Flames blazing behind me, I erupted from the battle and down a cobblestone road.
I hate this. I hate this. I hate—
“Benedict! Benedict! You bastard!” I strained my throat, and for what? A creature who didn’t understand me. Vaguely aware of how far we’d run, I knew the river wasn’t too much farther ahead. If that little garbage gobbler crossed, I’d never catch him.
The stitching in my torn boot loosened, my toes scraped the stone. Tired of dealing with these things, I stopped in the road, took my shoe off, and tossed it into the grass. My patience ended. My will burned to nothing but ash with the hellblazers’ flames. Unfortunately, my breakdown would have to wait.
I had a raccoon to catch.
Or… I previously had a raccoon to catch.
As I stood there with frizzy, frayed, smoke-scented hair in a drenched dress with one shoe and sweating gallons—Laken Augustus walked up from the other side of the road with Benedict in hand.
And I snapped.
“Where the fuck did you come from? Where the fuck do youalwayscome from?” I tossed my arms around. Every time I needed help, he showed up.
Laken closed the distance between us, eyeing me as though I’d been plagued. I nearly cringed and stepped back. But instead, I swallowed and stood, faking it until I made it. He held the raccoon, so I turned and started walking back, knowing he’d follow. Not giving him the time of day to chat, or talk, or ask how I was.
“Reece, wait,” he called.
With sweat dripping down my skin, my heart raged. I came to an abrupt stop. The world wasn’t spinning, or shrinking, or freezing—it was on fire. And Laken Augustus held the matches.
And I’d been the fuse.
It wasn’tentirelyhis fault. It was the world’s, and he’d chosen the wrong time and day. There were days that felt like the world aimed its blade at me. Where it’s one thing after another, and I can get by most of them. I can move past, shove it back. But after a while, the pile gets too heavy and one tiny sprinkle of inconvenience tips it over and everything… spills like kerosene.
I whipped around.
“I did wait, Laken. For three years, I waited for you to show up, and now that I’m back in town, you are everywhere I go. So eager to help, so ready to catch up. I don’t want your help! I don’t want to catch up! Did it ever occur to you that this hurts? That I haven’t invited you back into my life because I can’t risk saying goodbye again? Did it?”
My throat strained, and I felt the invisible strings that once tied us together choking the words from my body, begging me to stop.
Laken took a step back, those broad shoulders sagging. His eyes searched me for something, desperate to read me the way they used to. His jaw clenched as he swallowed. “This isn’t how I wanted to reunite, Reece.”
“Did you even want to? Did you care at all?”
“Of course, I did. You know that.”
“Do I?”
It took everything in me not to see him the way I used to. The way I craved to, even now. I wanted to see him the way I did when we were fifteen running through the neighbor’s grass after sneaking out. The way I saw him the first time he said he loved me and every time he said it after. When we were seventeen and we rode for hours going nowhere in particular, and on the way back he stopped in a field of wildflowers. After picking enough to fill a vase, he began walking back to the horse I waited on. But not before the landowner came out of the woods, waving his hands as bolts of power came out in drunken shots at Laken. I’ve never seen a boy run so jagged with such a grin on his face.
I tried.
And I failed.
“I can’t change what happened. I can’t go back in time, I can’t fix it, okay? But I can help you, if you let me. And if not, take back your raccoon.” Something in Laken changed in those moments, in those words.
“So?” I asked after standing silently for far too long.
“So do you want to carry this raccoon, or shall I? He’s getting heavy.”
I didn’t want to carry him… I rolled my eyes and swallowed my pride, agreeing to let Laken carry Benedict back. I turned on my heels, leaving the pest and Benedict behind me.
“When are you going to stop being so stubborn?”
“When I’m dead and rotted.” My eyes were going to get stuck in the back of my head from rolling them, just as my teeth were going to be ground to the nerve. Being fully aware of my personal problems, I said nothing more. He knew I never asked others for help; it was one thing that hadn’t changed in the past three years. I’d rather suffer.
