Page 30 of Offside Angel

These people… care about me.

I have no idea how to deal with that.

Jemma slides over, her hip bumping mine as she wraps an arm around my shoulders. A second later, Taylor is on the other side and Rachelle is kneeling in front of me.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper through tears. “I thought I was doing what was best for everyone. I thought… It’s complicated.”

“Okay,” Jemma nods. “It’s complicated. But this isn’t.” She hugs me tight. “We’re here for you.”

“You can tell us anything,” Rachelle agrees.

“I already know enough to blackmail you for eternity, and I haven’t,” Taylor adds. “That means you can trust me.”

I laugh, but it’s watery. Tears are pouring down my face, and the words come out with them.

I give the shortened version of what I told Zane the other day. They deserve to know what being friends with me entails. They deserve to know who I am and what I’ve done.

I tell them about my mom leaving, my dad’s abuse, and my brother joining in. I say as little as I can about the night it all went sideways, but they don’t flinch away from me or look horrified. I tell them I murdered my own father… and my friends just hold me tighter.

Wonders never cease.

“No wonder you’re a stone-cold bitch! You had to be to survive.” Taylor squeezes me tight. “I mean that in a good way, by the way.”

Jemma nods. “We mean it in the best way. That’s so much to carry on your own, Mira. I can’t imagine.”

I’ve spent years holding everyone at arm’s length—rejecting them before they could reject me. The problem is, keeping everyone away meant I never gave anyone the chance to accept me, either.

I never gave anyone the chance to see all the broken, patched-together parts of me and love me, anyway.

Rachelle takes both of my hands and squeezes tight. “Thanks for telling us. Now, we can carry it with you.”

12

ZANE

The door to Mira’s apartment is shredded.

I feel like I’ve been here before—seen this before—but I can’t think about that now. I need to find Mira.

“Mira!” I call her name, but my voice is hoarse. I can barely speak above a whisper.

The knife block on the counter is tipped sideways and knives are spilled across the floor. I bend down to grab one, but it slips out of my hand like a bar of soap. It skitters across the floor, leaving a trail of red across the carpet.

I look down at my hand and it’s dripping with blood. But it isn’t mine.

“Mira!”

The hallway to her room stretches and elongates. I keep walking, trying to dry my bloody hands on my clothes, but I can’t get them clean. Everywhere I touch, there is more blood. It’s still hot and the metallic tang burns my eyes.

I’ve been here before, I remember suddenly. This happened before and Mira wasn’t here.

I start to turn back. I need to get out of here and find her.

All at once, the hallway slams down around me. My shoulders barely fit between the walls. I fumble with her bedroom doorknob, trying to open it before I’m crushed. My bloody hands slip over and over again before I can push it open.

I fall into her room, gasping… and land in a river of blood.

Sticky crimson soaks into the knees of my pants and splashes under my palms. I follow the path of the blood to Mira’s bed in the corner, and a strangled scream tears out of my throat.

---