I brought the knife down again.
Cam reached for my wrist, but I evaded him and hurled the blade away from me.
At the wall. Not him. Whatever. The raw chicken piled in front of me abruptly made me want to puke. Or maybe it was Cam. Regardless, I needed out.
After scrubbing my hands, I left him to play Delia with the chicken and stomped across the yard, following the invisible trail into the clubhouse, upstairs, and into the cool quiet of Locke’s bedroom.
Nash lay on the bed, his jacket and boots dumped on the floor, a T-shirt draped over his chest, as if he’d taken it off and lacked the energy to discard it.
He wasn’t asleep, though. He was nursing his vape and staring at the Artex above him, his handsome features drawn into a painful frown.
I slipped into the room and shut the door behind me.
Nash set the vape aside, gaze flitting at the window as if even after battering Ranger, he still shared the same urge that plagued me: that itch to smash the world up until it felt right again, despite knowing it never would.
Not until Locke came home.
A tight sigh escaped me, pinched and sharp.
Nash dragged his heavy stare to where I stood. “Don’t yell at me for punching Ranger. It was his idea.”
“I know.”
“Did I hurt him?”
“Yes.”
“Bad?”
“Nothing he didn’t want.”
Nash absorbed that and made room for me on the bed. I lay down beside him and pressed my cheek to his chest, closing my eyes to the steady thud of his heart. Like this, it was easier to forget how much each beat was hurting him right now. How every breath was searing his lungs with guilt-laced grief.
I thought about telling him that Ranger wasn’t doing so well. That Folk wasn’t either. ThatRubiseemed as close to his breaking point as I’d ever seen. But I didn’t. I said nothing, and neither did Nash, for silent, torturous minutes that stretched out so long I thought he’d fallen asleep.
“I wish we’d never met him.”
His voice was a whisper. A rough scrape of sound that plunged a dagger into my heart.
“What?” I raised my head, searching Nash’s exhausted gaze. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Because it hurts, Orls. And I don’t know how it’s ever gonna stop.”
“It’s going to stop when you find him.”
“What if we don’t?”
“Then you’ll keep looking until we fuckingdie.” I pushed off his chest, coming upright so fast my head buzzed with the impact. “We’re not giving up on him.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Wasn’t it? I forced myself to take a moment andthink, swallowing the rage that, like always, threatened to consume me.
Read between the lines.
I dissected every word.
Lost myself in the despair seeping from Nash like a toxic oil spill.