Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
I see Roman feeling for his back pocket, and I know there probably actually is a weapon he’s carrying there.
“You’ll come back to me,” Callum tells me.
I watch a drop of blood from his hand fall and hit the stone.
Finally, he steps back.
One step.
Then another.
“I care about him more than I ever cared for you,” I call after him as he finally turns and walks away, and the panic shatters in my chest like glass.
He’s gone.
“Niko, are you okay?” Oliver says, squeezing my hand.
I pull him in and I press little kisses to his forehead, his cheek, the side of his neck. I hug him close like he’s precious, like I was afraid something terrible was going to happen to him.
My phone is vibrating, over and over again, in my pocket. I ignore it.
I realize my hands are shaking.
It’s not that I’m not afraid. I’m pushed to my limit.
Can’t stand this feeling.
“I never want to see him again,” I say. “So tired of it. I just want to exist. Why can’t I just exist?”
Oliver’s holding me close, keeping me locked tight in a hug. “You can get a restraining order.”
My phone is incessantly buzzing again.
I reach to pull it out, keeping my body against Oliver’s as I look at the screen.
It’s a call from Sevan.
“Sev,” I answer. “What’s going on?”
“We have a problem.”
The shattered panic inside me rises again, like broken glass threatening to rip apart my insides.
“Tell me.”
“He’s fucking crazy, Niko. Your ex broke into my room and left things here. Messages for you, I think? Some messages for Oliver, too, I think. Are you still at the formal?”
A chaotic storm is circling around me, like I’m in the eye of a hurricane and things are only going to get worse.
I look at Oliver and I have an overwhelming urge to pull him into some secret world. A place where my past won’t touch him. Somewhere we can be together and I won’t have to face this version of my reality with him.
I still need to explain what happened.
About the day I nearly died, and everything spiraled in around me.
I would never have known you, Ollie, I think. Not like I do now.
I would have died and never had the chance to know how worthy of love someone can be.
Jesus.
The last remnants of the molly in me are crossing the wires in my mind.
Oliver doesn’t want things like that. I thought I didn’t, either.
The only thing keeping me from running after Callum and pounding his skull into the pavement is that same drug, though.
I have to fix all of this.
Later, when my brain isn’t flooded with misplaced desire.
I can’t take it any longer.
“Don’t touch anything, Sev. Fuck. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
16
Oliver
Oliver, looking at Niko’s Instagram profile, two months ago
Something always seemed off about Callum.
The silver-haired guy in Niko’s pictures always seemed like he wasn’t fully there.
Like even when he smiled, there was a dead-eyed stare above it.
A lifelessness.
I swore Niko deserved better.
He always has.
Niko doesn’t let me go for the entire walk over to the Double Daggers house.
He doesn’t talk to me, either, but there’s no time.
What happened to you?
My chest feels hollow when I try to pull the disparate pieces together. Did Niko get hurt? On purpose?
Did he try to hurt himself badly?
A group of us heads over in the night, and I feel like I’m walking on thin glass that might shatter. Wes, Roman, Hunter, and Rayne all come with us, despite Niko telling people over and over again that they don’t need to help.
His hand clutches mine for the whole walk, his warm grip holding me like he’s afraid I’ll be pulled away into the air.
When we walk into Sevan’s room, we find it littered with notes.
It’s as if someone came into the room and sprayed pieces of black confetti, but each little piece of black paper has a note on it written in silver ink.
I pick one up off of Sevan’s bed and read it.
You will come back to me.
Another one reads: want me to hurt someone for you?
From anyone else, it might seem like a meaningless gesture. But there’s more behind these notes.
Like he wants to leave us a little breadcrumb trail of tiny reminders of his presence, each one a pricking thorn in our side.
But the thorns aren’t the real weapon.
It’s what he’s capable of doing when all of this doesn’t work.
“Where were you when this happened?” Niko asks his cousin.
He’s still clutching my hand.
“Everyone else was at the formal. I went down the hall to the lounge room and watched a Christmas movie.”
Niko frowns. “You were just down the hall when all of this happened? Did you hear anything?”
“Nothing at all,” Sevan says.
“Why the fuck is he leaving notes in your cousin’s room? He could have left them in your room,” Rayne says.