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I turn my head back towards Gannon.

“What did you do?” I demand again.

“I tried to change her,” he confesses, dropping to the ground and fisting his hair in despair. My lungs compress in my chest as I take in his confession.

“Gannon!” Clarice whispers, horror-stricken as she realizes exactly what that means. “There is no way Abbie would have been ready for that after everything she has been through!” Clarice scolds him.

“She wouldn’t stop fighting me,” Gannon murmurs defensively.

“Because you tried to bloody kill her!” I yell at him, but his response leaves me speechless.

“No, she was trying to kill herself!” Gannon whispers as he clutches his hair, rocking back and forth on his heels.

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

AZALEA

Each heartbeat resonates through me, pulsating in my veins and echoing in my ears. The tangy scent of her blood saturates the air, guiding me to the bathroom. Stepping into the bathroom, water splatters on the floor, and that is where I discover Abbie. She sprawls out on the cold tiles, her ear pressed against them as if trying to hear something from below. Her vacant gaze is fixed on the bottom of the sink basin.

“Abbie?” I whisper, a lump forming in my throat at the sight of her so shattered. It’s been years since she was this way - not since those horrific days following her return from Kade and before that being violated by the butcher. She doesn’t respond; only a solitary tear escapes her eye and slides down her cheek. She has been through so much, and everyone breaks, though I didn’t think it would ever be Gannon that would cause her to snap.

I initially think Gannon is responsible for this state – that he has hurt her physically. But as I take in the scene before me, it dawns upon me that Abbie has inflicted this pain onto herself. She’s been drowning in torment for a while now, but we allhave different ways of showing it. Kyson drowns his sorrows in alcohol while Liam seeks solace in his twisted games of torture and the copious amounts of booze he consumes, Damian with his need for control, and Dustin by overworking.

As for me? I internalize everything until it threatens to consume me whole. And then there’s Abbie –Abbie always fights hers because there is no comeback from the sort of vice she fights, and that is death.

Carefully, I kneel beside her before sitting down on the frosty tiles next to her, our heads resting side by side. The emptiness in her eyes tells me she isn’t really here with me; she’s lost somewhere within herself – trapped within a past that continues to haunt and destroy her.

Slowly moving my hand towards her, I gently stroke her icy cheek with my thumb, catching another tear as it falls from her eye.

“I can still feel it,” she murmurs softly.

“Feel what, Ab’s?” I whisper back.

“The noose. It’s still there... so tightly wound I can’t breathe,” she confesses, her voice barely audible. My fingers trace the scar behind her ear – a mark that mirrors mine, a reminder of the death we narrowly escaped.

Her words continue in a hushed whisper, “I can feel it growing tighter, digging into my skin and burning through my flesh. I can feel the way it slides over my skin, growing tighter and tighter. Feel my blood rushing in my ears. I don’t want to feel it anymore.”

“What happened?” The question slips from my lips before I can stop myself. If I’m to help her navigate out of this darkness, I need to know what has pushed her back into it.

“I can’t be what he needs me to be,” she admits with a sniffle, wiping away tears with the back of her sleeve. “He shouldn’t be punished because I am broken.”

“You’re not broken, Abbie,” I counter softly.

“But I’m not whole either. He deserves better than that. He deserves better than what I can give him. So does Tyson,” she concludes with a sigh.

“What does Gannon need, Abbie?” I ask. Her brows knit together in thought.

“A mate. Someone to love him, who won’t hurt him like she did,” Abbie whispers, her voice barely audible.

“Who hurt Gannon?”

“She did. She didn’t want him, and I can’t have him. It’s the same.” Her words are a cryptic puzzle, one that I can’t solve yet because I don’t know of the woman she speaks of.

“Gannon wants you, Abbie. Tyson wants you. And me? I want you too,” I tell her. But as if my words are a trigger, she retreats into some dark recess of her mind while I struggle to pull her back to reality.

When there’s movement behind me, my eyes dart toward the door just in time to see Gannon silently entering the room. He moves behind her and perches on the edge of the bathtub. Abbie doesn’t notice him; she isn’t here with us in the present moment.