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Chapter One

Jolie

Avoidance: the action of keeping away from or not doing something.

That has been the sum of my life for the last two weeks. Who I was before I came here had no reason to mourn their deaths, but the version of me I lost a long time ago that has recently resurfaced can’t stop. My heart aches with a pain I’ve never felt before; my entire being feels like it’s being crushed from the inside out.

Avoiding those who caused this pain has been an escape. Vengeance has buried its way into my blood, and all I dream about is hurting them in the same way they have hurt me. Then I wake up in tears, the thought of losing them, too, only causing me more pain. It’s an endless cycle, day in and day out.

I’m not entirely sure how long I have been holed up in Boston’s room. His clean laundry scent has started to fade, but I can’t seem to find the energy to move. Sinclair comes to help me shower every couple of days and Petra brings me food—most of it I don’t even touch. My appetite left the moment I saw their dead bodies littered on the ground of the test zone.

Creed sneaks in and watches me sleep every night—I’ve heard him moving around—but I always ignore his presence. They’re the ones that caused this heartbreak, and I don’t want anything to do with any of them. Unfortunately, I know I can’t stay in this room forever.

The door to Boston’s bedroom clicks open and bangs against the wall, the sound echoing throughout the room making me wince. I keep myself rolled in a ball under the covers; if I ignore them, they go away after a while.

The first week was bliss, nothing but endless silence.

Today they don’t get the message. Some of them are pushier than others, Kai being one of the pushy ones.

“Rise and shine, Princess. We have the funeral today. It’s time we laid them to rest.”

I ignore Kai as he moves around the room, pulling the curtains open. The darkness under the blanket disappears as the light of the day filters through.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

“Fuck off, Kai,” I snap.

“No can do. Mr Z wants you back in the land of the living.”

“Fuck him too,” I mumble.

Kai grabs the bottom of the blanket and tries to dislodge it from my body. “No thanks, he isn’t my type.”

Now that I have my memories back, the thought of him fucking someone else causes rage to pool in my stomach. Even though I’m mad and forgiving him isn’t something I can do just yet, I don’t want him with anyone else.

“Hard way it is then,” he says and then laughs.

I hear him walk around the bed, and he rips the covers off my body, throwing them across the room. Opening my bleary eyes and looking up at him, my lip curls in anger at the smile plastered on his face. Kai leans over me—his messy black hair falling across his forehead—and grabs my arms, pulling me from my sanctuary.

I thrash around in his hold, just wanting to get his hands off me. “Leave me alone!” my scream is distorted by the sob bubbling up my throat.

“No can do.”

I go limp, the never-ending exhaustion I’ve felt since I lost them making me feel like I haven’t slept in weeks. What is the point of fighting if he keeps coming at me? He tries to sit me up but fails. I hear him huff as he leans down, manoeuvring himself so he can throw me over his shoulder.

I kick my legs and bang on his back, shouting at him.

“Kai, put me down! I hate you!”

“Words leave permanent scars. Make sure you really mean what you say.”

He walks with me into the en suite, turns on the shower, and steps inside. The cold water stuns me as he places me down on my feet.

“You killed your own brother. You are owed my hatred, whether that hurts you or not. You can’t walk away from this war with no battle wounds. They sure didn’t get to.”

Tears streaming down my face as I look up into Kai’s sage-green eyes. He looks so much like Case. Lifting my hand, I touch his face, running my fingers down his jaw.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

The crack in his voice breaks my heart, nearly making me forgive him. Damn this genetic bullshit for making me feel things I don’t want to feel.

“I miss them, and it hurts so bad. Why does it feel like this? As if I’m in a war with my brain because I feel like I knew them, but I really didn’t, not any longer. I’m not even sure how I felt about them,” I whisper back, my own voice cracking.

“It’s in your genetic makeup; you were created for them. You felt their pain. When you left, they hurt for a very long time, and I expect the same will be true for you. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury to mourn any longer. This is our life and Mr Z rules it until we can get rid of him. Now you have to get dressed and put your armour up. You’re strong and can do this.” I find myself nodding at his next words. “We need your help to take him down. You can get close to him in ways that we can’t. Please help us.”

“Fine, I will help you for them, but I can’t forgive you, Kai,” I mutter.

“I know,” he says sadly, before stepping out of the shower dripping wet and leaving the bathroom.

Stripping off my wet clothes, I leave them in the shower and climb out, wrapping a towel around my body. I feel like just when I was getting a grip on my life, it was ripped out from underneath me. Now all I’m left with are these memories of them and wish that I had more time.

