The four of them exchange words in hushed, furious tones, but I can’t hear them over the roaring in my ears. I bury my face in Carnage’s chest and let him hold together the pieces of me that are trying to scatter.
“Come on. I'll take you home,” Carnage murmurs, then he lifts me into his arms, carrying me like something precious, something worth protecting, and I press my face into his neck and try to hide from the truth that’s chasing me.
I don’t just want vengeance against Xaden Devlin.
I want vengeance against myself, for the unforgivable sin of still wanting him even now.
I stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, then sat in it still, letting the icy spray punish me because I deserve it.
Kellan’s blood swirls down the drain in diluted pink rivers, and I watch it go, scrubbing at my skin until it is raw and angry, and still, I don’t feel clean enough. The blood is gone but I can still feel it, that phantom warmth on my face, the ghost of him dying against my skin. Every time I close my eyes I see it, the gun, the flash, the hole, the light leaving, Xaden's hand releasing him like garbage.
And then, because my mind is a traitor just like my heart, I see Xaden’s face when I tell him about the baby. That flash of naked terror. That split second where the monster disappearedand the man surfaced, gasping for air. And something inside me will ache in a way that makes me sick with myself.
I want to gouge that feeling out with my bare hands.
I knew Xaden was dangerous. I knew he was a killer. I’d seen the darkness in him from the very first moment, felt it calling to the matching darkness in me like a frequency only we could hear. But I deluded myself. I told myself the tender moments were real: the way his voice softened when we were alone, the way his hands trembled sometimes when he touched me like he was afraid I’d break, the way he looked at me like I was both his salvation and his damnation.
Tonight he proved that he is exactly who he told me he was. And I am the fool who loved him anyway.
Loved. Past tense. I’ll make it past tense if it kills me.
I pull on one of Carnage’s stolen shirts, letting it fall to my knees like armor, and climb into bed. I pull the covers up to my chin and stare at the ceiling, while the war inside me rages on.
He killed Kellan. He killed your friend. He’s your enemy.
He’s the father of your child. He’s haunted and broken and drowning.
He smiled. He smiled while Kellan bled.
He was terrified when you told him about the baby. You saw it.
“Stop,” I grit out, trying to silence my thoughts.
Stop making excuses. Stop looking for the good in a man made of nothing but sharp edges and blood.
But what if there’s something left in him worth?—-
“Kellan is dead!”
That’s the one that silences everything. Kellan is dead, and Xaden killed him, and I will never hear Kellan’s laugh again, never feel the quiet safety of his presence, never get to say the words that could have given him peace.
The plan I had, take down my father, take down Xaden, flee with my child to somewhere quiet and safe and untouched by this war, that plan died tonight on the ice alongside Kellan. Running is a luxury for people who haven’t held their dead in their arms. Running is for people who don’t hear gunshots when they close their eyes.
I won’t run.
I won’t let anyone else hold the reins. I’ll cut off the head of the snake and wear it like a crown.
For Kellan.
For KennaDee.
For Emery.
Even for Neave and Miles.
Even if it means destroying the only person who ever made me feel alive.
I don’t know how much time passes before my bedroom door bangs open and Vatican stands in the frame, looking like barely contained violence. “You got a visitor.”
