Gray and somber, like my mood.
“Fuck,” I mutter, pressing my eyes closed so I’m not tempted to look to the other side.
I can hear Rooke breathing. Can feel his presence.
My hand slides over my eyes, fingertips digging into my temple as if, by rubbing hard enough, I can somehow wipe out every memory. Fuck even knows what time we fell asleep.
A blurred silhouette appears in the courtyard.
I slip out of bed, grimacing when I look down at my naked body.
There’s blood on me.
…Haven! You’re bleeding! Did I hurt you?…
Fucking amazing how history repeats itself.
I grab the sweatpants Rooke gave me last night, hopping into them as I go after Haven. But unlike in my dream, I don’t have to chase her. She’s just standing there in the rain, shoulder’s stooped, head hanging a little to one side.
Like the life got beat out of her.
“Heavenly.” I bite back the word too late, but she doesn’t hear me over the pounding rain.
The smell of wet earth and pine needles hangs thick in the air, but I can still catch a hint of her scent. Blood and Rooke’s body wash, and fuck it if I wish more than anything that I didn’t know that.
I probably smell like him too.
He’s marked us both.
Don’t know what’s fucking me up more. That I let him touch me, or that I have more than just the memory as evidence.
I can still feel his hands on me.
Between every blink when my eyes are closed, I can still see him watching me from the foot of the bed. Directing me. Showing me how to hurt, use, please Haven.
The worst part is…I fucking loved it. Giving up control to him was so fucking easy, I know if I stay I’ll let it happen again.
So will Haven.
That’s why we have to get the fuck out of here.
Rooke saw something in me—inus—that we’ve both been hiding for years.
So I focus on Haven until everything else fades away.
The rain, the smell. The awful, awful shame.
She’s in the too-big but nearly not big enough hoodie I assume is also Rooke’s.
I grab her collar’s chain, just in case she tries to run. She doesn’t even seem to notice. It’s hard to tell with the rain, but Ithink she’s crying. Unless her lips are trembling from the cold, her eyelids shivering from the touch of the rain.
The hand holding the chain slides around her throat.
She doesn’t resist.
I grab her head, yank back her head. A sharp tug meant to cause pain, to get a reaction.
Her eyes close as if she’s resigned herself to her fate.
