Wicked Little Island (The Bone Love Duet #3)

Prologue

Micah

M y adult life started like a shattered mirror—fractured, with the sharp pieces scattering and digging into my flesh. Day by day, I tried to pull each out to heal, only for them to cause more pain. The more I pulled them out, the more I realized the internal wounds within me were embedded in my veins, spreading like cancer. They would never go away, and trying to find a cure hurt.

So, eventually, I turned it all off. Feeling anything. Until I met London King, who is the sole person who made me come alive again. And now my darkness has spread to her to the point where I barely recognize the girl I fell for. She breathed in my poison, causing my sickness to take root in her, too.

Not giving a shit was certainly easier than this.

Love is highly overrated.

Do it, motherfucker, pull the trigger.

I’m holding the cold metal flare gun in my hand, sitting alone, surrounded by charred trees and mud in the northern wilderness, wondering what it would be like if I blew my brains out. I kept the flare gun hidden from the others, knowing it was my final escape if needed. Flames surround me, threatening to engulf me, and I’ve resorted to talking to myself. I’d promised myself if I ever got to that point, it would be the day I’d end this. However, it’s my twin standing in front of me who mouthed the words I spoke .

He emerges from the ashes wearing the same hooded sweater and gray sweatpants as me, as if I’m looking in that fractured mirror reflecting my version of hell. The threatening flames creep closer, and I welcome the heat on my face after nearly a year of icy inferno. If I stay here any longer, the acrid smoke will suffocate me, which makes me contemplate surrendering to the flames. But death by fire is a horrible way to go, and I always appreciate efficiency, even if I deserve to be burned at the stake.

Because I never thought I’d watch my twin die before me—the possibility never played out in my mind. Maison was supposed to live, and I was supposed to die first. I was supposed to protect him. Ever since I witnessed him bleed out on the snow, I’ve been convinced in my heart that the wrong twin perished that day.

“What are you waiting for, Micah?” he says, his words dripping with an uncharacteristic edge. I shoot him a piercing glare, and he calmly mirrors my every move as I itch my forehead with the barrel of my flare gun. My emotions are reflected in his eyes. “Come join me, then, fucker.”

I scoff and drop the gun to my side. “You’re pretty cocky for a dead guy. Why don’t you go haunt someone else?”

His lips curl into a smug smile—the same smile he used to give me whenever he beat me at something, which didn’t happen often. My smile. “There is no one else left to haunt, Micah.”

No one else.

No one left.

Just me and Maison.

“You’re chickenshit, aren’t you? You can’t kill yourself, but you can’t live with yourself, either.” He gives me a look of pity. “That’s quite the predicament.”

“Go. Away.”

I close my eyes and drown him out, breathing slowly. A tight grip clutches my stomach, thinking of how close I am to joining him. I have no fear because I’m incapable of the emotion.

I’ve always had an innate fascination with death because I wasn’t supposed to be born. I should have died when I was eleven, and then again in the accident with Olivia. I should have died in the plane crash and sliced up by that fucked-up prick Nigel.

I’ve watched countless people take their last breath in my lifetime. I hand-bombed a mass grave of teenagers. A girl I freshly fucked took her last breath in the seat next to me in a car that I then crashed. I watched my twin die in the arms of the girl I love.

I always thought I’d die young, which is why I live the way I live. Reckless. Like I don’t matter and don’t give a shit. Hurting people, shoving most people out of my life, beating the ever-loving hell out of them on the hockey rink, or torturing them behind my parents’ back because I could. No one ever stopped me from digging my elbow into their neck to see how long it would take for them to pass out.

One. Two. Three…

Number ten was usually when their eyes would roll to the back of their head, and I would ease off just enough so I wouldn’t kill them. Only Maison could bring me back from the darkest places my mind brought me to. He’s the only person who brought light into my otherwise dead soul. Just like he’s doing now, and like London did for four months until she experienced the worst of me.

I’m exactly who she thinks I am.

Destroyer, hunter, killer.

I am everything he is. The one who hunted me.

If I had died like I was supposed to, then she wouldn’t have fallen for me, and she’d still be whole. I let her down in the worst possible way, and I can’t even begin to comprehend the extent of the damage I’ve done to the one girl who means the world to me.

When I open my eyes, Maison is gone, and the metal trigger slips through my fingers as I revel in the danger of it. The only thing keeping me from pulling the trigger is that every time I blink, I see her gorgeous dark eyes, her full rosy lips, and the innocence that exudes from her stunning pale face, which utterly melts my heart.

I keep thinking of everything she’s been through, of everything I put her through because I wanted her so badly and couldn’t deal with any other emotion but loving her. How I fell so fucking hard for her that it felt like my skin was burning. And how I could ever need someone this fucking much.

She is the embodiment of everything I am not.

I think of those auburn eyes as she peered up at me for months—mainly on her knees because that’s how I liked her—willing to do anything for me.

Blind love was pouring out of her.

Her precious life was in my hands, and I used that power and her body to fulfill every one of my dark desires. She gave herself to me—body and soul—loving me unconditionally because I promised to keep her alive and protect her. When ultimately, I was the one she needed protection from.

My hands don’t tremble as I turn the gun to my face. I don’t waver in my resolve as I click the safety off and spare one last glance at the bone weapon sitting in the grass beside me.

The symbol of the primitive creature I’ve become.

I take a deep breath of smoky air, enjoying the burning sensation in my lungs while the forest hums around me. I don’t hesitate to pull the trigger and—

Blow.