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Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Not here.Not now.Not again.
“Whoa, Declan. Hey, it’s okay.It’s going to be okay. Dammit, I’m sorry, I wasn’t even thinking about…” Addy trails off as her hand meets my shoulder and rubs it in wide, soothing circles. “I’m going to call Mom and Dad, okay? I’ll let them know what happened, and then we can get out of here.”
I nod. Or at least I think I do.
I’m too busy counting backward from one hundred, following through with the grounding steps ofFive, Four, Three, Two, One,to ease my racing heart, and the shakiness in my chest, and the flow of my breaths.
By some miracle, it works.
My heart calms, and my body settles, and my breaths start to slow.
It’s not too much later when Boss comes out to tell us the news.They’re okay.Bruised, and battered, and a little bit broken, but okay.They’re going to be okay.
I sag into myself further, releasing a weighted breath.
My mind has gone numb, my body lost to the exhaustion of tonight, my ears ringing, so I’m oblivious to the conversations happening around me—Jude on the phone with Cal as him and Stacy make their way to the hospital, Boss and Addy revisiting the details of the last hour or so, and a handful of the other guys showing up in support, too.
It’s a little while later that Cal and Stacy arrive, immediately pulling Addy and me into a deep, relieved, four-way hug. “You two would be in so much damn trouble if I weren’t so terriblyrelieved.” Stacy sighs, squeezing us even harder. “Come on, let’s get you girls in bed—where you belong at this hour,”she says pointedly, and Cal plants a kiss on each of our foreheads before going inside with the guys.
We finally head home at three in the morning.
And by the time my body hits the sheets, I’m completely gone.
______
Tipping his head back in a dark thunderclap of laughter, vines sprout and crawl from his open mouth, creeping their way down his body before spilling onto the floor between us.
They bleed onto the ground in an inky mass.
I try to take a step backward, willing my feet to move, but they’re stuck, cemented to the floor.
The sound of grinding metal and shattering glass stabs at my mind—and I realize, with a bone-chilling clarity, that the sound is coming from him.
He’s dead,Jude laughs, and it’s all your fault.
A single tear tracks down my face.
And then I open my mouth, and scream.
______
It’s another dark, late night. Another sleepy wander down the hallway. Another quiet standoff—as I nearly crash into Jude.
It’s been one week. One week of silence. One week of staying in.
One week of avoiding Jude at all costs.
And it’s not because I’m angry with him, or sad, or upset with him at all, even. But because I’ve been scared that the next time we talk, it will be the last. I’m scared it’s what both of us need in the end. That it’s what I need in the end, in order to exorcise the demons living inside me.
I’m scared that if I don’t say it, he will.
He rakes a rough hand through his hair in the dark hallway. He’s shirtless, gray sweats hanging low at his hips, pictures drawn in perfect lines and shadows across his body. I drag my tired gaze over them—up his stomach, chest, neck, and razor-sharp jawline.
When I finally find the courage to meet his stare, it’s as turbulent as I expected it to be. The storm inside them rages, but it’s with a chaos that feels anything but violent.