Prologue
Sorrow
Six years ago
The rain pours down over my bruised face, washing away my tears, only to be replaced with more. My dark hair is plastered to my skin, twisted around my face like inky tendrils trying to choke me, but I don’t care enough to free myself. I don’t care about much at all anymore. Numbness has taken root, spreading through my body, leaving emptiness in its wake. It’s as if someone has taken a rusty spoon and hollowed out my insides with it.
I stand here, swaying lightly in the wind, my body so weak I can barely keep myself upright. Everything that made me who I am is bleeding out while everyone gathered around is oblivious, my pain invisible to all but me.
In their eyes, I’m not the victim here. I’m the tormentor, so why would they care? I’m the evil that slipped in during the night and ripped their world to shreds. If I could feel anything right now, I’d be devastated at how easily I was cast from rose to thorn. But today isn’t about me.
I stare at the water running off your coffin and imagine you trying to claw your way free. My lips twitch at the idea ofyour panic before I blank my expression. Getting caught smiling at your funeral would be another nail in my coffin, no pun intended. I can just imagine the pearl clutchers standing up in court and pointing their fingers at me for showing no remorse. They’d love nothing more than for the judge to lock me up and throw away the key. Who cares if I’m guilty or not, right? Someone has to pay when a promising young man loses his life.
I try not to think about the upcoming court case. But it’s always there, lingering in the back of my mind, encroaching on every moment like a noose tightening around my neck.
I tense when the wind changes direction and I hear a whisper of my name. They started the moment I arrived—the accusations and the questioning of my morals. Imagine having the audacity to come here today when I’m the reason for the funeral in the first place.
But I had to come. I had to make sure you were really gone, and this wasn’t some fucked-up dream.
The people sobbing beside me let me know it’s real. Their grief is palpable even through the storm. Tears of heartbreak and loss mar their faces, but my tears are not for you. They’re for me. It’s cathartic, like I’m purging you somehow. And after today, I will never cry a single tear over you again.
I wipe my dripping nose with the back of my hand and admit the truth I won’t speak out loud, somehow knowing he’ll understand my silence.I’m glad you’re dead. I hope you rot in hell for all eternity.
The only concession I’ll give him is my silence. It’s more than he deserves, but I’m not doing it for Alec.
I look out at the sea of faces blurred by rain and tears, swallowing hard when I find them. Alec’s father and mother are in the front row, holding on to each other as they break down, sobbing over the loss of their favorite son. I see Alec’s little sister, Katy, wrapped up in the arms of her big brother Jake, whomanaged to get compassionate leave from the army to be here today.
As if sensing my eyes on him, Jake glances up. He looks at me in disgust before turning away, his head bowed under the weight of his agony.
I turn back to your coffin and fight back the urge to both sob and scream at the unfairness of it all.Yeah, I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for them. They might hate me now, but they don’t hate you, and right now that’s all I can give them—peace of mind. I’ll bury our secrets beside you and carry this burden alone. Enough lives have been ruined. I refuse to hurt them any more than they have been already.
The storm continues to rage around us, drowning out the whispers and blurring the images of pointing fingers until eventually I notice people leaving. I wait until there is nobody left before walking over to where the coffin has been lowered into the ground. I stare down at it, wondering how long it will take them to fill in the hole. If only it were as easy to fill in the gaping abyss left inside me.
“You shouldn’t be here, Sorrow. Haven’t you done enough?” a familiar voice asks from behind me, filled with both anger and pain.
Jake “Banner” Bannerman, the last remaining brother.
I don’t answer him. There is nothing I can say to make any of this better. My words won’t fix a damn thing, which is why I haven’t been able to bring myself to speak since the accident. I’m scared that if I open my mouth, the truth will pour out of me like a swarm of angry bees. So, I bite my lip, swallow my words, and take the punishment I deserve.
“This is all your fault. I wish he had never met you. I wish none of us had. We trusted you,” he hisses, making me flinch. “It should be you in that box, not Alec.” I turn to look up at him,fresh tears spilling over my cheeks despite my attempt to hold them back.
Once upon a time, when this man was little more than a boy, he had welcomed me into his family with open arms. The whole Bannerman clan had provided me with a safe space to hang out when my mother was too drunk to remember that she had a kid. When he enlisted two years ago, a piece of my heart broke. I realized then that my silly crush was just that,silly. I was a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, and he was way out of my league at twenty. But a lot changed while he was gone.
People changed while he was gone.He just wasn’t around to see it.
I stare into the eyes of the first boy who unknowingly broke my heart, and back to the box containing the body of the boy who smashed what was left of it to pieces. Something in me shuts down. Part of me wants to disappear, to fade away from people’s lives and memories. It has to be better to be forgotten than to have my name spat like venom from the tip of everyone’s tongues.
There’s a part of me, though, that wants to scream at the sky and rage at the world. But I won’t let Banner see me break. Instead, I turn and walk away, conscious of every move my battered body makes.
“Yeah, fuck you, Sorrow. Walk away and stay away. You’re not welcome here anymore.”
I don’t turn back. I carry on walking, resisting the urge to whimper at the pain each one of his words inflicts.
“I fucking hate you,” he whispers. I freeze before I pick up my pace and run. I run as fast and as far as my injuries will allow, locking down every emotion that bombards me and threatens to rip me open at the seams.
I’m done bleeding for the Bannerman brothers. Fuck them. Fuck them both.
Chapter One
