64. Ryan Fairview
Alexa, Play: Strange - Celeste
I was a fucking wreck. There was no point in pretending I wasn’t. The house felt empty with Naomi gone, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how broken Cal had been.
The guilt that was weighing on me was unbearable. All the times I had pushed Cal away were playing on a fucking loop in my head, especially in the early days. He’d clearly needed me, and all I had ever done was tell him to go away.
I was pacing the kitchen, doing what I always did, and overthinking every single moment where I could have been better for him.
That night, when he left after having dinner with us, I shouldn’t have let him go. I should have tried harder to get him to stay, to quit.
I knew Apex was fucked. That man had been conditioning him and abusing him since he was a child.
Having met Vox, I now suspected that he had likely gone through something similar, though Vox seemed less eager to obey Damian’s commands than Cal.
Maybe it’s because Vox didn’t have anyone he loved that he needed to protect… well, except for maybe Cal himself.
If someone like Vox couldn’t keep him safe, how could I ever hope to help him?
I grit my teeth at how fucking useless I was feeling.
I needed to learn how to use a fucking gun.
Vox had been trying to teach me, but on some level, I had been resisting because… well… I could literally speak to dead people. The last thing I wanted to do was kill someone and have their ghost follow me around out of spite for the rest of my life.
But after seeing Cal in person and realizing just how much Damian Ryker had clearly fucked him up, I was quickly giving less and less shits.
I would kill fucking Damian myself and never lose a wink of sleep if I had the chance. The thought of him putting his hands on Cal made me see fucking red. He could haunt me all his bitch-ass wanted, and I would spend every day letting Cal fuck me while Ryker’s cunty ghost watched. Just to rub it in his fucking face.
I let out a frustrated growl and stormed over to the cabinet where I knew Theo had kept the tequila.
Being helpless like this was not a feeling I wanted to get used to. I needed to do better… or at least do something.
Grabbing a bottle of Anejo and pulling out my phone, I opened my conversation with Cal for what felt like the ten-zillionth time.
I’d sent him messages every day while he was gone. They were all still unread. He hadn’t looked at them, not even now that he was free again.
It hurt.
He had barged his way into my life, broken into my house, forced me to develop feelings for him, and now he was just… gone.
It had been so easy to take his smiles and his upbeat attitude for granted, and I’d never regretted anything more.
Scrolling through the unread messages I sent him, my heart squeezed in my chest.
They had started with me just frantically asking him where he was and if he was okay. Once I accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to have access to his phone for a while, I switched tactics.
I told him things I had never told anyone before.
I told him how I was pretty sure my mother was clairvoyant, and I was almost positive she had predicted that he would come into my life one day.
My mother had been telling me my ‘dark angel’ was coming since I was a small child.
I was convinced now more than ever that she had been talking about him.
He was my dark angel, and I had been a fucking idiot to try to push him away.
Because now that he really was gone, I felt like I would give up an entire limb to get him back.
Tossing my phone angrily on the table, I spun off the lid of the tequila bottle and raised it to my lips. I just needed something to take the edge off and slow my mind down.
However, before I could take a swig, my mother swept into the room and gave me a stern look.
“Put that away, Ryan. You’re going to need your wits about you tonight,” she said, her voice firmer than I had ever heard it.
I frowned and lowered the bottle.
“What do you mean?”
Just then, Theo and Cassandra barrelled into the kitchen. I had texted Theo to let her know that Cal was back earlier, but I haven’t heard anything since.
“I can’t believe you’re just telling me this now!” Cassandra snarled. She was dragging her Louis Vuitton luggage behind her, and Theo was tailing her with a bored expression on her face.
“Maybe I just wanted to keep you around a little longer. Not sure how I’ll survive without your sparkling personality.” Her eyes were shining, but she said it with such a dry, sarcastic tone that I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not.
Cassandra rounded on her. “You are impossible! My brother has been missing for a week, and when he comes back, you sit on the information for hours!? I could have been at his house by now! What if that twat waffle hurt him?”
“That twat waffle definitely hurt him,” I deadpanned, sliding my hands into my pockets with a sigh. “I saw him earlier. He’s injured for sure.”
Cass looked like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to punch me in the face or scream at me. Maybe both.
Theo shrugged. “Listen, Cass. I know you think blowing the fucking door down with your fire hose of an attitude helps things, but sometimes it’s better to let things lie. The dude just got out of what I would assume is a traumatic situation. The last thing he needs is you freaking the fuck out and losing your shit all over him. I just figured he might want a couple minutes to lick his wounds before you go storming in there like you’re the goddamn cavalry.”
I glanced at Theo, cocking an eyebrow in surprise. Sometimes I forgot how perceptive she was. It was easy to get swept up in her gruff exterior and assume she wasn’t paying attention or didn’t give a shit about the people around her.
But in moments like this, I was always reminded that Theo was paying attention. And she did give a shit. I really should try to give her more credit.
“He’ll be here soon,” Iris said abruptly, and my skin turned to gooseflesh at the look on her face. My mother, who never seemed to be bothered by anything, looked as grave as she did the day my father died.
“We will need to work together to save him.”
“What are you going on about?” Cass asked, though her face was quickly going pale. I think she had caught on that Iris was a little different than the rest of us.
Over the last week, I had learned that Cass was incredibly smart. Though she hadn’t straight up asked if my mother was a witch, I was pretty sure she had figured it out.
At first, she’d seemed skeptical. However, like most people, after spending a few days with Iris, I could see she was getting more and more suspicious about how unnervingly accurate my mother’s seemingly random observations generally turned out to be.
She was just too on the nose for it to be chalked up to coincidence.
“Save who, mom?” I whispered. My entire body was freezing cold. It felt like my blood had turned to ice because I knew… Before she even said the words, I knew who needed saving.
“Your dark angel, dear.”