Page 24

Chapter 24

Theo

I was being stupid and I knew it. But if Wren was willing to risk everything for me, the least I could do was take a risk for him too.

That… and I wanted to see something.

Since the graveyard, the heat inside me had settled. It wasn’t better , but I didn’t feel the same burn scorching through me whenever Wren left the room. I wasn’t tempted to stalk him into the bathroom or across the house. I didn’t feel like I was going to burn to cinders and turn into a monster the second he was out of my sight.

I just… missed him. It was a different kind of ache in my chest, something that made me burn for a different reason.

I needed to know if I was more in control of myself.

Was it possible that the flare I’d seen between us, the way the red thread seemed to shine a little brighter than it had…

Could I handle being out of his sight? If I could, it might make it easier for him to get in and out of his apartment without anyone questioning him.

I still had no intention of going very far, and I was going in the middle of the night when I was fairly certain I wouldn’t run into anyone. I planned on keeping my eyes on the ground and walking around the block—just to see.

Just to know if Wren would be safe if something happened when he was on his suicide mission to get information to save me…

Fuck, I really wanted to keep him safe.

And that's exactly why I wasn’t paying attention.

I’d been in this neighborhood before, but I didn’t realize it until a voice called out to me, causing my breath to catch in my chest in a wash of terror that made my eyes snap up.

Erin. I knew his voice, a sting of acid on my skin that instantly threatened to flay me raw, to make me feel small and broken.

He was everything wrong in my life, and I’d somehow been so wrapped up in Wren that I hadn’t realized the house we were in was in the same neighborhood where I’d grown up. I hadn’t looked up because I was afraid of hurting someone, so I hadn’t seen where we’d landed.

It was my own personal hell, and the place Erin had never left.

“I knew you’d be back.” God, just the sound of his voice was enough to make me shrink in on myself. The confidence that I’d felt, the gentle coolness that Wren’s touch wrapped around me, dissolved.

My body was twitching, a mixture of terror and that fire, all swirling just beneath the skin and threatening to break me apart, to turn me into everything I was trying to fight against.

At least there wasn’t a red thread in sight. Instead, I could see a halo of darkness around Erin’s body, extending back to the two men who stood behind him. I vaguely recognized them, but I’d never bothered to learn the names of the assholes who worked with Erin.

I’d never bothered to learn the names of the people he passed me around to.

“I didn’t come back,” I said mutely.

I needed to leave—I needed to fight .

I needed to do whatever it took to make sure he didn’t step closer to me, that he didn’t put a hand on me, that he didn’t—

“You’re here, you fucking bitch. Of course you came back. Can’t survive without me, can you?”

He sounded so sure of himself, like I hadn’t been gone for years. Like I hadn’t stolen all the money I could from him one night when he was drugged out of his mind, and run to the other side of the city.

He’d never found me.

I’d been pretty sure he’d never looked.

He was looking now. His blue eyes roamed up and down my body, and I hated the way a smile broke across his face, the way it was so fucking proprietary.

“You’re looking good, Theo.”

“I need to go.” My voice was still low. If he touched me, I’d fight back—if I started fighting, I didn’t know if I’d be able to stop.

If I completely turned into a monster, Wren would have to kill me, and I—

Fuck.

Wren.

Why had I ever left the house?

I should never have gotten out of the bed, or thought I was strong enough to do anything to help him. I should never—

A fist landed on my jaw, and the pain that streaked through my body was enough to make me dizzy, enough to make my head spin. Erin was shaking out his hand, but the grin on his face was still there.

“You’re not going anywhere unless I say you are, Theo. Don’t you remember? I broke you. Me and every person I knew broke you. You don’t get to say where you go, when you go. I do. You belong to me.”

I almost caved. The words he spoke had been true for so long—I’d hated myself because of them, broken myself because of them. I’d lost myself because of them.

But now…

Now things were different.

Now…

“I don’t.”

Erin paused, and I saw the fury sweep across his features.

“I don’t belong to you, fucker. I never have.” And even when I saw his hand ball into a fist, even when he threw another punch that sent me to the ground, I felt something in my chest I’d never felt before.

Calm.

Peace.

A knowledge that I could handle this, that I could do this, because if I fought Erin they’d probably try to kill me… and I wouldn’t be able to stop what my body did then.