Coming out of the bathroom, I find a simple black dress laid out on the bed. Just knowing what it means and why I have to wear it causes fresh tears to gather in my eyes. I take a deep breath and centre myself as I drop my towel to the floor. After I’m dressed and ready, I head downstairs. My mood hasn’t improved, but I have to get up and function.

I don’t know how I would have felt if it was Kai, Creed, Chester, Trace, and Brennan that were killed. Would it have been easier because I hadn’t spent as much time with them besides Trace? How messed up is it to think like that?

Kai is seated at the breakfast bar as I enter the kitchen. I look around, but no one else is here and I’m honestly grateful for that. I’m not ready for the looks of pity and regret, or the whole “it was us or them” speech they’re all so quick to hand out.

A front-row seat at a funeral is not the seat you want to brag about. At a concert, maybe, but here it would be disrespectful and I’m not even sure why I think about it. Funerals for G.O.D.S are a weird gathering. No one is crying or wearing black. Everyone just sits and listens as a representative for Olympia talks as if she knew them.

The only people who truly knew them are those of us sitting here in the front row. Surrounded by their parents, I sit and stare at the five wooden coffins lining the stage, each one with a photo beside it. I gaze at each picture for as long as I can, committing each face to memory. It feels surreal to be witnessing this right now. They only just came back into my life, so my new memories aren’t as good as the memories of us growing up now that everything has come back to me. Regardless, the pain eats at me from the inside out—so much so that I want to claw my own heart out just to make it stop.

I’ve been in a zombie state of mind, reality not having set in until now.

I expected Boston to fly through the door in a rage when I slept in his room the first night. Subconsciously, I did it in the hope he would come back.

Everyone stands to form a line and pay their respects. One by one I watch as they place a wildflower on each coffin, then return to their seat. A tear rolls down my face, but I hastily wipe it away. Crying is a sign of weakness, and someone who didn’t know the guys for that long wouldn’t be shedding tears. I don’t want anyone to know I have my memories back yet. I need to get to the bottom of everything that is going on within Olympia first.

Mr Z is aware that I have some of my memories back; he isn’t stupid. Though his weakness is his dead wife, and I plan to exploit it every chance I get.

He’s going down, along with his company and Team Zeus. They don’t get a free pass just because they were their brothers.

When it’s my turn to walk up onto the stage, I stop and take a handful of forget-me-nots from a bucket hanging on the banister. I take measured steps up the stairs, fiddling with the flowers in my hand.

I make my way across the stage, stopping to place the first one on Boston’s coffin. “Ride or die, I won’t ever forget that,” I whisper, like it’s a secret for only the two of us.

Moving to Marlow’s coffin, I place his flowers down next. “To the moon and back.” While I didn’t remember before, over the last week, memories have come back to me—things I shouldn’t have had to forget.

“I didn’t eat your M I fall to the floor as a sob lodges itself in my throat. Someone tries to touch my shoulder, but I shrug them away. Whispers break out across the room, and I look up and lock eyes with the five guys I didn’t want to see here—that shouldn’t be here. Even though I came with Kai, I had hoped he would stay out of sight.

Creed looks at me, and the corners of his eyes dip as a frown mars his beautiful, tattooed face. Anger courses through my veins, pushing me up onto shaky legs.

Jumping from the stage, I run towards them as everyone gasps, furious enough to destroy everything in my path. I stop in front of Creed and punch his chest hard enough to cause him to take a step back. “You don’t get to feel my pain.”

A solid chest presses against my back, and an arm wraps around my waist. “You need to calm down, Little Angel. You don’t want to show all your cards here.” Chester’s bourbon-and-sex scent surrounds me as he whispers into my ear. “Hate us, scream at us, punish us even—but not with an audience. You never know who’s watching.”

I turn my head to the right and Mr Z, his representatives, and a handful of students are all staring at me. I curl my lip up at them in a sneer before stepping out from between Creed and Chester, then I turn and run outside.

There’s no point sticking around. They will be transported back to the morgue and cremated. Brennan was weak—he sent me a text message to let me know. He couldn’t even be man enough to face me.

None of them even looked sad. Each one just stood there staring at me, like they care about how I’m feeling. They don’t get to care; they need to just leave me alone.

Trace is my sore spot right now.

He was the one person I felt closest to in the whole world, even after everything was revealed, but I never imagined he could betray me like this. He was always my person, the one I could rely on. It just shows how wrong I could be.

I won’t let my walls slip this time because I know my strengths.

I will bide my time and make sure I’m in tune with myself again.

I need to do it for them.