Page 90 of Hate Me

“The difference is, we don’t walk it alone,” Cas pointed out. “We bear the load between us so it doesn’t get too heavy. And that’s your issue. Going it alone, love.”

“As well as burying it, rather than talking about it,” Caleb told her. “This isn’t the kind of thing you can just shove down. Believe me, I’m a leading authority on it.” He thumbed me. “And my boy is when it comes to burying everything else.”

I cleared my throat.

“My bad,” he said, holding up his hand. “Was.”

“I did feel like I belonged with you,” Sky actually admitted.

Unfortunately, the biggest breakthrough we’d had with her since she’d returned was severely undermined by her then shaking her head and following it up with, “But I’m not all here right now.”

“Because of your crusade against Jett,” Caleb said.

She nodded. “Just because you brought me here and you’re trying to show me a life and possibilities beyond that, trying to show me that we can also recapture what we had and even build on it and take it even deeper, even the therapy and everything… it won’t make me drop it. All the while he’s out there, it’s tainting everything for me, it’s keeping me at a distance, because I can’t let my humanity in or I won’t be able to do what needs to be done there. I need to end him. It’s not just vengeance as you all seem to think. It’s an absolute necessity.” She looked at Cas. “Your designs for Elijah are just clouding that. Jett doesn’t operate like his brother. You won’t see him coming like you will with Elijah and his big moves. Jett is completely underhanded. I’ve got him on the run now, but that won’t last. He’ll come for me again. He’ll come for anyone I care about—the three of you, my dad, and Jeremy—because in his warped mind that’s what’s keeping us from being together. Not the fact that he’s a genuine psychopath, that he destroyed my life, hurt Bastian, and took my mom from me. He doesn’t operate within reality. And that’s why he’s so incredibly dangerous. You can’t predict his moves and by the time they become apparent, it’ll be too late—just like it was two years ago.”

“As soon as intel comes in with a lock on his location, you’re going to act on it,” Cas said, as a statement, not a question.

“I already lost my last chance when you and Caleb pulled me out and brought me here.”

“Don’t you see what he’s doing?” I asked. “He’s driven you into a state of obsession when it comes to him. Sure, not the way in which he wanted, but it’s still obsession—intense feelings that he’ll believe he can twist around to his liking. Even now with him at a distance, he’s still managing to take you from us, Sky.”

“He’ll take you if I don’t do this, Bastian.”

“You do this and you die,” I bit back. “Caleb told us about your big picture plan to draw Elijah out too.”

“I won’t let the three of you get hurt because of something I’m doing. We’ve all had enough of that. You were kidnapped because of me.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that.”

“I do!”

Caleb frowned and caught my eye, the realization obviously hitting us at the same time. He spoke, managing to vocalize it before I could, “This all-or-nothing approach… that’s why you were insistent on it being a suicide mission… not just out of hopelessness and being in a really bad place… you couldn’t see a way through where you could have us and take out Jett?”

“You’re trying to protect us at the expense of yourself,” I choked out. “You hate yourself for what happened two years ago and this is a shitload of guilt down at the bedrock of it all, and some major overcompensation thinking you could redeem yourself by removing the Bane brothers from our lives, by sparing us.”

“Sorry, darling, it doesn’t work like that with us,” Caleb told her.

Good, brother. Damn fucking straight. “We all make it out of whatever shit we’re embroiled in. There’s no sacrifice play. The only victory that exists is all four of us coming out of a battle. Or, a fucking war, in this case.”

I eyed Cas for some of his words of wisdom to push our points over the edge so she’d really have it driven home to her finally.

He’d been so quiet throughout most of it and that likely meant he was formulating a plan of action. Something we most definitely needed right about now.

Skylar Bennett was so fucking stubborn.

And guarded.

And brave.

And thoughtful.

And caring to those she actually allowed in to see the softer side of her.

And passionate as the fires of hell.

Cas pushed off his stool and strode over. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his casual weekend jeans, he announced, “Give me a few weeks. Stand down until then.”

Her eyes narrowed. “There’s no way I’m simply going to—”

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