I step out of the kitchen, walk down the length of the hall, throwing the door open to the room that had long become mine.
Harlen’s words from earlier are an echo in the back of my mind.“Put your pain into different lines, man…”
I flip the mattress, snatch the notebook I’d placed on the slats years ago, along with the pen beside it. They sear my palms and before I can think better and leave them behind, or worse find a way to get what I really want—a fucking pile of snow up my goddamn nose—I curl my arms around my back, shoving both into the waistband of my jeans.
I’m moving out of the room, returning down the hall, and stepping through the large glass doors.
I don’t look at Laiken when I take the stairs at the far edge of the deck, following the trekked trail toward the same pier where I watched the sunrise this morning.
Tomorrow, I'll deal with Laikenand the gun.
The screech of metal claws through my ears.
I don’t look to see who is dragging out the chair beside me. I'm watching Chase disappear into the belly of the thick forest.
A slow burn sizzles in my chest, and I don’t realize I am grinding my teeth until the ache transfers to my jaw.
Harlen’s curls edge into my vision as he falls into the seat beside me.
“You good?” he asks.
I drag my clammy palms down my trembling thighs, swallowing the guilt stuck to the walls of my throat, then I take a deep breath.
“I hope you know he came up with blaming you all on his own.”
Harlen shuffles a little in his seat, adjusting his T-shirt on his shoulders. “I know.”
There is a silence that falls between us and I can hear Harlen thinking, dribbling words around in his head, never taking the shot.
I line it up for him.
“I was never going to use it.”
Lies.
He jerks an eyebrow like he knows the statement isn’t true.
“Then why’d you have it?”
My stomach aches with the truth.
I bite my bottom lip.
“Because I just wanted to feel safe again, Harlen. That’s all. I just wanted to close my eyes…” I swallow my words. “I just wanted a full night's sleep.”
Harlen’s jaw tenses, sadness filling the ocean of his eyes. He wants to say more, I can see it, but he chooses to nod instead, and I’m okay with that. I didn’t want to have to explain the choices I was forced to make after that fateful night three years ago.
“Our time is coming, Laiken.”
The promise I hadn’t told them about, the one thathe’dmade to me a moment before he snapped Jade’s neck, screeches through my head.
It has haunted me for three years.
And now, this morning, he left a message, written in blood and bone, with our ribbon as a calling card.
He was back, and he was coming for me, and I needed to get that gun back.
“You know how to use it?” Harlen asks, pulling me back.
