Chapter 6
“No.” The word slips out, barely a whisper. Everything in my mind slows to a crawl as I try to connect the dots. A second later, I’m shaking my head. Slow at first, then more fervent. “No, no, it’s not true!”
Wrenching my arm from his hold, I hear a sharp pop from my shoulder before stabbing pain shoots down my back. A sharp gasp slips out of me, but the roar in my head rises higher, scraping every coherent thought away and leaving me sifting through every memory until my head swirls and my fists shake.
Beyond the doorway, Dax and Blair’s voices continue to tangle with one another from down the hall. Arguing and pleading. Existing.
Drifting away.
Completely oblivious to the unraveling happening here where they’ve abandoned me. A swallow hooks in the curve of my throat. The pressure behind it condenses into a stifling pinpoint, constricting until the truth caves in around me.
Horrifying.
Devastating.
I’m not—I can’t breathe.
Resistance dwindles as his previous revelation circles back with brutal clarity, each word a battering ram.
“I’m so sorry, Tatum.”
“You didn’t survive.”
An otherworldly shriek practically splits the world in two. Stretching past the point of reason, thinning into a ragged rasp until my throat feels meaty and raw.
“Please don’t freak out.” Manson reaches for me before stopping himself, his complexion sallow, eyes sad. “You promised you wouldn’t pull back.”
My gaze drops to where my hand is wedged between my thighs. The blood smeared across my fingertips overtakes my vision until it’s all I see.
A sickening cocktail of cranberry red. Some parts bright and others smudged into darker, jelly-like clots.
Shaking my head again in disbelief, a rattling pang strikes the base of my skull, making me wince as my vision fractures. “I don’t understand.”
My voice sounds feeble and foreign, even to my own ears.
Glancing through my tear-dotted lashes, I turn my bloodied hand over and furiously scrub it across my tights, smearing red streaks over the thin fabric as I search Manson’s pitying gaze for a crack in his certainty.
The last of my doubt withers.
He’s being serious.
Oh my God.
He’s serious.
Manson’s lips part a fraction more, but whatever he meant to say dies before it reaches his tongue. Instead, he leans in and cups my jaw, his thumb grazing my skin in slow, tentative strokes.
It’s cold.
Like the rest of him.
Like the rest of me.
“I’m sorry you had to learn it this way,” he finally says. “But it’s safer now. You’re safer.”
Flinching, I hunch my shoulders and lean far enough for him to retract his touch from my jaw. The sharp pang in my gut hollows out my insides until I’m little more than a shell in his presence.
“I just mean nobody else can hurt you.”
His Adam’s apple rolls in his throat. The shadows deepen the black of his irises as his attention drifts across my face, briefly straying to my lips before returning to my eyes.
For a split second, I could’ve sworn I caught a glimpse of genuine emotion in his carefully constructed expression.
A thinly veiled flicker of understanding.
I swallow hard. An uneasy weight settles heavy in my chest, exposing an empty pit of sorrow I suspect he carries too.
I’ve misjudged him.
A sad sickness turns in my stomach as I consider the pain that must’ve come before…
Before he—
Instinct has me clenching the floorboard, fingers digging into the rusted nail half-hammered into the warped plank, unable to even think it in the privacy of my own mind. My mouth is a landscape of cotton and ash, yet the knot in my chest begins to loosen, if only slightly.
Flattening my lips, I try to push the thoughts away, but I can’t. Part of me wonders why he’s here.
Why he’s staying.
Why he cares.
Still probing at the tiny nail beside me, my attention flits to his chest, taking in the old splotches of what appear to be bloodstains. Time stands still. Anxious thoughts crowd in as I’m reminded of the way he so casually crushed an animal’s skull without a twitch of emotion.
Unease sweeps through me, but I manage to chalk it up to something reasonable. Convincing myself it’s normal to react the way he did. As odd as it was, it made sense. Especially for someone as familiar with pain and death as him.
“It’s hurt.”
“I’m helping it.”
He thought he was doing the right thing.
Eyeing me for a beat, his jaw hardens like he can tell what’s turning over in my head, as though he possesses the ability to peer deeper inside me and sift through my darkest thoughts.
He’s quiet, saying nothing as his piercing gaze skates over every tick and tremor along my face, studying me in a deliberate manner that has me curling my fist tighter in the narrow space between us.
Eventually, he bobs his chin, eyes gleaming with something unreadable as they track to where tension thrums in my throat, holding there for what feels like an eternity.
