Bad girls like me never get what we want. We get ashes and dust.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I pulled back and tried to wipe them away.
“You can cry,” Trey whispered, his fingers catching the tears running down my cheeks. “Crying is not weak, Hazel. Your love and your pain make you strong.”
Trey’s words seared across my soul. I swallowed down a sob that threatened to collapse me as Trey turned my head to his. His kiss spoke of the places in his heart that were also burned out and destroyed by his own hand.My mirror.
Trey saw himself in my ashes and dust. I’d ruined everything I touched until I met him. He’d done the same. He longed to rebuild together. His languid kiss dripped with promises and plans for a future he had no idea didn’t exist.
My tears flowed freely as Quinn yanked down my panties and pressed his lips between my legs. He raked his fingers along my thigh, cutting me to pieces and fitting me together again. His amber eyes met mine as he circled his tongue around my clit, piling fuel on a fire that had ignited the very first day we met.
Ayaz ran his hot tongue down the curve of my neck. As he bent to kiss my collarbone, hisnazarpendant touched the bare skin on my throat.
Quinn thrust a finger inside me. His teeth scraped across my clit, arcing molten pleasure through my core.
As the pleasure rose inside me, crashing against the pain, Trey turned my hand over, his fingers knitting in mine. He pressed his tongue to the scar on my wrist.
I came apart under their touch, ashes and star-dust hovering over the treehouse before returning to myself.
In the remnants of my former life, I screamed through an orgasm, not caring who heard me.
* * *
We had to scramble into the car to make it to the drop in time. Quinn was the one who took the money inside the abandoned railway station, the doors swinging shut behind him. I bit my nails down to the quick, bracing myself for the gunshot I felt certain was coming. But he came out the same doors a few moments later, whistling a tune as he swung a new duffel bag into the car.
“Got ‘em.” Quinn tossed the bag into my lap. Trey gunned the engine. I upended the bag. Passports spilled out – hundreds of them, each one containing the photographs we’d taken at school and the fake names each student had chosen. They looked perfect (they’d better, for the money we paid) but it was hard for me to tell – I’d never needed a passport before.
Ayaz held up his passport next to his face. “How do I look?”
“As dapper as always,” I said, busying myself with sorting through the pile so I wouldn’t have to look at his new name. AYAZ WAITE. My clit still throbbed from the orgasm they’d given me. I felt dangerously close to throwing open the door and hurling myself across the freeway.
I can’t lose it now.
I had to take every moment that was given to me, savor my last taste of freedom.
Because I knew something they didn’t. In my lap were enough passports for all the Miskatonic students, for the maintenance staff, for Greg and Andre and Loretta. I’d offered one to Zehra, but she already had a stash in some secret location down in Mexico.
There was no passport in this bag for me. No new beginning awaited me on the other side of the god’s embrace.
My life ended as soon as we set the god free. Because I was like him – I was a murderer. And I had to face the consequences.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Our drive back to Arkham was subdued. Nothing like visiting the ashes of your old life to ruin a jovial road trip.
Trey took the wheel most of the way. Apart from a hairy incident involving a squirrel, he seemed to have a decent grasp of the road rules even after twenty years. Of course, he applied his usual intense focus to the task, refusing to turn the stereo on even though Quinn begged.
I spent the entire trip back snuggled into Ayaz’s arms, silently turning over my own memories. All I’d wanted to do was find a way to erase them. I’d stamped them down so that I didn’t have to face what I did, but they were all I’d carry with me into the great beyond. I needed to hold them close, even the ones that brought me pain.
Ayaz was right – pain made me strong. And I’d need all the strength I had left for what I was about to do.
When we passed the turnoff to the town of Innsmouth, I texted Deborah to let her know we were twenty minutes away. She sent back a smiley face.
We pulled into the parking lot of the motel. Deborah’s lights blazed, her door hung open, swaying slightly in the breeze. Odd, considering how nervous she was about someone watching her when we were here yesterday.
Yet, as we slid out of the car with the bag of passports, she didn’t step out to greet us or tell us to shut the door. The dogs didn’t bark as we approached. Goosebumps crawled along my arms.Something’s wrong.
Maybe she’s just taken them for a walk. But then why leave the door open—
