Page 186 of Boy of Ruin
But…fuck that.
My stomach convulses, and my head is spinning, mouth dry. I blink in the darkness. Think about Cain and the others leaving us here.
Because Edith…apparently, they found her?
Everything is a blur in my mind.
I close my eyes, clench one hand in the sheets as I hold my breath, hoping that memory is wrong. Hoping I’m just having a fucking nightmare.
Hoping there’s something to hold onto with us.
That this isn’t over. She didn’t really let him carve his fucking name into her belly.
I stumble off the bed, spinning around, casting my eyes about the darkness, only a sliver of moonlight through the expanse of windows to see by. But I do see her, curled up into a ball on her side, covers pulled up to her chin.
She’s still asleep.
For so long in our house, she didn’t fucking sleep.
Neither did I, because I dreamed of my father. I dreamed of that knife in his brain. His screams.
But I think this dream, this image in my head…I think this is worse than that shit.
My stomach twists into knots as I walk around the bed, feet against the bare floor. My head feels heavy, lingering effects from the trip I think, but on the plus side, it’s been two days since I had any coke.
I walk around to Lilith’s side of the bed, see the slice of moonlight illuminating her mouth.
God, she’s fucking perfect.
That’s why she wouldn’t do that to me. She fucked me over, and I fucked her over, but she wouldn’t have done that.
She just wouldn’t.
She’s not wearing anything, and I’m only in boxer briefs. We didn’t have sex again last night, but she let me hold her for the first time in far too long. We didn’t talk, and we’ll have to.
We’ll probably have to scream at each other. I’ll have to kill Maddox. We have a lot of fighting to do, but as long as that was just a dream, I’ll make her work through it.
I can’t live without her by my side.
For a long time, I didn’t want to live at all.
Then she wrecked my entire world with that gun on her hip, those devil horns around her head like a twisted little halo.
My girl.
She’s my fucking girl, and I knew it that night we met. Knew I was hers too. Always.
That’s how I know she wouldn’t have let him brand her like that.
I clench my hand into a fist, thinking about it. Coagula. About how I wanted to get her a ring, but she didn’t seem like the type of girl to want something like that. Black diamonds, maybe, but even still…she never wears jewelry.
I thought we could get matching tattoos instead, rings on our skin.
But there was never really a good time to bring it up.
Not with the fighting and my delusions and…
My mouth goes dry as I sink to my knees, my hands coming to the sheet tucked around her chin.
