Page 7 of Beautiful Ruins
I felt it—the same old pull in my chest, the ache I could never quite kill, and beneath it all, the stupid hope I thought had finally died.
Chapter Two
ROWAN
Damnit.
God-fucking-damnit.
Sadie Cooper had some nerve showing up back here after six years of fucking silence. It felt like the night I had found my brother all over again—me and Sadie, wrapped in each other’s arms, staring at a pale, lifeless version of him. That was what I had left of his memory—I couldn’t see past the hurt to remember anything good.
Now, Sadie was throwing it all back in my face by being here.
And was that a fucking bruise under her eye? She had lurked purposely in the shadows her house wrapped her in, trying to hide. Didn’t matter. I saw it anyway. I was fucking sure of it. A dark stain of pain that didn’t belong, purple and stark against her skin. And the careful way she had hugged her side, clutching herself as though the simple act of breathing was torture.
What a damn shit-show.
Was that why she was back? Someone had put their handson her? Heat coursed through me at the thought. I should have gone after her right then and there. Should have demanded to know who had laid their hands on her.
Or better yet, why the hell she had never shown up to Logan’s funeral.
Yet, there I was, slinking away, tail between my legs like the coward I’d always been.
My boots crunched over dry grass as I stalked back to where Bear and Scout were pretending they weren’t eavesdropping on my conversation with Sadie and Snake.
Bear cleared his throat and held out another beer to me. I snatched it out of his large hand as I slumped into the chair opposite him by the fire pit and twisted the cap off. I flicked the small piece of metal into the fire.
Flames crackled, sparks shooting into the night sky before burning out mid-air—short-lived and pointless, just like that fucking night.
The heat of Bear’s glare continued to burn hotter than the fire.
I finally dragged my gaze up to meet his. “What?” I said, raising an eyebrow, daring him to say whatever it was he needed to say.
He continued to stare at me with those assessing eyes of his. Nothing ever got past him—especially when it came to my mood.
Then he shook his head, turning his focus to the fire pit. “Never said a thing.”
“Well, your thoughts are as loud as ever.” I took a long swig from the bottle, then wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I could almost taste the poison coursing through my veins, sour as anything. “Out with it.”
Bear sighed, nudging a thick log with the toe of his boot. “Don’t give him the satisfaction, Rowan,” he said, pointing hisown bottle at Snake who was now slumming it with some blow in from out of town. “You know he likes to push your buttons. He’s an arsehole. Period.”
I scoffed. He was more than an arsehole. I didn’t trust the bloke as far as I could throw him—which wasn’t far considering he was as solid as a brick wall. Dumb as one, too.
“Yeah, well, Sadie being home just complicates things.” I clenched my jaw, shaking my head.
It did more than complicate things. The moment I laid eyes on her, it was like a grenade had gone off in my head, leaving all the mess that was my life scattered around me.
Her being back shoved every memory of her and Logan straight to the forefront of my mind. I was scrambling to find which way was up. They had always been attached at the hip, always laughing, teasing and pissing me off.
And me? I had been the moody bastard stuck on the sidelines, never fully a part of their world, yet still close enough to taste it, to linger in the warmth of it. She hadn’t known it back then, but Sadie had been everything to me. Everything I never thought I’d have when I was younger, naiver. The two of us, we could’ve had something good, something real. We could’ve had it all.
Then Logan had taken his life, and everything else after that had turned into a fight for survival.
Bear sank deeper into his chair, stretching out his long legs and tapping the bottle against his thigh. “You think he’ll go after her?”
Sadie was fresh meat, at least to Snake. Couldn’t even blame him for wanting her. Fuck, I had wanted her for as long as I could remember.
I recalled the day it had hit me like a punch to the face, the way something in her had changed when we were younger, and maybe she finally saw me. Saw what we couldbe.
