Page 83 of Rule the Night

It had been a relief. After weeks of blaming myself, I’d been able to hide my guilt under the hot coals of hatred I fanned for Ethan Todd.

But now, those coals had been swept away and I was right back where I started: knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that despite all the things that had contributed to Chris’ murder of my sister, I was the one who could have saved her but hadn’t.

I locked my bedroom door, took off my jacket, and set Rose on the nightstand. Then I fell onto my bed, curling into a ball as I cried into my pillow. Sobs wracked my body, and I gasped as I tried to inhale enough oxygen even as part of me didn’t want to keep breathing without June.

I was glad the Butchers didn’t come after me. It was bad enough that I’d fallen apart in front of them, bad enough that Remy had come to the city to bring me home like a wayward child.

I just wanted to be left alone, preferably forever.

I didn’t know how much time had passed when I heard June’s voice.

Pull it together, M. It’s okay.

It’s not okay,I thought.

But it will be.

My sobs subsided, the storm of my breakdown clearing enough to illuminate my humiliation.

I hated that I’d told the Butchers everything. Hated that they knew what I’d done to June, that they knew how much it devastated me. I felt exposed, naked in the worst of ways, my pain laid bare for the three men I still didn’t trust.

I took a deep breath. I felt depleted, utterly exhausted, not just from the events of the day but from the events of the past eighteen months. That was the problem with letting myself feel all the things about June: as long as I was moving, working toward justice for her, I was okay.

But once I stopped, once I let myself start thinking about all I’d lost — all my parents and Simon and Olivia had lost — I felt like I wanted to shut out the lights and sleep forever.

You always were a drama queen.

I laughed through my tears. “Shut up, June. Just shut up.”

51

POE

“Fuck.”I dropped onto the sofa and put my head in my hands.

It had taken me a full minute to move after Maeve left the room, shock and horror seeping through my body as her confession echoed through my mind.

“No wonder she’s on the edge,” Remy said, taking the opposite end of the sofa.

Bram walked to the big windows overlooking Main and stood there in silence, his back to us as the sun set behind the mountains in the distance.

“Was she trying to kill him?” I asked Remy.

It was easier to focus on the events of the day than on Maeve’s pain, which felt weirdly like my pain too.

“I don’t know,” Remy said. “She said no, that she wasn’t going to do anything, but she was at the front of the crowd when I got there.”

I thought about Whit, about all the people I blamed for what had happened to him, and therefore what had happened to us. Because family tragedy never just happened to one person. “I don’t blame her for wanting him dead.”

“Same,” Remy said. “Fucking pathetic excuse for a man.”

“We could do it,” I said.

Bram turned, his eyes flashing in a rare display of emotion. “No.”

I didn’t flinch. “Why not?”

“She lost the Hunt.”