“The longer you spend in isolation, the longer it’ll last.”
My bottom lip quivers when I meet Amick’s gaze.
“This is my fault?”
I flinch when they all bark no so loud, my ears ring.
“We’re sorry, little goddess,” Kyzen murmurs as he lays a kiss on my shoulder. “Nothing about any of this is your fault. You isolating yourself is completely normal and exactly what we did. We didn’t know we were making it worse for ourselves just as you didn’t know.”
I would’ve known had I let them in my room.
I didn’t want to face the fact it could’ve been fake.
I didn’t want them to laugh at me or leave me.
If I locked myself away first, they couldn’t lock me out.
You should’ve known better. How pathetic do you have to be not to know what is or isn’t real?
“Don’t. Don’t do that, Thayla. The blame you’re placing on yourself is obvious and we won’t allow it.”
A small ripple flows across my soul, and I beg Creed with my eyes not to tear through the knot. Not yet.
“Who else can I blame? You all? That makes no sense. If I had let you all in, you could’ve warned me. You all tried to…”
My breath whooshes out of me.
They tried to warn me.
I remember that.
They wanted V to tell me this truth, but our connection got cut off.
“Two days was when my Harmony really speared forward and took back control over my thoughts.”
The shakiness in Riven’s tone snatches my attention back to him. He isn’t looking at me, though. He’s looking at those black rings that are still around his wrists.
Why are they still there if this is real?
“Before that, though, none of us could’ve come face-to-face with one another. There was anger lingering beneath the fear that would’ve lashed out and we would’ve killed one another. Those first two days are the hardest not to react in the worstways. We didn’t discuss it, but we knew we wouldn’t push you for at least that long.”
That truth has me gulping.
“I told myself whatever or whoever came through that door without my permission was going to die.”
They all nod.
Even Amick.
Riven finally picks his head up and he laces his fingers together.
“We weren’t going to force our way in or force you out. We coaxed gently and wanted you to hear each of us, and…everyone we thought you may have seen during your time in there.”
I really heard Lambrit and Yemi then.
“I wasn’t going to let you go past day two, though, because that’s when that paranoid, sort of strangling anger turned into a dangerous, depressing feeling. That’s when I started telling myself life would be better if it were just over.”
Hurt and horror stab through my heart.
