Page 26 of Breathe Like Hell

I wondered if she’d been running when it happened, or if she’d been frozen, staring down the thousands of pounds of steel barreling at her. Standing paralyzed while headlights swallowed the rest of the world, while plastic bulbs stole her away from nature’s darkness. Her last breath stalling in her lungs, her brain unable to function through the fear.

Had she suffered when she died? Had she suffered before then?

Mason took my hand and pulled me away.

I didn’t look back over my shoulder again.

But I didn’t stop thinking about her, didn’t stop wondering if she’d been running or motionless, didn’t stop imagining the impact of the truck with her body.

She’s prey, and prey dies.

CHAPTER NINE

DAKOTA

“Do angels dream?” I asked quietly as I laid next to Mason in his bed, my hair still damp from our shower. Thankfully, whatever he’d been planning with my swimsuit had been pushed to a different night. I wasn’t sure if my reaction to the roadkill had any influence on that, or if he could just tell I was tired, or sad, or whatever. He didn’t elaborate when I questioned him. He never did.

“We can dream, yeah.”

“Do you dream?” I traced the tip of my pointer finger over his bare chest, barely able to see through the darkness in his bedroom. My body was heavy, sinking into the mattress, tiredness infusing my limbs. He smelled good.

“Sometimes.”

“About what?”

“I’d rather not talk about that,” he said, rolling over onto his side and wrapping his arms around me, tucking me close against his warm body. “You need sleep.”

“Nightmares?” I adjusted my head on the pillow and bent my legs up in front of me.

“Are possible,” Mason said, finishing the statement. “Close your eyes, baby. You’re going to be tired tomorrow.”

“I’m going to be tired either way.” My eyes slid shut. “What did you delete from your phone?”

“I’m not going to tell you, so it’s not worth your time to keep asking.”

Fine.

Mason’s arm tightened around my waist, his hand tangled in my oversized t-shirt, his warmth and strength solid behind me. I wiggled backward, trying to be closer, truer, wishing I could eliminate all the space between us, every single molecule. Until every breath I breathed was straight from his lungs, and his from mine. If I could connect our veins, I would do that, too. Feel his ichor in me.

But there would always be this lack of honesty, and it was growing every day. Even during sex, with his body inside mine, as close as physically possible, I felt the lies between us. Deepening and forcing the only real truth I’d ever get into my head over and over, hammering it into my brain. He’s always going to be like this. He doesn’t change.

I’d crossed so many lines with Mason, either being forced over them or stepping willfully into the danger myself, but there was one line I’d crossed that scared me the most.

Jumping to my own death in an attempt to make him open up to me.

Using my own corpse as my leverage.

Fucking reckless.

The sensation of stepping off the edge of the cliff, of plummeting towards the salt-kissed rocks, my hair tangling wildly in the wind, my eyes squeezing shut while I prayed for him to catch me…

Even after I did that, things didn’t change how I wanted them to. Even after I gave him my whole entire life, he refused to let me in.

Soon, I wouldn’t be able to reach him at all.

How far am I willing to go for this? For him?

Too fucking far.