Chapter 28 #2
I park at the end of the moldy cedar planks, shut off the engine, lean back against the squeaking leather, and wait.
She doesn’t move at first, gaze darting across the shadows like they’re alive. Finally, her voice lands small, testing. “I want to see the closet.”
My nod is slow. “Sure. But after that…I need to show you something.”
Moonlight slicks across her thick hair as I circle to her side and let her out. I settle my coat over her shoulders—too big, swallowing her frame—and she still shivers when I guide us to the main cabin with my hands on her shoulders.
The once-proud lodge looms like a corpse. Windows boarded. Vines gripping the siding like veins. A host now only to raccoons and ghosts.
My phone flashlight stabs through the dark as I kick in the warped door.
It gives with a splintering crack; the wood so rotted it protests with a groan.
Inside, the air is wet and heavy. The porch, the subfloor—spongy with decay.
Holes gape in the ceiling, exposing the night sky, stars staring down like watchful eyes.
We cross the barren kitchen, stripped bare of tables, gutted of appliances. Only pipes left behind, jutting from the walls like broken bones. At the far end, three narrow pantries hunch together, doors closed, waiting.
It’s the darkest place in the camp.
Ashlyn freezes, her breath stalling. Then, with a sudden jerk, she rips open the farthest door. My light scans the inside, revealing walls etched with what remains—slash marks, frantic names, crude tally marks. All the ways children tried to leave proof that they existed.
“It’s so small,” she says on a shaky exhale.
I can’t form words to express the strangled feeling inside me as I look at the place of some of our worst memories.
That first summer, I’d lock myself in there to take her place, to become her shield.
The second, I picked fights to cause chaos, to draw their eyes away.
By the third, I was too big, too dangerous, so they left me alone.
And I sure as hell wasn’t about to let her suffer in silence.
“You used to wiggle your fingers under the door,” I murmur. “I’d play games with them. You kept sneaking me food when they wouldn’t.”
Her laugh is brittle, sad.
I snort from a memory. “I threatened the cooks with a knife. Slipped you bologna slices. Only thing that could fit under the crack. That was before I figured out how to pop the hinges. Before I busted the knob clean off.”
She sniffles, voice breaking through the dust and shadows. “I remember.”
My chest fractures. Not from my pain; I could handle anything. No, it was hers that gutted me. Always hers. And she was too strong to show them, too stubborn to bow her head. She walked out with her chin lifted, lashes dry, every time.
I wrap my arms around her now, rocking her against me. She says to the darkness, “I don’t want to see any more. I’m done. It’s over.”
“We’re not in that closet anymore,” I whisper, lips brushing the curve of her neck.
Her face buries in my chest, just like then. And I hold her—like I used to.
Like I still want to.
I press my lips to her hair, a growl rumbling in my chest. “No one will ever put you in a place like this again.” It’s not a promise. It’s a threat.
She plants her chin on my sternum and gazes up at me. “What did you want to show me?”
Lacing my fingers with hers, I pull her out. Just like I used to. “This way.”
Maybe I could continue to hate her and fester in that knowledge of what a snake she is. Should probably protect myself from the inevitable downfall of my heart. But I want to pretend it’s only us again. She and I.
My first and only love.
Can I pretend she never stabbed me in the back?
For tonight.
We reach the old, hollowed oak in the north woods, now split from lightning storms and years of turmoil from the erratic weather. I nod toward the base. The place that used to hold treasures no one knew about.
“Do you remember what you buried here?”
Ashlyn tilts her head, the gold of her hair almost white in the moonlight. “No— Oh! My diary! I couldn’t return to get it because that last summer, I…” She grows quiet. “Well, you know.”
Because she’d just given birth…to his baby.
“Before we packed up, I stole the key for it. The one you kept in the lining of your bunk chest. The only place to hide things. Quite unimpressive.” The memory hits me until the bruises of the past throb deep in my chest. “I came here that night, the one… Anyway, I found it.”
She flips her hair over her shoulder. “You found my diary. D-Did you read it?”
“Every word.”
Shaking her head, she’s ready to wave it off. “It was a bunch of childish ramblings—”
“About me,” I cut in, rougher than I intended.
She crosses her arms, my coat hanging low on her thighs. “Mainly, I wrote how much I hated you.”
“You did, but…things changed.” I can’t help my smile, recalling all her lovesick puppy dog confessions.
When she first broke my heart, it was a constant source of comfort…and a way to rip the bandage off and remember the searing misery. She’d lied. Even to herself. Even among the pages.
How could someone who loved me that much betray me?
“I think Aiden Cardell might be the air in my lungs, because when he’s gone, I can’t breathe right.” Eyes on hers, I recite it back from memory. I’ve never forgotten a sentence of what she had to say within those pages. “That’s what you wrote. Just one of many.”
She gasps, staggering back a step, the color draining from her face. “I mean—”
“You knew how I felt about you.” My hand shoots out, fingers brushing hers before she can retreat. “I loved you with everything I had, Ashlyn.” I don’t stop, even as my throat tightens. “And you—you wrote I was your air. And still, you suffocated me.”
Fuck. Maybe I still love her. Maybe that’s the cruelest cut of all. That someone who soaks in apathy like a sponge only experiences pain around the woman he loves, the one he chooses.
Pulling her in, I ghost my lips over hers, enough to make her tremble against my chest. Her fists clutch my shirt like she’s drowning. “Pretend with me,” I whisper against her mouth. “Remember.”
She nods, and I dive in without holding back. Our kiss is molten—tongues tangling, breaths stealing. I crush her against me until she’s molded to my body, no space left to breathe except through each other.
Then I scoop her up, carrying her through brambles and shadows, straight to the car. The back seat groans under us—ceiling too low, cushions too narrow—but I press her beneath me anyway. Her dress hikes up high on her thighs as she rips off my coat and flings it onto the front seat.
I tear my belt free with a hiss, leaning down to capture her mouth again—hungry, relentless. “I can’t get enough of you,” I growl into the kiss. “I swear to fuck… You own me.”
She answers by biting my lip, unzipping my trousers, tugging them down with eager fingers, freeing me into her palm.
My hand slips between her thighs, sliding through heat and slick until I find her clit. Her back arches like she’s been struck by lightning, a broken whimper spilling past her lips as I circle, press, tease—warming her up, winding her tight, getting her ready to take all of me.
I can’t wait. My cock throbs, desperate, ready to bury itself in her.
“Give it to me,” she grits out, her hunger matching mine.
Lining up, I press my forehead to hers, one palm caressing the back of her neck. “You okay, baby girl?”
“Yes.”
“I got you,” I whisper—the same words I said that first night, in the back of an abandoned car.
Just like now.
I thrust deep, and she wails. Tears spill from the pain of our past. Her nails rake my back, legs locked half around my waist like she can’t decide whether to hold on or push me away.
The cramped back seat leaves hardly any room, but I pound her harder, hips a blur, peppering her face with frantic kisses. She rises to meet me, body answering each brutal slam, until it feels like we’re trying to break each other to stay whole.
“Why did you give this up? What did I do?” My voice cracks into the air, guttural, as my cock spears her tight cunt in time with each word.
“I…” Her hand grips my neck, yanking me closer so our eyes clash. Like she might finally speak the truth, her mouth trembles. “I…”
But then she squeezes them shut—shutting me out—just as her body writhes into climax.
I still, memorizing it. Every twitch, every gasp, every quiver of her lashes as her pussy clutches me in sharp, erratic bursts. It’s too much.
So I follow her, spilling into her, deep, deeper, wishing to the gods I could stay here forever.