Lifting her head from my shoulder, Amira pats the tears staining her skin, fluttering her lashes to keep the developing moisture back. “Don’t ever leave again… promise me you’ll never leave.”
Days ago, this promise would have taken no thought. Staying with Amira is all I ever wanted. I fucking killed for it, but now? I hesitate, and Amira doesn’t fail to notice.
“Roman?”
“We need to do something, and you’re not going to like it, but I need you to do this for me… for us.”
Amira takes in the seriousness in my tone and scoots back, dropping from her place on my lap to sit on the floor across from me. Her tear-filled eyes narrow as she angles her head to the right, lips pursing as she waits for me to continue.
When I don’t, the rigidity of her spine hardens even more, making her sit tall as she huffs. “What is it, Roman? You’re freaking me out.”
“We need to go back,” I say, dipping my eyes to my busted, clotted knuckles before meeting her glare.
“Back where?” she asks in a snarled whisper. She knows.
“Home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AMIRA
Tuesday
March 23, 2021
The wordhomerings like a siren in my ear, fading to a dull white noise as my blood circulates away from my brain. My vision blurs in and out, morphing Roman’s face into the monsters of my past faster than my heart can handle.
“No,” I breathe, scampering away from Roman until I’m on the other side of the room, using the handle of the closet door to lift me up on weakened legs.
“Amira—”
“No!” I shout, my hand tremoring against my legs. “I’m not going back there! Ever! You can’t even go back home! Are you fucking insane!?”
In a blink of an eye, Roman is on his feet and rushing toward me. His arms rise to entrap me against the wall, but I run underneath and dash out of the door, almost tripping over Shadow on the way.
“Amira!”
I don’t stop my pursuit to the front door when Roman shouts my name. If anything, I speed up, completely ignoring the burning ache in my ankle, needing to get some fresh air before he decides to chase after me.
Like always, I fail in my attempts to get away.
“Amira! Fucking stop!” Roman demands, his strong hand wrapping firmly around my bicep, halting my movement just as my fingers graze the lock on the doorknob.
So close.
Pushing him off me, I dart across the room. Palms against the sharp edges of the fireplace mantle, I breathe in the smell of burnt clay and roasted wood, searching for something to keep me anchored before I spin around and say, “I won’t go back.”
“You don’t have a fucking choice!” Roman roars, hands spearing through his hair, leaving it in a wavy mess on one side of his head.
“I don’t?! You’re going to shove me in the back of your car and make me go?!”
“I won’t live this way!” He storms over to me from his place by the door, hands coming up to grip my cheeks, forcing me to stare into his glazed hazel eyes. “Ican’tlive this way, Amira. I love you. I love you so fucking much, butthis, their fucking presence in your mind, is like a fucking cancer, rotting our insides, killing our minds. We finally have everything we’ve ever wanted! We’re out! Of fucking Augustus, of that hellhole, Gabriel and they created for us! We’re fucking out, yet you and I are farther apart than ever before! And that’s because you’re allowing them to infect your fucking mind even beyond the fucking grave!”
“I can’t, Roman… I-I can’t,” I stutter, sagging against the mortar bricks in hopes of keeping my crumbling body upright.
The thought of driving through the endless trees paralyzes me with fear. Being back in the town that damned me to a never-ending array of nightmares and abuse is unsurvivable.
Roman knows this…
