Page 9 of Hate Me

We’d been building something.

Something that was a little twisted, yeah, but also fucking incredible.

And then she’d spit all over that.

She’d just fucking run.

Without a word.

Without any explanation.

Without us knowing if she was ever planning to come back once things had died down.

Without any goddamn care.

The only communication we’d received regarding her disappearance had been from her dad.

He’d texted Cas with a simple and fucking bitter, “I warned you.”

Cas had told me that the warning had been Frank telling him that if things went south, if our relationship with his daughter started to hurt her, he’d take her away and hide her in the shadows where we’d never find her.

And he had.

Even Cas hadn’t been able to track her down.

He hadn’t stopped for six months straight.

Until one day I’d come to him and told him to give it up, that we needed to let it go and accept that she was lost to us.

Just like Caleb was.

“Bastian.”

Shit. I snapped out of my thoughts at the sound of the voice and spun around to see Cas now walking to me, coming through the tree line. I winced as I saw his two-thousand-dollar designer shoes squelching in the mud. He seemed oblivious, though, his only concern on me as a frown marred his brow as he looked between me and the Bennett home.

“I’m glad you called,” he said, as he reached me.

“Not so much that I called from here, though, I’m betting.”

“Not so much.” He reached out and stroked my cheek in that tender way of his that he’d developed more so with me over the last couple of years. “What’s happened, sweetheart?”

I turned into it, nuzzling against the warmth.

And then I told him about how I’d been triggered today.

“I see,” he said, easing his hand away, but then grasping my shoulder. “I’m proud of you. Going to that additional meeting was a fantastic response, Bastian. This is just a bump, not a setback, and you’re handling it in a healthy and very positive way. Calling me here too just adds to that.”

I eased away. “Would you still be proud to know that as much as I hate her, standing here has had me wondering where she is, what she’s doing?”

“It’s natural to wonder.”

“You covered things up, smoothed everything over, she could’ve come back.”

“Her mom was basically murdered by her psychopathic stalker, her home was burned to the ground, that sex tape had left her ostracized, and things were strained between you and her, between all four of us, Caleb left… there wasn’t anything for her to come back to.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face. “She should’ve had faith in us, in what the four of us had built together. We brought her into the fold, made her one of us, and she basically spat all over it.”

“She wasn’t the only one.”

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