Her hand stills for half a second, then resumes, slower. “You don’t have to be, you know.”
That does it. My chest feels like it’s caving in again. I shift without thinking, burying my face against her shoulder. Her other arm comes around me, holding me tighter.
“I don’t want her to see him like this,” I admit quietly. “He’s…I don’t know how to fix that, baby.”
Her fingers slide through my hair again. “You need to accept that you can’t fix him right away,” she says softly. “What’s happened to him is going to take time. Emma has dealt with patients who have had her crying to me. She is a soft soul. Always has been. But she’s strong enough for this, okay? We’ll hold her and love her through this, but ultimately, she’s going to be alright. I know my best friend.”
I let my eyes close, tension bleeding out of me. For a while, neither of us says anything. There’s just the quiet of the room, and the steady beat of her heart under my ear.
Heather presses a light kiss to my temple. “I’ve got you,” she murmurs. “You don’t have to be strong for us. We all love him. We’re all struggling.”
Chapter three
ADRIANA BRITTON
I wasn’t sleeping when Micah went outside. But I heard in his breathing that something inside him was about to burst, and he was trying to keep it quiet. I stay still at first, staring up at the ceiling, listening for the sound of more footsteps, but there is none.
I sit up slowly, the blanket slipping from my shoulders as my gaze drifts toward the sliding glass door. Beyond it, there’s snow falling. And Micah isn’t on the porch. I drag my eyes away, letting them move across the living room, kitchen, and dining table. There’s a fireplace to my right. I don’t know who owns this house or why we’re even here. The only people I know inside it are Jude and Micah.
And Jude…
My chest hurts as I try to will the thought away. But the truth is already there.
They saved him too late.
My fingers curl into the couch as the memory of that fucking metal door forces its way into my head. I never saw everything that happened behindit, but I didn’t need to. I heard more than enough. The sounds alone were enough to make me want to vomit. And when he came back out that last time…
He wasn’t the same.
Whatever was left of his shredded soul had finally been ripped from his body. I could see it in his eyes. There wasnothingbehind them. No recognition. No warmth. No…Jude.
I swallow hard, my stomach turning. I couldn’t sleep next to him after that. I tried the first night. I told myself I was overreacting, that he was just exhausted and drugged. But the way he looked at me in the dark, with pupils dilated like a predator…
I shake my head, pushing the memory away. It almost looked as if he wanted to kill me. So I moved to the couch in the guesthouse the next night. I fucking hate myself for leaving him alone and being afraid when he likely needed me most. But he was horrifying. His eyes were like in those horror movies where it’s obvious someone has been possessed.And he did almost force himself upon me before he snapped out of it at the last minute that one time.
The thing I've learned about Jude is that his moral backbone is still strong. It's held on for so fucking long, and I hope that it's still in there somewhere. It has to be.
I push myself off the couch so I stop thinking, my legs slow to cooperate as I move toward the sliding door. My hand hesitates on the handle for half a second before I tug it open. Cold air rushes up my nostrils immediately as I step outside. And the first thing I hear isn’t the river like I did earlier. It’s Micah.
And he’s crying.
The sound stops me where I stand, my arms instinctively wrapping around myself. The cold sinks through my clothes, but I barely feel it. My focus locks on him instead. He’s out near the trees, braced against one of them. The sound of his sobs makes my chest hurt like fuck.
I watch him for a while, my heart breaking for everything I’ve done that led us into this shit. I attached myself to Jude for all of these years, because at first, it was my job. But Micah has always been a good man, too.
He turns around and sees me, immediately going rigid. I can tell that he’s trying to put himself back together. Something I’ve done a lot the past few months. Hell,years.
He starts toward me, and every step closer makes me feel even more uneasy. But just as he stops in front of me, he shakes his head once before I can say anything. He doesn’t want to talk, but I need to. The words are already there, crawling up the back of my throat, desperate to get out.I need to tell him what happened, what I saw, and that I’m terrified that whatever they did to Jude didn’t just break him.
Iterasedhim.
But he’s already brushing past me without another glance. I turn my head, watching as he disappears into the house, the door sliding shut behind him. For a long moment, I just stand alone in the cold. Snow drifts down around me, quiet and peaceful, settling into my hair and clothes.
We survived so much to get here, and I know that we have so much further to go. Alexei still has everything on Jude. But maybe I can help them. Maybe I can finally begin to right all of the wrongs I’ve made since I fell into Nolan’s trap at fifteen.
It fucking sucks knowing that we’ve gone through hell and back together...and that one of us definitely didn’t come back the same. And I can’t shake the feeling that this doesn’t end with all of us walking away.
I don’t know how long I stand there before the cold finally starts to numb my fingers. I exhale slowly and turn back toward the house. The porch creaks quietly under my weight when I step up, my hand brushing along the railing, centering myself before I reach for the handle and slide the door open.