Page 50 of Burn It Down

But then the other part of his message had set in.

In a very painful way.

Let her go.

The fuck that was going to happen.

And normal life? Bullshit. He didn’t fucking know her. Not anymore. He was clearly stuck on the little-girl image of her from years back, from before he’d disappeared on her and subsequently faked his own goddamn death.

Aurora wasn’t conventional.

She was the farthest thing from it.

Her meshing so well with us was proof enough right there, without even needing to bring in all the rest to defend it.

No way was I letting her go, and Asher wasn’t gonna stand for it either. Jonah neither, once he could see straight with Ash being in such a state.

Aurora Blackthorn belonged with us.

She was ours and nothing was gonna change that.

Not even Revenant.

“Kill?”

I blinked out of my thoughts to see Jonah approaching the door. “Yeah?”

He ushered me out of the room and closed the door quietly as we stepped out into the corridor. “You all right? You’ve got that look on your face, like you’re close to imploding.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face.

“I’m fine.” I gestured at the closed door. “The state of him, J… how you holding up?”

“He’s back, that’s all that matters.”

“But—”

He grasped my arm. “You can’t harp on it when he wakes up, all right? Don’t speak to it unless he brings it up. And even then, be very careful.”

“Yeah, brother. Of course.”

He blew out a breath. “Good. Yeah.”

“Come eat.”

“Nah, I’ll stay out here in case he wakes up and calls out.”

“That could be hours yet. You need to take care of yourself in the meantime.”

“Kill—”

“We have enough supplies here to make him a homemade cheeseburger, the kind you make that he loves. Why don’t you get on that, give him something happy to wake up to?” The moment he started cooking, he’d eat something. It was a habit when he was doing his thing in the kitchen.

He gave me a look, letting me know he was seeing through into my plan. But then he smiled. “Good idea. I’ll get on it. He’ll like that.”

“Yeah, he will.”

“Thanks, brother,” he said, slapping my shoulder as he passed on by to head downstairs.

---