Page 107 of Indigo Sky

“Oh no,” I breathed out, the glass of water slipping from my hand and clattering to the floor at my feet. “Oh fuck. Oh no, no,no!”

Kate was Kathleen McLaughlin. Indigo Sky was Kathleen McLaughlin. The woman I had fallen in love with. The girl who had rejected Nate. The girl he’d stolen the wallet from to break into her house—

“Fucking hell, Nate. You fucking asshole. Goddammit, you fuckingasshole.”

Tears welled in my eye as I took a step deeper into the room. I raked my hands through my hair, clutching the strands between my fingers and holding them tight to the top of my head.

“Oh God, what am I going to do? What the hell am I going to—"

“Rev?”

My eye squeezed shut tight as my arms dropped back to my sides. The sound of her sweet voice, heavy with sleep and confusion, had, just hours ago, been the most welcoming sound I had ever heard. But now, it came to me as an arrow through the heart, piercing and twisting with a pain unlike anything I’d felt before.

“What are you doing in here?” she asked, her feet shuffling in behind me. “This is my old room … before I took Dad’s. Why …”

She moved slowly, cautiously.

I brought my gaze to the ceiling, my brain racing with pleas and questions and wishes that would never be granted or answered because that was not how shit worked. That was not how it couldeverwork. And all I could think about now was Nate.

Nate, Nate, Nate …

The asshole I could never shake.

The rusty nail in the coffin of every relationship I’d ever attempted to have. Including this one. Because how could I be with her? How could I risk her safety when she would never ever be safe as long as he was around?

And I knew now what I had to do.

“I need to go,” I said, forcing every hint of emotion out of my voice.

She was quiet for a second, then, “But it’s, like, five in the morning. Why don’t you come back to bed and—"

“I have toleave, Kate,” I snapped, spinning around to face her.

She was startled, and her brows pinched. “I don’t understand. Why are you mad? What did I say? Wha—"

“Your name is Kathleen McLaughlin.”

Her eyes looked to mine, then dropped as quickly, focusing her attention on my chest.

Because I’m a monster.

And I’ll always be a monster because I’m about to break your fucking heart.

“H-how do you—"

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I … I didn’t know I was … how do youknow?”

I took a step closer, looming over her in this room that was meant to be pure and sacred. But we had desecrated it—me! I had done that. As an accomplice maybe, but it was me! And I had kissed those lips and laid claim to that body with my mouth and hands and—Jesus Christ, I had fucked her, and she never knew that I had been here!

“When you were twenty, your wallet was stolen,” I said, my voice low. Menacing.

Her mouth opened, then closed again as she took one step backward toward the door. Her hands were shaking. “How … how did you—"

“Later that day, someone broke in here. Someone stole from you. Your underwear. Yourjewelry.”

I took a step closer, and she took another step back. She was afraid.

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