I wouldn’t have cared before. I would have relished the power to finally tear them apart, to hurt them for every time they’d hurt me… to break them until they were crying for mercy, and not give it because they’d never listened when I cried.

But now… now things were different.

I was different.

If I lost myself, I’d lose Wren.

I couldn’t lose Wren.

I curled up on my side and gritted my teeth as a few kicks and blows landed across my legs and back… but I managed to open my eyes when Erin kneeled down beside me and jerked my head back, his own eyes narrowed as he glared at me.

“You’re worthless , Theo. You realize that, right? You’re a fucking broken toy.”

The sound of footsteps pounding toward us was probably the only thing that saved me from another blow, but it didn’t matter. Erin aimed one more kick at my stomach, then he and the assholes with him were running around the corner.

I rolled onto my back on the dirty sidewalk and stared up at the sky, a soft laugh tearing up my throat, bubbling with blood from my split lip. Fuck . It had only been a few minutes, but I hadn’t broken. I hadn’t begged. I hadn’t slipped back to that dark place that had felt endless before.

I was still here—still me.

I knew who was running toward me, so I didn’t flinch when Wren gently pulled my head onto his lap. I was still laughing when his voice finally broke through the ringing in my ears.

“Theo. Who the fuck was that? Are you okay? I’ll… Fuck, I’ll go after them. I’ll fucking kill them. I’ll—”

“No.” I managed to get the word out, and the softness of my tone drew him up short. When he glanced down at me, for just a second, his eyes flashed, dark and dangerous… but it was gone as his gaze landed on my split lip.

“Let’s get back, okay? You can tell me what happened once we’re home.”

Home.

Dangerous word.

A dangerous word, but when Wren lifted me in his arms like I weighed nothing and I pressed my face to the curve of his neck, that was all he smelled like.

Home.

I didn’t raise my head until we’d made it back to the house. Even then, I was reluctant to let go of Wren. The thunder of his heartbeat was so violent against my ears, it felt like it was all I could hear, and I was drowning in it so deeply that I didn’t realize he was trembling until he sat us both on the couch.

“Are you okay?” I muttered, finally forcing myself to look up. I should never have left him and I knew it—my wanting to help was and always had been a bad idea.

“Am I—” His violet eyes were still darker than I’d ever seen them, nearly black in the way they swirled with fury. “Am I okay? You… Theo, who was that? Why did they touch you?” The last bit came out on a low growl, and I sat back.

It was ridiculous that I had to realize he wasn’t angry I’d left… He wasn’t mad at me… He was furious for me.

It was so foreign it made me feel uncomfortable. I pushed up from the couch and headed to the bathroom, but Wren was at my heels. He was still gentle when he closed the door behind him, and he was silent as I turned on the water for the shower and got undressed. I’d taken beatings all my life, and I was surprised how much I wasn’t hurting—I had no idea if it was the heat of Wren’s anger stinging along my skin or the fact that I was turning into a monster, so I healed as quickly as Wren did. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to question it.

I still felt his eyes on me, taking in every cut and bruise, every part of me that had been hurt.

Every scar on my body that suddenly had a face for him, a reason for being there.

I stepped under the hot water and felt it beat across my newly forming bruises, my busted lip.

And I didn’t have to look to know that Wren was silently getting undressed. He stepped into the shower with me and took the washcloth from fingers I didn’t realize were trembling.

He was tender when he ran it across the places on my body covered in blood and dirt, and I didn’t look at him when I started talking.

“Erin was the first person I was ever with. After my mother died, I bounced through the foster system and ran away when I was sixteen. He found me a few years later and took me in, and I didn’t realize everything about him, from what he said to his smile, was a lie until it was too late.”

Was there a way I could recount this without it hurting? I’d never spoken these words aloud, never bothered to tell anyone anything about me or why I didn’t let anyone close.

The only person who’d ever bothered to show real interest in me before was Erin, and I’d learned my lesson.

But with Wren…

With Wren, my fingers trailed to my chest and pressed over the red thread, and I couldn’t seem to help myself. This was a chance for me to cut the wounds open and finally let the poison bleed out. I wanted it to stop hurting.

“I didn’t realize what he was doing at first, I guess. I’d spent a lot of my life with no one caring. Most people made sure I knew what a waste of space I was. It was easy to believe Erin when he said he loved me.” Fuck, I’d been so stupid . I should have known he was a liar, that I wasn’t the kind of person you just saw and fell in love with. But I was the kind of person you saw and knew you could take advantage of.

