“No, you didn’t hurt me,” I assure, dropping to the ground beside him and wrapping him in my arms. He desperately claws at my skin, as if trying to burrow himself inside of me. His head lands on my shoulder as his body vibrates with silent sobs. I push down his unruly pink hair as I try to comfort him. “I miss him too.”
“He was my best friend,” he chokes out. “My only friend.”
“I’m your friend,” I say immediately, the words instinctive. Swallowing, I continue, “I don’t know if it’s any comfort, but I’m your friend, Cal. I always have been.” He pulls his head up to stare at me with glassy eyes. Fuck, seeing him in pain destroys me. Absolutely guts me. His grief combines with my own until I’m suffocating on it. It feels as if there are claws wrapped around my heart, the nails digging into the sensitive organ until it’s weeping blood.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” he laments. “We shouldn’t have joined this stupid fucking game.”
All I can do is hold him even tighter, hoping some of his pain will transfer into me. Though I’m not sure if I’ll survive any more.
“It’s getting dark.” I press a kiss to his forehead. “We need to find the way out of here.”
Cal nods once, jerkily, before stumbling to his feet and pulling me up with him. His hand remains on me for a moment longer, as if assuring himself I’m still here, still alive, before he releases me and steps away.
“We’ll have to look through every door,” Cal warns as we move to the entrance. The glass doors slide open, and we enter a waiting room with a single receptionist desk, stark white tiles, and a collection of plastic chairs. The entire room gives me the creeps. It was designed, no doubt, to be sterile and clean, but instead, it feels unwelcoming and stuffy.
“I fucking hate hospitals.” My lips curl upwards in disgust as I sidestep a fallen wheelchair. “Dad used to make me go and pretend to be a patient so he could steal blood from their blood vaults. He once shoved a hammer into my ear because he thought it’d be hilarious to see the doctors and nurses scream and fret over me. Another time, he told me to tell them to ask for a face transplant. I was six then.” I’m babbling, I know it, but the only other alternative is to surrender to my pain. To allow the ice-cold waves to drown me until I’m nothing but withered skin and bones.
“Your dad sounds charming,” Cal deadpans, opening up a closet behind the receptionist desk.
“He’s an odd man, that’s for sure,” I agree. I can’t help but wrap my arms around myself. There’s not a chill or even a breeze, but I can’t escape the cold feeling traveling through me. The feeling that we’re being watched.
“Barret once hid underneath a desk for an entire day trying to scare someone in detention,” Cal muses, his breath hitching. His pain is so raw, so real, that my heart aches for him a little more. I didn’t even think it was possible. “But what Barret didn’t know was that I had already killed the man.” He laughs sharply, humorlessly, the despondent sound tightening the nerves in my stomach. “I miss him so fucking much.”
“I do too.” I didn’t know Barret like Cal did—we had only been friends for a short while—but already, I feel his absence as keenly as if my liver had been removed. In the short time I have known him, he has become a part of me, embossing himself on my skin. He’s a tattoo that I don’t want to ever remove.
Shuffling captures our attention, and we both turn towards the left hall. I raise my gun, desperately trying to recall how many bullets I have left. Cal bares his fangs and steps in front of me, wings fluffing out around him.
The silence is strained as the footsteps approach. Every muscle in my body is coiled, ready to spring into action. Fear pulses through me, pounding like the beat of a drum, but I ignore it resolutely, prepared to fight.
“A gun?” a familiar, dry voice remarks as Vin steps through the door, Mason and Frankie directly behind him. “Really, Violet?” He scoffs once, but his eyes soften with relief when he sees that I’m unharmed. “Do you really think that would stop me if I wanted to kill you?”
CHAPTER 31
HUX
Darkness.
It’s all I know, all I’m aware of. It tightens around me like a steadily shrinking vise as I curl into a tight ball.
“Jack?” I whisper, my pulse skittering as I peer through the inky darkness.
But I can’t feel my brother. I can’t even sense him.
Instead, I’m shoved into the farthest corner of our shared mind like a piece of scum.
I’m not afraid of the dark. No, after centuries of pure and unrelenting darkness, it’s impossible to truly be terrified of it. There are a lot of things that can hide in the darkness, but I much prefer that over the light. There, you can see and experience everything—you’re forced to watch the monsters charge at you with their claws extended and fangs bared. At least in the darkness, you can pretend that you’re alone.
Unease skates down my spine, as if the Grim Reaper himself is trailing an icy finger across my skin.
I don’t like this. I don’t like this one fucking bit.
Since we met Violet, we’ve been able to coexist in relative peace. I can hear all of Jack’s thoughts and see through his eyes when he’s in control of our body. That differs from before, where only one of us was in charge and the other was relegated to the
