VALEN
I don’t sleep.
Every time I close my eyes, I’m eight years old again, sliding under a car that doesn’t belong to me, Terra’s venom-laced voice in my ear.
Good boy. Such a good boy.
The memory is sharper now than it was yesterday. I can smell the oil and gravel. Feel the metal against my back as I slide beneath the chassis. The wet hiss of fluid, and Terra’s arms around me after.
It was the only time she ever hugged me.
I’m sitting in a chair by the window as the sun rises. The same sun Clover is watching below me on the porch—I heard the soft murmur of her voice and Chief’s loud, barking tone earlier, and I haven’t been able to move away since.
The window is cold against my forehead, and my breath fogs the pane in slow, uneven bursts—proof that I’m alive even when everything inside me has died.
I should have left this town as soon as Clover got home.
Instead, I’ve been holed up in here all night, unable to do anything but swim in grief and guilt because I can’t be with her, but I can’t leave her either.
In the distance, a dog barks. Then another. The town’s stirring to life while I exist in this self-made purgatory.
Last night was the worst. She sat outside my door for over an hour, but I couldn’t make myself open it. I’m a coward for not giving her the chance to hate me to my face, and Grant cursed at me for pushing her away, but I’m all but comatose. My head throbs as though I’m just coming out of a three-day booze-fueled bender.
She made me a hero in her stories, but I was the villain all along.
“V.” Roman’s voice is accentuated by a sharp knock. “Open the door.”
I don’t move.
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me. And you know I’m too stubborn to bluff.”
He once sat outside a target’s apartment for seventy-two hours without a bathroom break because our intel said the guy would come home eventually, so I know he isn’t going anywhere now. Still, I close my eyes and wait him out.
“I swear to Christ, V. I’ll knock this goddamn door down if you don’t open it.” He must realize he left the key behind when he brought me food yesterday.
His body crashes into the door, and I sigh. Not wanting to be responsible for any more damage, I stand and cross the room. “What do you want?”
“Clover needs you, you fucking idiot.”
She doesn’t, but he’s not going to leave me alone either. It’s time for me to act.
“I’ll be down in thirty.”
“Valen—”
“Give me thirty fucking minutes.”
He mutters something I can’t hear. Whatever it is, he’s wrong. I know he is.
Clover may not need me to protect her body anymore, but I’ll protect her heart until my dying day—even if she ends up hating me for it. It’s the only way to make up for what I’ve done.
The decision crystallizes slowly, like ice forming on a window.
If I stay here, she’ll forgive me because she thinks it’s the right thing to do.
The best thing I can do for Clover—the only thing I have left to give her—is my absence.
It takes me ten minutes to pack my bag, strip the bed, and wipe down every surface I’ve touched.