Wren was silent… careful as he ran the cloth across my skin… and when he turned me so he could dab at the cut on my lip, I didn’t stop him. I just dropped my eyes to stare at the thread between us instead of his face—I wasn’t sure I could stand it if I saw disgust.

I wasn’t sure I could stand it if I had to watch the way he looked at me change.

“At first, it was just him. He’d… take what he wanted when he wanted. Beat the fuck out of me if I said no. I’m not small, but… I don’t know. He made me feel that way, and… then…” Fuck, I didn’t want to keep talking. I didn’t want Wren to know these things about me.

But for some reason, it mattered that he knew.

For some reason, I really cared what he thought about me.

“Theo?” His voice was soft, so soft.

“He passed me around to his friends.” I shrugged and looked up at him, helplessly drawn to his expression, aching at the possibility that he was going to see me differently because he knew all the ways I’d been broken.

His face was a storm, his eyes dark and clouded, and I dropped back to let my shoulders hit the cold wall.

Fuck, I was afraid. Every time I’d been told that I was broken—that I was damaged —played in my head, and my mind tried to conjure up how those words would sound coming from Wren’s lips. It would be better if I said them first.

“It’s… okay if you don’t want to be around me anymore, Wren. It’s okay if you don’t want anything to do with me. I told you… I don’t know how to be touched without being hurt. I’d rather remember before you changed your mind about me—”

He closed the distance between us, bringing his fingers up and gently pressing them to my lips.

“I don’t think any differently about you, Theo.” The fury in his eyes didn’t fade, but he looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “I just want to kill that asshole, and every single one of them that hurt you.”

“It’s not worth it.” I murmured against his fingers, but he kept going.

“Does he live here?”

I nodded without thinking, and when he took my chin, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Close?”

“I should have realized when you brought me here that this is where he was. I’m sorry, I—”

“Where?”

I half whispered the address and shook my head. “But it doesn’t matter , Wren. That’s over. That part of my life is done. I don’t want to think about it, or Erin. Or any of this. I just… Fuck.” I clenched my hands at my sides and forced myself to look at him again. “I don’t want this to change what happened in the graveyard. I don’t want it to change…” My hand drifted up, and I ran my finger along the red thread like it held all the words I couldn’t say wrapped in its strands. They were words I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to manage, but a small part of me hoped Wren could feel them on the back of my tongue.

Maybe it would be enough.

His expression softened, and he lifted his hand, tracing the line between us and slowly drifting to where it connected to my chest.

Over my heart.

“Theo, it doesn’t change a damn thing. You’re… Fuck… Don’t you understand what you mean to me? How I feel ? I think…” Wren’s fingers smoothed out, palm pressing flat to the black swirl in my chest, to every bit of my darkness.

To my heart.

To the confession trapped behind that beating pulse.

A sudden surge of fear overwhelmed me. My hand shot out, and I caught his arm—even though the black on my fingertips had spread to my wrists, even though my nails bit into his skin and drew blood, Wren didn’t flinch.

“Stop. Please, I…” I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t think around the shape of the words we weren’t saying. I couldn’t think around what this meant . What this really meant.

“I don’t have to—”

“No, you don’t get it. You have to stop unless you really mean it.”

“I already told you. Of course I—”

“Please,” I almost felt bad cutting him off. I felt even worse when tears filled my eyes and I couldn’t stop them from streaking down my cheeks. I drew his hand tighter to my chest and held it over the thundering of my heart. He had to understand. “Please… You can’t touch me like this unless you mean it. You can’t say the shit you’re saying to me unless you promise you’re going to stay.” Wren’s eyes went wide, but I couldn’t stop. I’d torn myself open, telling him about my past. I’d laid myself bare and broken at his feet, and he had all the power in the world to shatter me now. “Wren… you’re the realest thing I’ve ever felt, the only thing that’s ever been mine . I can’t see the way you’re staring at me right now and survive if you end up looking at me like you did when we first met. If you end up hating me because I did something and you—”

He was the one who cut me off this time, his lips catching mine and drinking down the last of my words along with the tears gathering at the corner of my mouth. He kissed me until I was breathless, until a soft, hiccuping sob tore from my chest and he gently pushed me back.

“I mean it, Theo. Now. Tomorrow. Every day. Every second. I mean it .”