Page 57 of Soul of a Psycho

“A little. Enough to understand. ‘Let us live before we die.’, right?”

He bites his lip with a slow nod, examining my face. I suddenly feel like a witness to something I shouldn’t have seen—or heard, like he wasn’t expecting me to be able to decipher his words.

He runs his knuckles down my arms, piercing me with his gaze.

“Do you not agree with the sentiment?” he finally speaks, bringing my wrists up to clasp them against his chest.

His stare is too intense for the dining hall, something darkening in his eyes. I make a strangled noise in my throat that is supposed to be a laugh, but it’s a pathetic attempt at nonchalance.

“I…” I try, unsure why he’s turned so serious.

“Wouldn’t you want to experience everything before you cease?” he asks, gripping my wrists tighter. “If you only had a few months left? Tell me what you would want to do. Tell me and we’ll do it all.”

The desperation in his tone makes my chest constrict in panic. I don’t know what’s happening. It suddenly feels like I don’t have any time left, and there’s so much I want to do. I want to be free of my father. I want to find out who I really am. I want to graduate, and leave this country, and be happy. I think I want kids someday, maybe a dog, even though I’ve never had a pet before. My head spins in despair, and I have to suck in a breath, a breath that is ragged and draws attention from the girl who just got in line beside us.

Irritation prickles my skin. I can’t lose it here. I can’t fall apart in front of everyone. I shove at Cade and break his hold.

“Sky.” He tries to pull me back.

“No.” I hiss, embarrassment getting the better of me. “Don’t. You’re being—” I stop myself from calling him crazy.

“Unstable?” he prompts too loudly. “Psychotic? Say it. I don’t care. Just answer the question.”

“No.” I shake my head, shrinking under the stares he’s drawing.

“Why? If you were—”

“Because I don’t plan ondying!” I screech with a stomp of my foot.

That gets the attention of the whole first table behind him, and I smooth my skirt. I fidget with my loose strands of hair, aware that I’m being judged.

When I look back at Cade, dread hulls out the humiliation, leaving me cold. His eyes have gone hollow and pained, raking over me as if I might vanish, as if there’s something I don’t know about my own mortality.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Cade

Iwent too far, both externally and internally, and I fear I may have cracked something inside of myself.

I sit, staring at the brown paper bag full of rolls on the table, ignoring the stilted chatter around me, not caring that Ruby is shooting daggers at me, not really sure how we ended up seated here in the first place.

I almost let it slip. I almost let it fuckingslip,and in the process, saw the horror in Sky’s pretty little features. She has no idea—can’t even comprehend that her life might end sooner rather than later. And I had no idea what that could do to me. What the reality of taking her life could really mean.

I watched as hopes and dreams blossomed and then withered too quickly in her eyes. A future glimpse into a time lapse of tragedy. Can I stand up on that stage and pull the trigger with her in the audience? I don’t want to leave her in this cesspool alone, without my protection. Can I really take her with me, or will she hate me in the afterlife? Would that be better, regardless?

“He gets like this sometimes,” a familiar and yet aggravating voice says.

“Like what?” I snap my head up, and narrow my eyes at Bobby.

He shrugs in that dopey way, as if my venom is nothing to him, and takes another bite from a half devoured plate. How long has he been sitting here? How long haveIbeen sitting here? I glance around and find two girls gaping at me with wide eyes, twinning in black lipstick to who, I assume, is their leader, Ruby.

But she seems preoccupied giving Bobby the snarky once over.

“Who are you again?” she asks him.

“I’m Cade’s friend.”

“We’re notfriends,” I correct him.

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