Page 32 of A Sin So Pure

“Hey, Nora, we have a problem,” Josie says beside me.

I hold up a finger. “I need a second, Josie.”

I grasp Imogen’s chin, pulling her face to mine. I force her to look me in the eye.

“How long?” I repeat.

“A year,” she says softly, voice breaking. “Ihadto.”

“You don’thaveto do anything you don’t want to, Imogen.”

Releasing her, I pace backward. I rub my leather-clad fingers over my jaw, hoping to release some of the tightness there.

“I’m really sorry to interrupt whatever is happening here, but we need to leave,” Josie steps into my line of sight. “We have a situation human-side.”

The look of concern on her face has dread dropping in my stomach.

Shit. That isn’t good.

I spare a glance at Imogen, and it only serves to scramble my insides more, a toxic mix of emotions that curdle my blood.

“Go,” Imogen says.

I sigh, pulling myself together. I turn my back on Imogen.

“Let’s go. Fill me in on the way,” I say to Josie.

I start down the hall.

“Sorry, Mo.” I hear Josie say behind me.

I should stay, say something else to Imogen, but I don’t have any more words.

7

IMOGEN

“Lover’s quarrel?”

The hair on my neck stands on end at Silas’s voice echoing down the hall. When I turn, he’s there smirking, with his hands in his pockets and one leg perched against the wall.

I frantically wipe the few escaped tears from my cheeks and quickly make for the exit.

“Politely, Your Majesty,” I seethe as I storm past him. “Fuck off.”

His laughter bellows through the air, trailing me home. And like a ghost, it haunts my dreams that night.

It’s the same scene, over and over again. Slightly different words may come out of Nora’s mouth with each iteration of our fight, but they’re all as hurtful as the truth. It’s a varied verbal lashing, courtesy of my subconscious, that always ends the same: with a replay of Nora’s eyes breaking with betrayal.

Those bottle-green irises crack before me, shards of sea glass scattering between us. They cut me with their disappointment.

Because shecared.

The realization hits me in the night, as I toss between sweat-soaked sheets and bouts of nightmares.

I rerun the exact moment she decided shewouldn’tcare anymore. The way the emotion drained from her features and hid away, taking shelter behind all the carefully constructed walls in her psyche. She retreated, started building those defenses back up far too easily. Much too fast.

She’s not wrong to pull away. I know I fucked up, but I didn’t even get a chance to explain. And then she left.

---