Page 358 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Things go wrong. They go bad.

Love puts us on the losing side, but only because it gives us something to lose. Yes, the pain is terrible, but I still believe love is a gift. Losing it hurts because it was real.

Whatever happens, thank you for letting me know you.

It was a true pleasure to watch you dance.

Your psychopath.

LACHLAN TANNER.

It’s two hours until dawn.

He has read the whole fucking thing, cover to cover.

With a trembling hand, Kade checks the final two pages, desperate for some hidden message, for something more than what he was given, but they hold only the impressions of words pressed through from the other side.

He feels... robbed somehow.

He can tell exactly where Lachlan stopped writing.

Before he drove away and left Kade.

Before he returned the following day and said:

‘A body is just a body until you love the soul it holds.’

Before:

‘Cells and water and bones and fire. Julian. Kade. Any name. Doesn’t matter. I love you.’

Before:

‘I’d crawl through hell to spend thirty seconds with you.’

He was still being polite.

Restrained.

Kade can’t bear it.

All thought of sleep is gone. He puts the journal in his bedside drawer, pulls a sweater over his vest and shorts, then adds boots before stealing through the Tower and out into what remains of the night.

He finds Lachlan easily.

The woods have turned black around the Tower after hours of rain, now passed. Droplets cling to every branch, silvering the thorns and bowing the nettles beneath the weight of water. Brambles catch at Kade’s bare legs as he follows the perimeter into deeper dark, guided by the occasional gleam of security lights through the trees.

Lachlan sits beneath an old oak with his rifle resting across his thighs.

He’s almost colourless in the hour before dawn.

Black hair, pale skin, dark clothes.

He’s facing the Tower, guarding it.

The rifle moves before he does. The barrel finds Kade through the dark, then lowers just as quickly when he sees who it is.

Everything dangerous in his face softens. ‘Did you sleep?’