My heart flutters and my stomach does a full on somersault.
“Your job?” I croak.
Flyn shrugs. “I was thinking of quitting anyway.”
“Your family!” I exclaim. He loves his little niece and his sister. As well as his parents.
He gives me one of his full-wattage smiles. “We’ll still be in the same country, right?”
I nod.
“All good then!” he grins.
I lick my dry lips and look up at my friends. “Is that okay with you guys?”
A chorus of noise hits me in response. “Of course!” “Yes!” “Sounds great.” Everyone is smiling, even Ned.
Despite the shit I have put them through, despite all the trouble I am causing now, my friends are still happy for me. I really, truly don’t deserve them.
I look back at Flyn. His eyes are sparkling. I’m holding onto his hand for dear life and he doesn’t seem to mind at all.
I force a swallow down my throat. I guess I’m moving in with my boyfriend.
Chapter twenty-two
Flyn
Ifold another tee shirt and shove it into the suitcase, even though I know it won’t close properly if I keep packing like this. Half my wardrobe is already in a heap on the bed. Shirts I never wear, hoodies I live in, socks that haven’t seen their match since last winter. The rest is scattered across the floor like I lost a fight with a tornado. The room smells like dust and fabric softener and the lingering scent of the candle Cara gave me last Christmas, all vanilla and cedarwood, something warm.
“I still don’t get it,” Cara says from the doorway. Her arms are crossed, but not in that casual, judgmental big-sister way. This time it’s a shield. “You’re moving. Like actuallymoving.To the middle of nowhere. With a guy you’ve known for five minutes.”
I sigh and try not to crumple the shirt in my hands. “It’s not like that.”
“It’sexactlylike that.”
She steps into the room, dodging a pair of shoes and a pile of mismatched socks. She looks furious. And scared. And betrayed. All at once. My big sister, the only person in my life who’s always had my back, who kept me from falling apart when everything else did, she’s looking at me like I’ve just joined a cult.
“This is insane, Flyn.”
I zip the suitcase halfway and sit on it to keep it from bursting open. “I know it looks that way.”
“Then explain it to me.”
I open my mouth. Close it again. Because I can’t. Not really.
How do you explain that your new boyfriend blacked out and started carving glowing runes into the plaster of your bedroom wall? That something ancient and terrifying is trying to get into his mind? That he’s not evenhuman,and instead of running, you looked at the shattered pieces of him and thought,Yeah. I want to stay.
You don’t explain that.
Not to someone like Cara. Someone who believes in logic and structure, who finds comfort in meal prep schedules and spreadsheets. Someone who already lost one brother and can’t bear the thought of losing the other to something she doesn’t understand.
“I can’t explain it,” I say finally. “Not all of it. But this is something Ihaveto do.”
She looks at me like I’ve just slapped her. “Youhaveto? Flyn, this isn’t you. You’re not impulsive.”
“Not usually, no.”
“You don’t just run off to the countryside with someone you barely know!”
