Page 80 of Betrayed By Sin

We nod in agreement. We both know we’re running straight into the truth… and the people who’ve been manipulating everything all along.

Ishake my head."They will always be at each other’s throats.”

“Do you believe Sin?” She asks.

“Irrevocably. Those vows changed everything; I know he wouldn’t hide something like this from me. But that doesn’t mean I’m not pissed. Not about the way they never listen to us. They would rather kill each other than talk.”

Bria exhales, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. “Well, we can’t just drive in circles.”

“I know.”

Bria sighs. “Alright. We’ll figure it out.”

“Go south.” I tell her.

I don’t look back as we drive further away.

I don’t let myself.

Because if I do, I might not have the strength to keep going.

When they calm down, we’ll be long gone.

Sin will tear the city apart looking for me.

Cameron will lose his mind.

But they won’t find me.

Because this time,I’m choosing myself.

This time,I disappear on my own terms to solve the problems neither of them could.

We just don’t know how, yet.

TWENTY-ONE

The road stretches out before us, endless and uncertain.

Bria drives with one hand lazily gripping the wheel, the other drumming a rhythm against the door in time with the low hum of music playing through the car speakers. The city is far behind us now, swallowed by distance, by the choice I made to leave it all behind.

I don’t look back.

Not at the skyline, not at the world we’re leaving behind, not at the life I just detonated with one reckless decision.

Instead, I stare ahead at the empty highway stretching into the unknown, trying to tell myself this is freedom.

It doesn’t feel like it.

It feels like freefall.

Once Bria and I figure things out, maybe we’ll come up with a plan that will finally make both of our families listen to us. For once.

I grip my phone in my lap, fingers tight around the last connection I have to the world I left. It vibrates against my palm, the screen lighting up with a name that twists something deep in my gut.

Sin.

My stomach clenches. I shouldn’t answer. I can’t answer.