Page 157 of Claiming Pretty

“No,” I muttered, my voice hoarse, and I gave chase.

My legs moved on instinct, my boots crunching against the frost-covered ground as I closed the distance between us in seconds.

She didn’t make it far—I caught her by the arm and spun her toward me, holding her tight despite her thrashing.

“Let me go!” she sobbed, pounding her fists weakly against my chest. “I have to go back for him.”

Her strength was nothing compared to my grip, but her despair was a force I couldn’t fight.

“Would you trade him for me?” The words escaped me, quiet and raw, a vulnerability I hadn’t meant to show.

Ava froze, her lips parting as if the question had shocked her into silence. For a second, I thought she wouldn’t answer, that her anger would dissipate into the cold night air.

But then her grief surged forward, and she screamed.

“Yes! I wish it had beenyou.”

Her words tore through me. It echoed in the stillness, a sound that seemed to linger in the trees, in my chest, in my mind.

My arms didn’t loosen, but something inside me broke.

Her screams dissolved into sobs, her body collapsing against mine like a rag doll. The weight of her grief pinned me down, her words reverberating in my skull.

She would trade me.

I had believed we were meant to be, that maybe, just maybe, she would realize that she loved me the way I loved her.

But now, her words filled me with doubt.

Maybe Ava didn’t belong with me.

Maybe she belonged with him.

The brother I’d left behind.

The brother I had sacrificed.

As the dawn was peeking through my dorm bedroom, I threw the last of my essentials into the backpack—a change of clothes, wallet, the fake passport tucked into a side pocket.

The zipper caught for a second before sliding shut, and the sound seemed deafening in the suffocating silence of the dorm.

My hands were steady, my movements deliberate, but my mind was chaos, still reeling from Ava’s angry admission.

“Would you trade him for me?”

“Yes.”

No. Stop it. First, I had to get Ava out of here. Far away. Where she was safe.

ThenI could strategize what to do about Ciaran.

I shouldered the bag, the weight of it nothing compared to the weight crushing my chest, and strode to her room.

The door was ajar, a sliver of light spilling into the hall. I shoved it open, my voice ready to bark out an order to hurry—but the words stuck in my throat.

She wasn’t there.

“Ava?” I called, though I already knew she wouldn’t answer.

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