Page 50 of Mason

“You don’t know what I’m feeling,” he yells, words almost indecipherable. “You don’t know, Liv. You don’t know.”

I sit next to him. “I’d like to.” I reach for his hand. He flinches but doesn’t pull away. “Why don’t we talk about it?”

“Don’t want to talk about it,” Mason says. He pushes the laptop aside. His eyes lift to the movie, and a ghost of a smile forms on his lips. “She loved this movie.”

“Mrs. Kratky?”

He nods.

I squeeze his hand. “It’s a good one.”

“Stay gold,” he murmurs.

I stand and grab both his hands, tugging him to his feet. He’s dead weight, slumped up against me.

“Come on, big guy. Let’s get you to bed.”

Chapter 28

I guide Mason from his theatre room to the bedroom. He’s all octopus—arms and legs dangling, roped around my shoulders. His breathe feathers across my neck. “You’re a good girl, Liv. Such a good girl.”

“Well that’s a new one,” I say, trying to keep my spirits up, even though I want to be the one trying to drown out old memories and feelings right now.

I ease him on to the bed and slide his shirt over his head, carefully tugging it over his neck. His hair sticks out from the static. It might be cute if he didn’t stare at me with eyes glassed with pain. My heart squeezes with unexpected hurt. “Get some sleep, Mason.”

He pulls me down onto him as he falls onto the mattress.

“I should have died that day,” he says, catching me off guard.

I squish up against him and tuck the blanket around us. “Don’t talk like that.” It’s normal for victims of violence to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which is maybe why I’ve accepted Mason’s need for sexual dominance. But this feels like something else, something beyond my understanding. “You were spared. For some reason, he didn’t kill you.”

No one would ever know why the man had committed suicide before finishing off his murderous spree. He had enough bullets, but instead of shooting Mason, Lucas, and Holden, he’d turned the gun on himself. My stomach roils.

“We were supposed to die,” Mason says again.

I wipe a stray curl of hair off his forehead and kiss his cheek. “Go to sleep, Mason.”

“You don’t understand,” he says, rolling onto his back.

The pit in my stomach enlarges. I put my hand on his chest. “Mason…”

“Stop it.” He jerks away from me and curls into himself. He looks so vulnerable that the last of the ice around my heart shatters into tiny pieces. Seeing him so broken, so lost, hurts like a sledgehammer to the chest, and it’s now that I realize, I’ve fallen in love with him. This man, this complicated man, has wormed his way under my skin.

There’s a part of me that thinks he loves me too—even if he hasn’t realized it himself.

I’m willing to wait.

“I shot him in cold blood…” His voice cracks. “Killed him dead. Bang.”

My pulse thunders in my ears. “No, he shot himself, Mason.” I wipe his tears with my thumb, and press my cheek up against his. “You’re upset, and not remembering things right. In the morning, it will all be clear.”

He shakes his head. “We lied.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “That’s the story we fed to the newspapers to protect ourselves. But it was all a lie. We just told them what they wanted to hear.”

My mind feels muddled. “I don’t understand…”

The corners of his eyes crinkle. “That’s what I’ve been telling you. Nobody understands.”

My fingers ache to touch him, but it’s like all of the blood has drained from my body. My hands are ice cold. I’ve memorized the details of that shooting, can name every student that lost their life—Daylight Holdings has donated generously and publicly to their estates. My throat swells.