“You did what was best foryou.”
I pulled back and jumped to my feet. “You’re not even trying to see it from my perspective! You of all people should know how badly I needed to leave! I don’t understand why you’re so pissed when I did what you wanted me to!”
He shot to his feet and prowled after me. “I didn’t want you to leave by yourself! I never wanted you to leave by yourself! The plan was you and me.You and me! I never wanted anything else!”
I stumbled back a step. My hand flew to my chest as if I could stop the splintering from tearing me into a thousand unfixable pieces. “We have to stop this,” I pleaded. “I can’t… I can’t keep doing this. I have to find out what happened to Honor.”
He took a step back too, but it was less about retreat and more about resigning himself to my request. “Fine, Ivy. Fine. You don’t want to talk about this, that’s fine. Let’s go check out Smith’s house and then we’ll figure out how to get into your mom’s place.”
“We? What do you meanwe? I’m not asking you for help, Ryder. I can handle this.”
Anger mingled with obvious frustration and he threw both hands out to his side. “For the love, Red! How are you going to get to Smith’s house? Or your mom’s? Planning on taking the bus? What if Nix shows up? What are you going to do then? You need my help.”
Okay, he had a few valid points.
Still, I didn’t want to spend the day going back and forth with Ryder about how horrible of a person I was.
Mainly because it was agony. I could see his points. I could understand why he hated me… why he wanted nothing to do with me again. And that was the worst part.
Ryder was right. And I hated that I was wrong.
Now that I was here, I couldn’t believe that I had stayed away for all of this time and never considered how Ryder was fairing without me.
I had been selfish. I had thought only about myself.
Those were hard truths to face.
“Ryder, I can’t ask you to help me,” I told him on a whisper.
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. And you’re going to take me up on my offer.” When I hesitated, he finished with, “I want to help you, Ivy. Whatever happened to us in the past, I still want you to get out and get away from all of these horrible people. If you think something happened to Honor, we’ll go find out. If you think whatever is happening to your mom might affect you, we’ll go find that out too. But as soon as we tie up these loose ends, I’m going to help you leave and this time you stay away. Do not give Nix another opportunity to find you.”
I nodded slowly, unable to process all of his words. How could he be so sweet to me after everything? How could he still want the best for me?
I ignored the crashing disappointment when I realized he had said that I would get out… alone… without him.
Not that I expected him to drop everything for me after all of this time. Or run away with me.
Or still want to run away with me.
No, I couldn’t think about that now.
“Thank you, Ryder.”
“Come on, Red, let’s go make you safe again.”
Chapter Seven
We walked downstairs to find Phoenix shoveling cereal into his mouth. “You want?” he asked around a mouthful of Captain Crunch.
“No, thanks,” I said immediately.
“Red prefers her breakfast highly caffeinated and in twenty ounce cups.” Ryder walked into the kitchen and dangled his keys in front of Phoenix. I ignored how sweet it was to hear him talk about me familiarly. If I were honest, I hadn’t had a caramel macchiato since I’d left the States. I’d weaned myself off of coffee for the most part and when I needed something to pick me up, I would buy a cup of espresso from Fleur and then swear off coffee for the rest of my life. Café Callisto served toxic waste disguised as caffeine. It was abominably way too strong for me.
Still… I couldn’t deny that a Caramel Macchiato sounded amazing.
“So you kissed and made up?” Phoenix waggled his eyebrows at us.
Ice cold tension burst through the room like Phoenix had detonated a bomb made out of hypothermic weather. I felt the chill snake over my skin as Ryder took a step away from me.
