Page 11

Lit only by the white headlights, Cyrus stared back at me.

The dark pits of her eyes just made me fume harder.

Lifting my fists, I threw a punch toward her jaw.

But Cyrus ducked, dodging my blow and instead rammed her shoulder into my stomach.

Even with the wind knocked out of my lungs, I pressed my body into hers. “Fuck you!”

Nash sidled up between us, grabbing Cyrus’ shoulders and forcing her to look at us. “You drove that poor girl away and now you’re going to follow her around like a pathetic fucking puppy? Do you have any idea what you did to her?”

Cyrus flicked Nash’s hands off of her, her chest heaving with frustration. “You played your hand just as I played mine.”

“What is wrong with you?” I scoffed. “How could you possibly compare what we did?”

Cyrus spoke through gritted teeth. “You can pretend now that you never believed it. But you swore to the prophecy too. You branded yourself in the name of revenge just like I did.”

“When we were kids!” Shaking my head, I felt heat rising to my face. “I branded myself for you. And Nash. For us!”

The second I reunited with Tess I knew that there was no world in which she could have been capable of what the prophecy — of what Cyrus — claimed she’d done.

But Cyrus bit back. “Then why didn’t you tell her who we were? Or what I believed?”

Nash shook her head and hissed. “I wish I had.”

Every moment of every day, I regretted not telling my Trinket the truth. We should have admitted what we believed she’d done. We should have let her explain herself to us. But we hadn’t, we’d just taken some flimsy fucking cards at their cryptic word.

And now she was gone.

All of our chests heaved with anger.

Pacing away from Cyrus, I was afraid I’d try to sucker punch her again.

“None of this changes that she left.” Cyrus’ voice had a hint of disappointment laced in her words.

“True. Because of you.” Nash’s laugh was drenched in violence.

Searching for an answer, I rubbed my eyebrow piercing. “None of it helps us get her back.”

That’s all I wanted and I knew it was all Nash hoped for.

And Cyrus… from the darkness in her eyes, I had a feeling it was what she needed too. Even if she wouldn’t admit it.

None of that mattered because she didn’t want to come back. We may never get a chance to apologize to her, to my Trinket.

She was a free woman the second the sun rose that night. And despite our proclivities, we weren’t in the business of forcing women who didn’t want us.

8

TESS

Another week passed, another night of the Cadillac idling outside of Lola’s apartment. If Cyrus was sorry, she sure had a funny way of showing it. And if this was her attempt at an apology, she’d have to do a hell of a lot better than that.

I still couldn’t believe that it had been her watching me all these weeks. The audacity, after everything she’d put me through. Though I wasn’t even sure that it was her every time.

Even last week, Nash and Blade had somehow evaded my attention, but clearly they’d been watching too.

That was the whole problem. I never knew what was going on with the three of them: where I stood with them or what they wanted from me. And I was sick and tired of being kept in the dark.