with a loud thump on the deck. I hunched over, drawing my legs up until my heels hooked the edge of my seat. I dropped my head to my knees, and wrapped
my arms around my shins, holding myself together so I wouldn’t shatter into
unrecognizable pieces. I squeezed my eyes shut, gasping against the suffocating, hot air.
God, it hurt. So much so, I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t. Screaming wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t bring Kelsey back. It wouldn’t chase Ellery
back into hell where he belonged. It wouldn’t make anything right. Instead, I was left with no choice but to suck it up and play Ellery’s sick game.
Time slipped by as I sat there, lost in the unlit spaces of my soul. There were
lines I’d told myself I’d never cross, but in this particular moment, when grief and rage combined into an unforgiving storm, I would have crossed every single
one in exchange for Ellery’s destruction. Options I would never consider played
through my mind, tempting me a little deeper into the darkness. It would be so
easy to let go and give in to the driving need of revenge. There were things I learned, vicious, cold things, from my time in the military.
“Cyn?”
The sound of my name was accompanied by a stroking caress along my
spine. It stopped the unconscious rocking motion I adopted and kept me from tumbling headlong into the moral abyss yawning at my feet. I blinked my eyes
open, only then noticing the tears weighing down my lashes.
Kayden knelt next to me, his face etched with concern, and his eyes
watchful. He waited until I focused on him. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” My question was hoarse.
“Don’t go down that road, you’ll get lost.”
I held his gaze, unable to answer, not caring how eerily well he read me. Part
of me didn’t care anymore. There was too much rage, too much guilt, too much
pain; all of it coalescing into a pit that threatened to swallow me whole.
He reached out and brushed away the lingering tears. “You take that road, and you’ll lose Kelsey forever.” He curved his palm against my cheek. “You’ll
lose yourself, and then he’ll have won. The price is too steep.”
There was no judgment in his voice or his expression. Instead, a hint of some
hard-won knowledge resonated through his words like a bell, the echoes of it spreading out and chasing back the whispers of vengeance luring me toward the
edge.
“I’m not sure I care anymore,” I whispered, meeting his gaze without flinching.
“You care, or you wouldn’t still be here.” He continued to watch me, giving
me nowhere to hide.
At any other time, I would dodge the intense eye contact, but now, I feared
the loss of it would send me careening into hell.
As if he knew, he asked, “If Kelsey were alive, and you acted on any of those
ideas running around in your head to get her back, would she understand?”
His question made me pause and think beyond my immediate pain and
chaos. Would she have understood?
Yes.
Would she have approved?
No, because Kelsey’s moral compass had always been steadier than mine.
Her lines weren’t drawn in the dirt but etched into steel. The difference between
us made some of our late-night conversations difficult. Yet, there were times when the nightmares wouldn’t leave me alone, and she was the one who would
