“Trust me, I do, Jade. I want that more than anybody, but not like this. Not at the risk of you losing yourself. I can't have this on your shoulders. The guilt …”
“I …”
“Look at yourself, Ocean. I mean really look at yourself. Look at what you're doing, who you're becoming.”
My eyes drop to the shard of glass still clutched tightly between my fingers. Blood covers me from head to toe, drenching my clothes. My heart races like never before, feeling the burn of the cuts and scrapes along my knees and hands for the first time.
I'm a stranger. I don't even recognize myself right now.
Am I seriously about to kill a man? I was terrified after watching Nic do just the same only a week ago. His ruthlessness was enough to make me run and vow to never go back there again. How can I stand here prepared to do the exact same thing? What is wrong with me?
I glance back up and meet Colton's loving gaze, so full of concern. A gasp travels up my throat and the tears continue to stream down my face. My hand shakes and I pull it away from Jude's neck, releasing him into a clump of pain on the floor.
I did that. I tortured him. I cut, stabbed, kicked, and hit him. Who am I? This isn't how I deal with things, this isn't me. I'm not a cold-blooded murderer.
The glass drops from my hand and clatters against the ground, the sound louder than anything I've ever heard.
I run.
I run and I don't look back.
I barge past Colton in the doorway and run through the wine cellar. I all but throw myself back up the stairs in a race for distance. I don't dare stop until I'm as far away from the horrors of Charles' wine cellar as I can possibly get.
Chapter 2
I crash through one of the many bathrooms of the Carrington mansion, hearing the door slam shut behind me with a loud thud. I race to the sink and fall into it, my hands coming down on either side of the white porcelain and leaving bloodied smears on either side.
Tears stream down my face. What have I done?
I look up and meet my reflection in the room-length mirror and see nothing but fear. My eyes are wide and frantic, not the eyes I've gotten so used to over the past seventeen years. I'm a stranger to myself.
If Colton hadn't walked in ... I can't even think about that. What I would have done ... I would have been just like Nic. I would have slit his throat and walked out of there as though nothing had ever happened. I would have cleaned my hands of Jude and wiped him from my memory. I would have been a cold-blooded murderer. I would have killed him and in the process, I would have killed what little of myself still exists.
I turn on the tap and frantically scrub the blood from my hands. The water runs red, splashing up over the sink and onto the vanity, only making me panic that much more. If someone was to walk in and see this mess ... If mom was to walk in ... Fuck. I'd be ruined.
What have I done?
Blood stains under my nails and I struggle to get it out, squirting soap into my hand and scrubbing at my nails over and over again until the blood finally disappears. I wash up my arms and then try to clean my face but the water never runs clean. It's red. Always red.
I step away from the sink and find it covered in Jude's blood from my clothes. Panic surges through me. What am I going to do? It won't go away. It's like a constant reminder of what I nearly did. Who am I?
I tear my shirt over my head and dump it into the bathtub before following it up with my jeans and underwear. I have to get rid of it. If there's anything I've learned from spending the last however many years with the Widows on my doorstep was to always get rid of the evidence. No. Matter. What.
I frantically search through the cupboards and after finding a small box of matches, I turn back to the bathtub. Is this shit even going to light after being soaked in blood? The flames will probably just sizzle out, but I have to try.
I climb up onto the edge of the bathtub and reach the window above. I slide it wide—not wanting to smoke out the bathroom—and drop back onto the marble floor. I look down at the destroyed clothes that hold my darkest secret and lean over it.
I let out a shaky breath and light them up as I struggle to hold back my sobs. I grab a few of the small white hand towels from the cupboard and throw them onto the fire, encouraging it to burn quicker, then stand back and watch as the sobs threaten to suffocate me.
Keeping my eye on the fire, I step into the shower and turn on the taps as hard as they will go. I stand under the scalding water and scrub myself. Once. Twice. Three times.
I do it again and again until the water at the bottom of the shower finally runs clean and all physical traces of what I did to Jude are gone.
How did I become this? I've said for weeks that if I was to find Jude that I'd end him, but never in a million years did I think I had the ability to take it that far.
What is Colton going to think of me now? What he walked in on ... that couldn't
