Chapter 32 Briar
brIAR
Four weeks later
Callum’s bluff had power behind it. “You see a person’s true colors when you give them the worst-case scenario and they still let you go.”
Those were the words he said to me when I woke up a few days later after surgery. Roman thought Callum would kill me, and he let him take me anyway.
The cards are down; I lose.
My heart is dead.
Grahm sets down a hot cup of coffee as I move the chess piece across the board and take his knight.
“Cheater,” he says as he wrinkles his nose at me.
I smile and take a sip of the bitter drink. “You can’t keep saying people are cheaters just because you keep losing, Sutherland.”
He crosses his arms and frowns as he stares down at the board to figure out his next move.
One month is a long time to be physically underground.
It’s long enough to forget about the world above and all the problems that came with it—it’s also long enough to patch up the scars on your heart.
It’s enough time to forget the things that you’ve done and whether or not you’d have done them differently.
“Briar, we’ll be heading out to the lake today to drop off some dead weight. Care to join?” Callum runs his hand down my neck. I startle—he always sneaks up on me somehow. Or maybe it’s that I keep getting lost in my thoughts.
I glance up at him and smile. “I’d love to.”
He stopped calling me Chloe after my third day down here; after the worst of my distress and depression at being abandoned by Icarus. I refused to answer to my old name, and he finally relented.
Callum smiles down at me, his brown eyes warm like they used to be.
I don’t know if I find comfort or defeat in them.
He never said what he wants from me, but he treats me like he did when we lived together in Seattle.
Like the kind man I once thought he was.
I know it’s a facade. I just don’t know what he truly wants. And honestly? I’m too tired to ask.
I’m not being treated like a prisoner. He knows I can’t get out of the underworld by myself. Even if I did, I have nowhere to go. The Dark Forces are waiting for me; they’ll hunt me down because I’m a loose end.
Roman’s pained eyes flash through my memories, and I have to shove them away. I hate him. I hate him for what he did to me. For how he broke me.
Callum buried me.
But Roman destroyed everything else.
“Another one? I don’t know why you do this to yourself, Briar.
” Callum smooths his thumb over my stomach where I cut a smiley face with X eyes over a scar I got from fighting with the man I killed.
They kept me under anesthesia for a day to do surgery on all my wounds.
I guess I had more injuries than I thought.
My knees are riddled in scars from the glass. My palms are too. Somewhere between lucidity and heartbreak, I altered all of them. Anything to forget that day. Callum doesn’t like that I keep aggravating the wounds, but I can’t help it.
“It makes me feel good,” I say as I stand up and throw on a sweater over my loose white-collar button-up. It’s technically Callum’s, but I took it for myself. It suits me better anyway.
“You should find other ways to self-sabotage, Briar.” Callum smooths his hand over my jaw and presses a kiss to my cheek.
Callum entertains my wild side. At least he doesn’t look at me like I’ve lost my ever-loving mind like Grahm does.
I can’t complain, though. For someone like me who is just going through the motions and giving up on everything, this is all I need.
Not giving up. Giving in. I correct my thoughts.
Because apparently there’s a difference.
We take Grahm’s pickup truck out to the lake with a pile of corpses in the back.
There’s a rug over their frozen bodies. I don’t feel anything for them.
And I don’t care to ask Callum who they are or why he’s dumping them out by the lake.
The only thing I care about is going for a chilly swim.
It’s not that cold, and I know they’ll take care of me if I get sick.
I just want to feel again.
It’s only two in the afternoon, but the sun is already dipping below the mountains. I stare out across the dark water and wonder why I helped Roman that night. I should’ve let him drown.
Why didn’t I?
My fists curl tightly, and I bite my cheek as I step out of my boots and let my pants fall to the damp ground.
Grahm gasps and drops the feet of the body they’re carrying. “Thornton, what the hell are you doing?”
I unbutton Callum’s shirt and shrug it off carelessly, glancing over my shoulder at them. “Going for a swim.” My voice is impassive.
Both of their eyes flash down to my bare breasts. Grahm takes a step toward me like he’s going to try to force me back into my clothes, but Callum puts his arm out across his chest and stops him.
“It’s cold out there, babe.”
I lift a brow at Callum. “I know.”
His eyes narrow, but he nods. “Be back in twenty minutes.” Callum lifts his end of the dead body and Grahm follows suit, although he looks more hesitant.
“Will do,” I say with a small smile. At least he lets me do whatever the fuck I want.
The cold sand pushes up around my toes, and a shudder moves up through my body. I don’t know what I’m doing, and one step into the icy water makes me think twice about going farther, but the rush of adrenaline and fear of freezing in this lake makes me feel everything again.
I hold my breath as I force my legs to continue wading into the water. A sharp gasp escapes my lips when my breasts are submerged. It hurts for a matter of seconds before everything goes numb and a sense of euphoria tears through me.
The mist that clings to the shoreline and the clouds that hang low as if to observe my movement hold my attention as I swim out as far as I can to the center of the lake. My mind clears of all my troubled thoughts, and my limbs become harder to move.
I turn to float on my back and stare up at the crows that fly overhead. They must be the ones that decided to stay behind for winter.
No one is coming to save you.
A drowsy grin spreads over my lips as I force all the air from my lungs and allow myself to dip below the water’s surface.
The cold feels like a million needles over my skin.
I open my eyes and take in the way the light dances over the water’s surface. It’s beautiful for all of ten seconds before my eyes start to close and my consciousness falters.
“Briar.” It’s his voice.
Roman.
I focus my mind and swim to the surface, gasping for breath and looking around to make sure I’m alone. It’s not fair that people can haunt you when they are still breathing.
I don’t care about him. Just like he doesn’t care about me.
But the thoughts are weak. I can’t lie to myself, even if I wish it more than anything.
At least the cold water staves off the aching in my chest.