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“It’s part of the reason I never got a job or anything. It just seemed pointless, knowing it would only be temporary. I have what I need to get by and am more than capable of keeping myself occupied through the day. But…I never got the closure I wanted, you know? Just an empty house.”

Temporary?

The gaze that normally burns through me holds a certain firmness, which contradicts his usual desire to be angry. A polar opposite to the way they’d glared through me when Dax was at my side yesterday. Opposite again to the blaze of nearly every other time we’ve been in a room together. A palpable conflict circles through them. It only means the ice-cold prickles falling down my spine are visible on my features, and for some odd reason, he’s trying to console me.

I’m a little jealous, honestly. His father left him with a home, an inheritance. He’s taking care of his son, even now. All I was ever left with were questions. While my mom may have had nothing to leave, the knowledge that she at least loved me would be enough. I don’t even have that.

That doesn’t mean I don’t understand his want for more. Not having your parents, it sucks. The loss of my mom is something I struggle with every day. I just know my life would have turned out differently had she actually wanted me.

The remorse pouring off of him is so relatable, so real. I want to take it away, make it so any thoughts of his father bring joy rather than pain. It doesn’t seem fair the memories of the ones we love hurt the most.

My hand finds its way to Rhenn’s knee, giving it a gentle squeeze. His gaze slides over the place I’m touching him, then to my face. He’s wearing a blank expression, a look that’s impossible to read for anyone who’s never felt the isolation of loneliness. I recognize it, though. The emptiness growing inside of him. It lives in me too.

“Take a walk with me?” Rhenn asks, his sharp features masked by the dim light.

A walk. Cleansing air. To not be alone.

It’s the only reason I say yes.

CHAPTER THIRTY

RHENN

Fear is a fascinating thing. The adrenaline, the thrill, we want it, so long as we are the ones seeking it out. When it comes for us, however, fear takes on a whole new meaning.

Sumner isn’t scared of me in the way she once was. She trusts me over a stranger to hide in a dark closet with. I guess that’s something I need to work on. There’s a part of her that makes the asshole in me play hide and seek. Sometimes it’s at full surface, raging to get out, other times, it isn’t there at all. It’s interesting, considering how very certain I am this world would be so much better off without her in it.

She isn’t all bad, I suppose. And perhaps, if she wasn’t her, and the past hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t endure the fury I do when I feel her near me.

Her scent, her taste, her very being is wrong. There is a softness about her, though. Something that almost makes her seem…less awful at times.

The shadow inside me grows stronger with each passing day. It’s the worst part of me, the part I wish wasn’t there. I want Sumner’s tears. It wants her screams.

It wasn’t my intention to invite her out today. Something was off with her this morning. She was unsettled, and not in a way I liked.

She’s been quiet the whole walk, which is unusual for her. She’s normally argumentative and sarcastic as fuck, with a sewn-on grin and exaggerated smirk that might fool everyone else, but I see right through that shit. Everything about her is fake. Fake laugh. Fake smile. Fake. Fake. Fake.

I want to resent her for it. So fucking badly I do. The thing is, I know what drowning looks like. How it feels to suffocate under your own skin while the world moves around you, having no idea how close you are to your last breath.

That’s where Sumner is. It wasn’t her curled up in a closet that gave it away. Or the fact that she hasn’t muttered a damn word since we left. Hell, it wasn’t the action of her being so scared of being alone with her thoughts that she willingly came on this trek with me.

No. I knew she needed something. Someone. I couldn’t tell you how, or why. I just…fucking felt it. Like I was stripped of a layer of skin. There was this unsettling weight in my chest and a pull so strong it led me right to her.

Sometimes I feel like we’re connected. Like she can see through me just as easily as I see through her. I guess we are connected, in a sense. Though, she wouldn’t know that. And I certainly shouldn’t feel it.

Yet here we are. The place I come to be alone. A place to clear my mind, and right now, hers is just as messy as mine is. I’d felt the bad thoughts inside her, sensed them eating at her the same way mine do. That’s the weird thing about Sumner. It’s like I can physically feel when she’s in her head.

I watch her reaching down to feel the water, trying to piece together what it is she’s so lost in. My world’s destroyer has demons of her own, and I’m not sure I like it. I’m the only thing I want her surrounded by. The only monster under her bed.

My inner shadow flutters beneath my skin, like it’s trying to jump out of me to get to her. I settle back against the large willow tree, watching her every move.

I’m not sure how something so wrong can be so…interesting.

My life is incomplete because of her. And now, that’s exactly how it would be without her. We’re two halves of one callously fucked up circumstance. I resent her for it, and I pity her for it too.

Letting out a breath, I look away from Sumner, my eyes catching on a small golden flower to my left. Without thinking, I pluck it, twirling the long green stem between my fingers. I allow the darkness to flow through my veins, keeping it in, but letting it run rampant inside of me. It’d be so freeing to release it entirely. I know it would. To let it seep through my skin and into the world. I bet I’d be able to breathe again without it wrapped around my lungs.

The petals wilt beneath my grasp, the entire stem darkening and falling limp.