Page 213 of Wreck Me

I’d sent an anonymous message to Caspian and his men had just retrieved Bastian now.

I grimaced as two of Caspian’s guys hauled him out of the car.

He was so strung out, he couldn’t even walk.

My breath caught in my throat as the door to King Manor opened and Cas rushed down the steps out into the courtyard to meet them.

He looked a world away from his usual impeccably dressed self, wearing a pair of lounge pants and a tee—all black, his hair in disarray, and thick stubble plaguing his chin.

The stress of everything had finally gotten to him.

Of holding us all together.

Only to have it all come crashing down in the end.

That night had brought everything to a head, in different ways for each of us.

In brutal, inescapable ways.

For me, I’d crossed a line I was struggling to come back from.

What I’d done… murdering so many… I couldn’t just shake that off.

That dark had its claws into me now.

And that kind of shit could be contagious, especially to those closest to me.

Especially to Cas.

I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t be another burden that he carried.

He wanted out of the dark and being with me, he couldn’t have that.

Not as I was right now.

Things had become far too toxic.

I couldn’t let it go any further, because it would end up rotting us all from the inside out.

Tears pricked my eyes, emotion threatening to get the best of me, and I blinked them away, trying to force it down as I looked on.

I couldn’t hear from this distance, but with my binoculars, I could read their lips.

As Caspian reached Bastian, he was startled by the latter suddenly grasping his arm.

He was sobbing uncontrollably as he held onto Cas like a lifeline.

“Cas. I can’t… I can’t do this anymore. I need… I need help.”

“I know. It’s okay, sweetheart. You’ll have it. You’ll have it, I swear it to you.”

He took Bastian’s weight from the guys, then led him toward the house.

I was about to turn to go now that I knew Bastian would be okay, and that I’d now seen Cas for the first time since that night, which had caused all of us to go our separate ways.

But then Cas stopped for a moment at the threshold, frowning.

And then he looked out at the tree line.

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