Page 43 of Dark Little Game

Heavy, at the same time.

But I’m like a furnace, containing the white-hot flame inside of me.

“I know I’m broken, Rayne,” I finally tell him, my voice just above a whisper. “I know it better than anyone.”

He’s frowning as he turns to me. “Why do you seek out violence? Why do youhurtpeople?”

The pressure inside me builds.

And builds.

The silence in this goddamn library is starting to feel suffocating, and I wish we were anywhere else.

Because I’m like a pot about to boil over.

Spill everywhere.

My fingers twitch.

“Do you know the full story, about what happened that night at the shore?” I ask him.

The words come out a little strained. It’s odd to find myself talking about something I never talk about with another living soul.

His expression softens, just a little. “With Lune? I know she drowned in the ocean during a storm. I know it’s the worst thing that ever happened to your family.”

I swallow hard past a tight throat. “And are you aware that I watched it all happen?”

He’s silent.

Because Iknowhe wasn’t aware of that.

I tellhim the whole story, quietly, sitting at that desk in the library while I look out the window. It’s easier to talk about it when I keep my gaze fixed outside on the night sky and the trees instead of on his face.

I tell him that I saw my sister die.

That I saw it all from the dock.

The stormclouds rolling in.

Lune and her first boyfriend, a gutless guy I hated from the moment I met him, were sharing their first taste of alcohol together on the shore.

The tide rose, and they passed a cheap bottle of apple Schnapps back and forth.

I hadtoldher not to go. That night was the first time she screamed at me, too.

Just fucking leave me alone, Hunter.

It’s funny what happens when you go through enough tragedy for seven lifetimes, all in the blink of an eye.

Lune never used to get angry with me, but she didn’t care about the storm. The tide. The bad feeling in my bones, a deep fear I couldn’t ignore. She chose to head to the shore at midnight with that boy.

I watched them swim out from my place in the shadows on the docks.

The sky was silent until the thunder came.

In a moment the atmosphere seemed to shift, spilling out from the sky in torrential rainfall and relentless wind.

I lost the outlines of their bodiesminutesbefore the worst of it.