He’s saying he won’t survive it if we lose Locke.Like my ma when my dad died, and she slipped away in plain sight, addiction and heartbreak taking her so fast it felt the same as the bomb that had killed her husband.
I lay down again, covering Nash with my body, my face hidden in his neck, that cold-hot flush of nauseous terror sweeping through me again. “Don’t leave me.”
“What?” Nash wrapped his arms around me. “Orls, I would never.”
For the first time in our entire lives, I didn’t believe him, and he knew it.
His arms tightened around me and he gripped my hair, his strong fingers tangling in the bird’s nest of straggly waves I’d been sporting for weeks now.
He tugged until I raised my head. “I wouldnever.”
Whatever he saw in my face wasn’t enough. He kissed me with a fierceness I knew he didn’t feel.
And I kissed him back, biting at his lips, tasting blood. Tasting fear and every inch of black space between us.
I miss him.
Nash trembled beneath me.I miss him too.
Then the kiss, like every touch of our lips since this torture had begun, fizzled out, damp tinder to a weak flame. For a while, we lay in each other’s arms, but eventually, a cruel restlessness tore us apart.
Nash slunk off to the shower.
I abandoned him entirely and drifted outside again.
Lida appeared as if I’d summoned her spirit. She trailed me across the yard and back to the chapel.
Cam was exactly where I’d left him in the kitchen, though he’d made more progress with the chicken than I had—stress cooking was his ultimate coping mechanism when he wasn’t entangled with his lovers.
“Did you fuck Alexei when Saint was in hospital?”
Cam swivelled to face me, shrouded in shadow and resigned grump. Like me before him, he’d failed to turn on the main light in the kitchen, preferring to sulk in the dim glow from the extractor fan. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Because I want to know if the dead zone inside me is real.”
Understanding softened Cam’s features. “You want brutal honesty?”
“I want the truth.”
“The truth is, me and Alexei could easily kill each other with sex if Saint didn’t get between us and calm that shit down. While he was gone...” Cam took a deep breath and leaned on the counter behind him. “We took what we needed from each other, and it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’thealthy, and Saint would’ve hated it.”
Silence hummed between us, shattered by the buzz of a phone in my pocket.
Locke’sphone.
I took it out and stared at the lit-up screen.
Twin1:flying back tomorrow. Everything ok with you, the kids, and your harem? love u x
Another piece of my heart sheared off. I showed the message to Cam, and a rough exhale escaped him too.
“We need to handle that.”
“I know.”
“Maybe Folk?—”
“No. I’ll do it.”