Page 100 of Deadly Blooms (Psychic Unraveled #1)

THE FALLOUT

Graham

It’d been a whole goddamn week since I’d left her. Tossed her aside, left her bleeding, and for what? So I could rot in peace?

The joke was on me. I was still stuck on her.

I hadn’t slept. Couldn’t eat. Everything tasted better soaked in whiskey, because every goddamn thought was her—her face, her voice, that laugh that snuck under my skin, the scent that still clung to me like a motherfucking curse.

Even with the bottles piling up, I couldn’t drown her out.

Idiot.

The silence in this cabin was too loud. Heavy. The kind that grabbed your chest and squeezed, like the headmaster’s office used to. Like waiting for the belt.

I pulled another bottle from the cupboard— hmm , last one. Unscrewed the cap and flicked it to the floor.

Classy, Locke. Real fucking classy.

I took a swig. It should’ve stung. Should’ve lit me up. But all I got was that same dead numbness, settling deeper.

The world tilted as I stumbled toward the couch, everything bleeding at the edges. Closing my eyes didn’t help—just made the room spin harder—so I stared into the nothing, hoping it’d swallow me. Hoping it’d make me forget what I did. How I hurt her.

My phone chimed.

Her.

Maggie:

Can we talk?

No, we can’t fucking talk.

The heat hit me all at once—rage at myself, at what I destroyed—and I snapped.

Before I could think, the phone was flying through the air, shattering the picture window to my left.

The silence after the shatter didn’t help. It never did.

The pain stayed, rotting under my skin—only now it was masked by blinding, wild rage. I couldn’t see the wreckage, couldn’t feel the fallout. Just destruction.

My lamp was the first casualty—straight through the TV. Sparks. Shattered glass. No going back.

Next?

My hand found the Cecropia moth. Our moth . The one Nan and I painstakingly pressed and pinned. I froze, breath caught in my throat. For a second, I was back in her garden. Back before I was broken.

But then it hit—like a fucking wrecking ball.

The school.

The belt.

The blood.

Her voice disappearing behind the slammed doors.

My jaw clenched. The case cracked in my grip, slicing my palm.

Good.

I hurled it through the window, and the scream that ripped through me wasn’t human. It was pain, and torment disguised as weakness.

Then I lost it.

The rest of the collection— our collection— went next. One by one. Wings, frames, shattered memories flying through the broken glass like dead things trying to escape, caught in the morning sun as they fell.

The room wavered like a tiny ship on a raging sea. I stumbled, catching myself on the counter, wincing as my cut hand took the weight. My limbs were heavy, useless—lifting the whiskey bottle took effort.

Better use a glass this time.

I slid a dirty shot glass closer, hand wobbling as I poured shot after shot, slamming them back. The bottle was already half-empty.

“Real healthy, asshole. Smashing your shit, slicing your hand—like that’s gonna fix a goddamn thing. You can’t even control yourself. No wonder you couldn’t keep them safe.”

I stayed hunched at the counter, head low, chest heaving. My knees buckled. Blood pooled under my palm, slick against the counter.

Then—

Her scent drifted in—coconut and tiger lily. It snagged my breath, wrapped tight around my throat.

Bec’s perfume.

Flowerbomb.

I only remembered the name because the bottle looked like a grenade. Thought it was cool when I bought it for her for our second anniversary. She wore it every damn day after that.

No.

No fucking way.

She’s gone.

Focus, Graham.

You’re here. In your cabin. In Port Grey.

Look—pheasant mounts. Antlers from the buck last year. This isn’t 2015. Not Colorado. Not Wyoming.

Don’t let it drag you back there.

“Graham.”

Her voice echoed—soft, sad, too real to be a memory.

“Hm—” I grunted, the sound tore up my throat. My eyes snapped open. I spun?—

And there she was.

Standing there. Clear as day.

Her soft, forgiving green eyes cut straight through me. She looked just like she did on our wedding day—goddamn radiant, and just as out of reach.

My heart rolled like thunder in a summer storm.

Everything around me pulsed in and out of focus, syncing with the rhythm of my panic.

Was she really here? Or was it the whiskey? The guilt?

Was I finally losing it?

I reached out, desperate—my fingers slicing through the empty air, aching to feel her.

“Bec—”

One step forward. One broken, wobbling step.

And then the darkness swallowed me whole.

Maggie

You know what? Fine. If he was really going to ghost me like that—no calls, no texts, not even a fuck-you—I was done. I wasn’t going to chase a man who didn’t want to be caught.

I tossed my phone onto the bed, maybe a little too hard. It bounced off the pillow beside Chester, who lifted his head just enough to glare at me for disturbing his beauty sleep.

Must’ve been nice.

My own reflection would’ve sent a child running. My eyes were puffy, red—raw from crying every damn night this week. No makeup could fix heartbreak. No amount of sleep made it easier to breathe through the silence.

“We don’t need him… do we buddy?” I scooped Chester up, tucking him against my chest. He was warm and soft, purring like nothing in the world was wrong. Like my insides weren’t trying to claw their way out.

“We don’t need anybody,” I whispered.

Chester blinked slowly. Unimpressed. Then stretched out and sank his claws into my shirt, like he was testing just how much more damage I could take.

Traitor.

The floorboards creaked beneath my feet, echoing through the empty house like a reminder—Uncle Silas was gone too.

