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She’s on her own.

One look up. That’s all it takes to see the fight in her. If she’s still fighting, there’s still a memory worth fighting for.

Keep your damn promise.

Chapter

Fifty-Eight

EVER

The memories flash through my mind like the lightning overhead. They’re pulverized, one after another, the loss much more excruciating than her hands on me. I relive the torture and ridicule, the rejection and abandonment, the avoidance and loneliness—the chords of my past. She extracts them, wringing me for every drop. I’ve lost command of my body, and my thoughts can hardly make it through the torment shredding my existence. The wind and rain pound down on me, and they’re the only things that keep me in the present.

I search through the pain for good memories to cover up the nightmares of my past. Kelter. Those ears. His laugh. But ithurts too much when every heart-filling moment is paired with the sight of a knife in his chest. And even though I try to hold on to those moments, my mind keeps finding Eli. The folded notes. The castle. Song. Feet. Lake. Kiss. Cave. Lips on my hips. Him inside of me—and Kelter, taking his life. The cut across his throat.

I can’t take it. I’d rather forget. Not feel. Memories have always been painful, something I wanted to forget, and now Icanescape. I’m forced to let it all go.

A high-pitched ring disintegrates my brain. The pain continues in waves, taking me further out into the deep blue, too far to swim back. It’s not worth fighting anymore. Pain, no pain, it’s all the same. Soon to be gone.

The years pass. The memories march on and away. Goodbye Reggie and your wretched friends. Goodbye burning house. Goodbye Cam and your words of wisdom. Goodbye Maverick J. and your orange vest and belly hairs.

They keep coming…and going. Meeting Kelt. Sunrises and stars. Coffee and curses. Maps and adventures. I didn’t think I’d ever let him go, let every moment disappear.

Milo’s boyish grin. Kaleida’s stories. More slip through the cracks, and they’re gone.

Each memory, each little piece of me that makes me who I am, even the visions, they’re torn away, nothing but an ocean of emptiness up to today.

More arms wrap around me, squeezing me—Eli. I know those arms. But it can’t be him. I must be too far gone. My mind must have conjured him as one last reminder of what I’m about to lose forever. But he holds me close, my only rock in the stream of time.

Those few precious hours together, his demand—never fall in love with me. It floats away. The dust cloud over the fallen house.Gone. The ugly couch.Gone. My mother.Gone. Kelterslicing Eli’s neck.Gone. A bloody knife through Kelter’s chest.Gone.

A voice drifts into my ear, deep and sensual, urgent and strained. It belongs to the arms squeezing me tight. No voice I can recognize. I know no one. Not even myself.

“I lied earlier, my Never, but know this—I see your delicious darkness, and it’s so damn beautiful. You can choose to have me killed over and over, but remember—you’re mine. You breathe for me. You scream for me. You come for me, and only me.”

I go weak in the knees. My eyes close. I don’t know who that was leaning over me, but his voice drove straight into my core. Wind slaps my face, and rain batters my head.

My final memories pass by.

Hands—merciless, painful hands on me—holding me from behind, taking me away from myself.

Gone.

The words in my ear.

Gone.

From somewhere inside me comes a warning, a call to protect. I kick and kick and knee the man’s body in front of me until the two squeezing arms fall away.

Those saving, shielding arms that held me so close, they’re all I know in the world, suddenly my everything, my only, my old and new.

Gone.

A blank canvas. No memories. Nothing left. No wind. No rain.

Only pain.

I let go, sinking into the dark depths of torment, nothingness holding me in its tender embrace, a black bliss all to myself. Around me, above me, below me. Part of me.