His prolonged stare sends a skittering charge of electricity coursing through me, cold sparks that sizzle and pop, pop, pop throughout my body in a messy riot of sensations.
Mortified at my reaction, I squeeze my eyes shut, confusion swirling at the back of my mind.
I can’t understand what’s happening. Why I’m reacting so viscerally. Why his closeness stirs a vacant longing in me that desperately wants attention.
To be seen.
An unbidden tear slips from the corner of my eye, the prickling sensation growing there…and a bit lower. Shamefully, I dip my chin, trying to hide myself, but his hand comes up, fingers finding the underside of my jaw and guiding it back.
Slowly peeling my eyes open, I find him still watching me.
A shudder wracks up my spine. His carefully composed expression falters as his stare roams lower, tracing the grime and tear tracks, lingering.
Reaching up, he wipes another tear from my lash line, his thumb intercepting it before it can reach my lips, smoothing it away as my mouth trembles beneath his touch.
Something in me cinches, a keen awareness of our proximity, but it’s overshadowed by the harshness of the situation. My throat strains through a swallow as reality once again caves in on me. “It’s not fair,” I whisper, alarmed at how timid my voice sounds as I trap my lip against my teeth.
I’m not the one who cheated.
I’m not the one sneaking around out here in secret.
That’s Dax.
So why am I the one paying for it?
Why am I the one who had to…
Die.
The word sours in the pit of my stomach, and I harden before Manson brushes his thumb over my chin again, breaking the train of thought enough for me to ease up an inch.
“What isn’t?” he asks, waiting for me to respond, but my tongue goes limp. The words bloat in my throat, swelling with each attempt to force them out. “You aren’t wrong for wishing it was them instead,” he finally adds after a brief pause.
His remark should’ve repelled me. The cruel echo of it looping in my mind, uncovering the bitter truth I didn’t want to acknowledge.
My head pounds, a relentless drumbeat reminder of the injustice I’ve faced.
Unwilling to fall deeper into despair, I ground myself by pouring all of my attention onto the soft-spoken stranger, keeping my gaze trained on the lighter blond flecks woven through his hair until they brighten my vision, distracting me from the growing ache threatening to pull me under.
Clinging to the comfort he offers, I’m startled when he suddenly leans closer, bridging what little distance remains between us. The air grows heavy. But the rest of me feels weightless as I pan back to his mysterious dark eyes, falling deeper into them.
Settling his forehead against mine, I sense an overwhelming knot forming in my stomach, but I keep still. Enjoying the solid coolness of his skin pressing into me as my eyes roll shut, focusing on nothing but his steadying presence and hoping it’s enough to ease the disquiet in me.
It feels so good to know I’m not alone.
That there’s someone else walking along this same path.
So whatever comes next, I’ll be more prepared. Better equipped.
That has to be enough.
My thoughts break apart when he speaks again, drawing back all my doubts. “It’s not a flaw in your character to want them dead. To secretly wish for it. It doesn’t make you bad.”
He eases back an inch, a tendon in his neck flexing as his gaze drops to my lips, a brief glance before he cants his and glides back up to study my reaction. For one dizzy second, I think I’m going to black out when he leans in again, my lashes fluttering shut in quiet anticipation.
Bolstering my strength, I manage not to flinch or retreat, but there’s a stutter somewhere inside me. When he kisses me, it’s strange.
There’s a quiet reverence in the way he presses his lips over the bridge of my nose.
Although featherlight, it’s enough to stir something inside me, a knot of longing tightening despite knowing I probably shouldn’t feel this way.
But I can’t help it.
He lingers there a moment longer than I expect. The gesture lasts only a few seconds, yet it sends every nerve on edge as he drifts toward my ear, his presence close enough to rattle me.
“It isn’t too late, you know.”
Bottom lip trapped between my teeth, I blink my way out of a tangle of emotions rising inside me. Disappointment at the loss of his nearness collides with a sharp crack of fear, twisting together so violently that my knees would’ve buckled had I not been seated.
“This could be your chance,” he murmurs, voice scraped raw from any decipherable emotion, but his eyes almost take on a hopeful sheen. “To make it right.”
His words sink their hooks somewhere deep inside me, dragging up a conflicting churn of dread, and something else I thought had been stripped from me alongside everything else.
Hope.
Before I can examine the meaning behind them too deeply, I rush to respond, pushing against the bone-dry boulder in my throat. “My chance?”
Lips twitching, something faint but indistinguishable flickers across his face before he pulls back, stealing away the newfound steadiness I’d latched onto. “Only if you want.”