Sometimes, I still expected to hear his voice, grumbling from the study, or catch a whiff of those god-awful grape cigars he swore were ‘refined.’ Sometimes I did. Or maybe I just wanted to. Either way, there was nothing. Just the silence. And way too much of it.

You’d think I’d be relieved—happy even—that he moved on. But what about me? I thought I’d be fine on my own when I moved here. I thought I needed space. Peace. A fresh start. But now? After everything, I just felt lost.

I let out a long and heavy sigh, dragging a hand down Chester’s soft fur, letting him lean into me like he knew I was falling apart and was too polite to mention it. The ache in my chest hadn’t eased since Graham left.

My phone buzzed.

My heart jumped—too fast, too hopeful.

Graham?

I scrambled for it, nearly dropping the thing in the panic.

Katie.

Of course.

The air rushed out of me, sharp and bitter, like deflating balloons on my tenth birthday. That was the year Mom forgot the cake. And the year Mary and I stopped believing in people when they said they’d be there.

God, I was the worst. Disappointed that it’s my best friend—who actually cared—instead of the man who shattered me.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I answered, trying my best to fake the enthusiasm. “Hey, Katie-bug!”

“Hey girl—let’s get you out of that big ol’ Barbie Dream-house. Derek and I are going to the club tonight. Come with.”

I sighed, already exhausted at the thought. “I don’t know… what if we run into Graham?”

“Then he can get a front-row seat to the regret show. We’ll make you hot as hell, and he can marinate in his own poor choices.”

I let out a hollow laugh. That’s not what I wanted. Not really. I didn’t want Graham to suffer. He was hurting too much as it was. And I loved him too much for that. But maybe I was just a wound he couldn’t stop picking. Maybe being near me hurt more that it helped.

He told me to move on.

So I will.

Even if I had to fake every damn step of it.

“For fuck’s sake… fine.” I set Chester back on the bed, and he meowed like I’d just betrayed him. “But don’t expect me to dance. I’m sticking to the bar to wallow—that’s it.”

“Yes!” I visualized her practically fist-pumping through the phone because she most likely was. “Pick you up at eight!”

Graham

When I came to it was black and cold. My cheek had been glued to the floor for God knows how long. And?—

Ugh—my back!

I groaned, shifting my body slowly, the pain lacing up my spine. I’d been here a while.

My fingers twitched, and a hot sting shot through my palm. I hissed, prying my eyes open to find shards of glass half-buried in sticky, dried blood.

Goddamn it.

The bitter taste of whiskey coated my tongue. My stomach coiled.

Why the fuck was it so bright in here?

I dragged myself upright, gripping the counter for balance. The fridge hummed, no jackhammered into my skull. Everything hurt. The walls tilted, the room flickered between too blurry and too sharp—like a camera trying and failing to focus.

Then I saw it.

“Who the fuck broke my window?!”

I stumbled toward the big picture window—now just a gaping hole. Cold air rushed in, biting at my skin. Glass crunched under my boots.

Huh?

My gaze dropped. Pieces of my entomology collection littered the floor—shattered cases, torn wings, crumpled bodies.

Real fucking cute, Locke. Destroy your best memories—good call.

I caught my reflection in what was left of the window.

“Jesus, you look like you lost a fight with a bottle of Jack Daniels .”

Accurate.

What the hell happened?

The pounding in my skull flared as I tried to remember. A flash—Maggie’s name on my screen. A text. Then my phone flying through the window.

Oh.

My eyes landed on the hole in the TV. Right—the lamp…

I grunted in disapproval. “Fucking fantastic. Can’t even get drunk without trashing what little I’ve got left.”

I should’ve cleaned up the mess, but I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

The sight of it—my memories smashed, my failures on display, like a replay my grand finale at Fuck Up: Badge 406 The Series —it was too much.

When I attempted to make my way toward the bathroom, something flickered in the corner of my eye.

I froze.

There was nothing there except the stench of whiskey clinging to everything, but something else cut through—coconut and tiger lily.

Soft, subtle and too fucking familiar.

“Bec.”

Her name fell from my lips like a prayer I never stopped whispering. But she wasn’t here. She was gone. Just bones and dust and everything I couldn’t protect.

It’s just your PTSD fucking with you, Locke.

Just another goddamn ghost crawling out of the bottle.

My eyes scanned the wreckage—glass, wings, blood.

I dropped my head, shame curling up my spine like barbed wire.

I couldn’t fix this. I couldn’t fix anything.

I took a breath—sharp, ragged, final.

Then I grabbed my keys with a shaking hand and stumbled for the door.

Each step pounded against my skull like a fucking drumbeat.

Failure. Nothing but a failure. A motherfucking failure.

Outside, the cold slapped me across the face, but not enough to sober me.

Just enough to remind me I was still breathing when I didn’t want to be.

No sense locking up—let it rot. Let it all burn behind me.

I climbed into the truck, yanked the door shut and gripped the wheel, the cold seeping in through the cracks, biting at the bleeding crease in my palm. The engine groaned to life like it resented me for dragging it into this mess. Fair. I didn’t blame it.

Gravel sprayed down the frost laced drive as I fishtailed it out of there, hoping my next move would make me forget everything.

I didn’t look back.

Not at the house.

Not at the town.

Not at the mess I’d made.

And definitely not at the woman I should’ve stayed for.

I just drove—somewhere colder than this, somewhere further, somewhere I swore I’d never go back to.