Anger. Rejection. Jealousy.
Four breaths in.
Six breaths out.
Control.
If it takes six months.
Or six years.
I can’t get this wrong.
Night falls, a storm rolling in as I check the herd, testing the fences one more time.
The horses dash around the paddock, as if they’ve caught fire in their veins.
Winnie spooks, rears back and nearly throws me from the saddle, reacting to some invisible force.
I whisper to the fracturing mare in secret tones, patting the side of her neck and restoring the steady peace I need from her.
She snickers, whole body relaxing as I notice distant bands of lightning. A whisper of thunder.
Not yesterday afternoon’s tempest. Something softer.
A promise of something that won’t touch this place. Or me.
Or Josephine.
Chapter
Seventeen
ASH
Iawaken to the hum in my head, cold clammy pain. Only this time it’s far closer… in the walls of the cabin.
Not fading, following me. The radio on the nightstand crackles. A burst of static.
My tattoos burn where the ink throbs. I sit up in bed, grip the sheets, focusing into the pain, the great purifier, the great solidifier.
I shouldn’t be able to feel the resonance up here so many miles away from Josephine. But maybe this isn’t about physical distance.
That scares me more than anything.
Soon, sweat drips, body aches, and terror grips me. “It’s not supposed to work this way.”
It’s supposed to fade. It should be weakening.
But as my thoughts grow darker, more desperate, it feels like amplification.
My lungs start counting on their own. Four. Hold. Six. Like my body remembers rules my mind can’t enforce.
I should be able to lock it down by staying disciplined. Staying away.
But since the kiss, it isn’t longing anymore.
It’s changed shape. A shape I no longer know how to contain.
