Page 120 of Haunt Me

“Your fans will be upset with me.”

“Skye has no fans,” Miki, as always, jumps at the chance to be helpful.

“Boys!” Skye interrupts, sounding panicked. “Why am I suddenly in line to get my ass kicked?”

“By Isaiah,” Jude clarifies. “That’s like getting your ass kicked by a little moth.”

“Hey!” Fury rises up inside me again, eclipsing every other feeling. And then I realize what’s happening. These idiots are trying to make me mad so that I will stop feeling sorry for myself.

And it’s working.

“Shut up, all of you,” I tell them.

They back off, give me some space. I head for the weights.

“Let’s just work out in silence, before youdon’ttell me anything else important about Eden,” I murmur, bitterness thick in my voice.

I hate it. I hate feeling like this.

…

James flies in six hours later, and Skye sends a car to pick him up and bring him to the hotel. I tried to eat something, but I can’t keep anything down. I am freshly showered after my brutal workout, and all packed and ready to go as soon as James gets here. And he gets here all right.

He doesn’t run into my room, he flies in.

“Where is she?” his eyes are twin flames, burning with hatred. “Does she know what she did?”

“Hey, little bro,” I say, getting up.

He pushes me back down on the bed, eyes frantically looking for something. I think it’s my phone. He locates it next to me and makes a beeline for it.

“If that girl thinks she’s going to destroy you again, she’s got another think coming.”

He looks pale and drawn and thinner than he looked over the video call. I suddenly realize how bad I must look for him to be this worried.

I grab him by the waist and bodily remove him from the proximity of my phone. He’s gone white and scared, and I could just murder him and hug him at the same time.

He is shaking as I hold him down, and I have never known him to be violent, not even once, but if I let go, I honestly feel like he might hurt himself right now.

“It’s my fault,” I keep saying in my brother’s ear as I half push half carry him to a chair. “It’s my fault.”

Ren pops his head inside my door, hearing us struggle, and I shake my head at him. I don’t want anyone’s help. This is my mess. I’ll fix this. I will.

“It’s my fault, James,” I keep telling my brother, waiting for it to sink in, “she did nothing. It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault.”

James stops struggling against me.

We look at each other properly for the first time.

“What did you say?” James speaks first.

He is terribly still, barely breathing as he stands there, trapped between my arms, his slightly taller-than-me, skinny body still shaking, ready for a fight. But he’s not fighting anymore.

“That girldestroyedyou,” he says, his voice guttural, raw. “She ruined your life, she caused Grandpa to die, she stole your future, she… She ruined you in every way, Zay. I was there, I saw it. I watched… I watched you die.” His voice catches.

I take a deep breath.

The memory of betrayal washes over me, but I shake it off. It’s not real. It never was.

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