byron would rather sleep on the couch than in any of the beds… But that doesn’t mean my muscles have to like it.
“Come now, sweet fury.” I shake him, and he groans. “Rise and shine. Let’s go for a shower, yea?”
He continues to ignore me, and when I glance down at his face, I find him simply staring. It rolls melancholy in the pit of my stomach.
“It’ll feel good, love,” I croon, playing with his hair, hoping for a miracle. “Nice warm shower… maybe an orgasm or two.”
But he still won’t respond, and it’s beginning to drive me mad.
“Byron, I know you’re upset,” I murmur, a bit out of my league in attempting to talk about what’s going on with him.
“I’ll say…” Leo smirks, sitting casually by Byron’s feet.
He reaches out and touches Byron’s toe. Byron flinches, kicking.
My face pulls into a disturbed expression.
I’m losing it…
Shaking my head, I go on, “None of this has been easy on you, and I understand that. But you need to at least get up, baby.”
“I’m good…” He rolls over, stuffing his face into the pillow.
“Bit of a Gloomy Gus, isn’t he?” Leo comments. I shoot him an irritated glare. “You positive this emo boy is the one for you?” He arches a brow above his mangled teddy bear eyeball.
“Have we met?” I scoff, and he fakes a laugh.
“Huh?” Byron grunts.
“Nothing. Baby, I’m just saying… You don’t have to hold it all inside.” I rub his shoulders.
“I do , though,” he says, ton softly forlorn. He sounds broken, and I hate it . “I lost my journal. My book? It’s just fucking gone . Everything is… gone.”
I’m not…
“You can open up to me… If you want,” I murmur, trying not to sound too eager. Leo is making a face. “ Or I could get you a new journal. So you can continue writing, if you’d like…”
“Great. I’ll just start over,” he huffs.
“Byron, the point is that those memories are your truths , and they’re still a part of you. They’re not gone… You’re not gone, baby. You’re still here… And so am I.”
Finally, he rolls over, propping up on his elbows. His dark eyes take me in, penetrating me deep. It’s overwhelming… I haven’t a clue what he’s seeing when he looks at me like that.
“Are you?” He whispers. A barely audible accusation.
I can do nothing more than stare back at him, frozen to stone under that pretty bronze gaze.
Byron exhales, shaking his head. He looks disappointed.
Bollocks. I hate that bloody look.
He scrambles off the couch and shuffles toward the loo. My hand actually lifts, reaching after him.
“He’ll get over it,” Leo mutters.
“I… have to tell him,” I mumble weakly. “I need to tell him about everything. He deserves that much, especially now.” I peer at Leo, who doesn’t look pleased. “He needs to know that I’m here… That he has all of me.”
“So you’re planning to tell him every last bit, then?” he counters. “Even the part about you knowing that his friend and former fling was in the East, being tortured…”
My jaw strains in frustration. He has a point, as usual, and it’s quite annoying.
Byron’s friends are dead, and he’s feeling immense guilt because of their fight—because he’ll never get to make amends. He will most definitely be upset if he finds out I lied; that I knew Ren was in the East all along. I’m sure he’d feel that, had he known, he could have changed things.
He might be right.
“Tip of the iceberg, my friend,” Leo mutters.
Ignoring him, I stalk out of the room, following my sweet, sad fury, in hopes that maybe I can heal him… If even just temporarily.
The thing is, despite his state of depression, Byron still needs me. I’m sure he doesn’t want to, but it’s the truth. And because of that, we can’t keep apart.
In the shower, we entwine, absorbing one another’s anguish and sorrow.
It sinks into our wet flesh, and we use it to fuel the desire.
He fucks me aggressively from behind, sealing my chest to the shower wall while he growls and purrs and cries onto the nape of my neck.
We both reach fast, crippling orgasms, but neither of us is truly settled when we’re done.
Out of the shower, Byron gets dressed while I sneak off into the bedroom we’re no longer using. Apparently, it belonged to Joy, Velle and Rook, and after their interaction in the prison, Byron returned vehemently against sleeping in there again.
Still, I have something stashed in the closet that I need to check on…
Reaching into the back, I locate the cellphone, hidden between some clothes.
I found it outside after the tower fell.
I was heading toward the prison, under the guise of bringing Dr. Love to Manuel Blanco, but really, I was hypnotized.
Witnessing such destruction had lured me in, like a call to my inner chaos.
I couldn’t help myself…
But before we got there, Kent sprung out of nowhere, urging us back to the mansion.
We turned back, much to my dismay. And as we passed a small cabin made of stone, which I’ve heard used to be an armory, I saw it.
Something shiny peeking out from beneath the wet leaves.
When no one was looking, I scooped it up and tucked it away inside my pants.
Since then, I’ve attempted to power it on several times to no avail.
The device is clearly water-logged, and I have no bag of rice to stick it in.
I’m hoping it’ll eventually dry out enough to power on.
Not that I know what I would do with a cellphone, but I imagine it belongs to someone… Maybe it could be of use.
Holding down the power button, I pray for light. But I get nothing but a black screen.
Bollocks.
Sighing, I return it to its hiding spot in the back of the closet, gazing over all of the possessions that aren’t mine. Things that belong to Officer Chevelle and his partners…
Byron came back from his trip to the prison both overflowing with emotions and completely empty.
He shuffled through the doors of the mansion like a lifeless husk.
But I saw what no one else could; he was gripping the bloody and battered remains of his heart in his hand, desperately trying to hold it together. To keep it beating.
He’s grieving over so many things right now, and I simply don’t know how to help him.
I don’t know how to prove to him that he can trust me, short of revealing the depths of my depravity, and unearthing the secrets of my past. And I’m still terrified of doing that.
Not for superficial reasons… I’m certain he’d be nothing but accepting and supportive.
But I just can’t be yet another thing that burdens him. I can’t… lose him to my demons.
Disregarding the deranged insecurities overwhelming my thoughts, I pick up a rumpled garment from the floor of the closet. I hold it up, revealing a uniform shirt with a tag that reads Officer Chevelle , and give it a quick sniff.
Yum. Smells like a giant Muscle Daddy who’s too headstrong for his own good.
Something falls out of the shirt, landing on the floor. It’s a collar, but not the same kind Byron and I are wearing. This one is much less outwardly deadly.
It’s black leather, adorned with what looks like barbed wire along the outside.
Upon closer inspection, I discover that the barbed wire is actually made of silver or platinum.
It appears custom-made, beautiful, and likely very expensive.
A diamond-studded pendant hangs from a loop on the front, engraved with Property of The Ivory on one side, and J.C. on the other.
Wow…
“Trev??” Byron’s voice calls out from outside the room somewhere. “You coming down?”
“Be right there!”
I quickly wrap the collar back up in the shirt and stuff it into the closet with the cellphone. Then I scamper off to join Byron for lunch.
Things are growing more peculiar with every second spent in this mansion, surrounded by drama and a rich, massively complicated history.
Downstairs, Byron and I attempt to eat, but it’s difficult with all the commotion.
The Ivory’s army has been stomping around like Stormtroopers since the prison fell, and as much as we’ve been trying to ignore it and go about our lives as normally as we can, it’s quite distracting.
Their presence is a constant, glaring reminder that things aren’t normal, and at this rate, I doubt they ever will be.
For me, it’s not much of a concern. Normality was never something I’ve had.
For the few years following my release from Riverwoods, when I was getting my life together , so to speak, I’d been trying it on for size.
But deep down, I knew it was a pipe dream.
I was desperately chasing something I knew wasn’t meant for me.
And how about that? I feel the same way now, for something else. Or someone else…
“What’s so great about being normal, anyway?” Leo scoffs.
I continue to ignore him, though on some level, I agree. Normal is boring; we all know that.
On the other hand, I’ve been fighting for survival my entire bloody life . I can’t deny that it felt good to play pretend—go to work, settle into a comfortable relationship, dull the mania in my head. I rather enjoyed the serenity that comes from routine .
When I was young and living on the streets of New York City, I used to pray for monotony. I would dream about dull days while bouncing from place to place, with danger lurking around every corner. Fear and a forever-racing pulse, sleeping with one eye open…