Page 57 of Released

His words don’t reassure me though, knowing that the plan to deal with their parents and Kai’s uncle will be bloody and potentially dangerous. I pull back, my forehead creased, and stare deeply into his warm, amber eyes.

“Just, stay safe tonight. Keep each other safe.”

“Always, love,” he replies, placing a soft, parting kiss on my lips before leaving and locking up behind him. I’m reminded of Ash’s stern words to not open the door for anyone as I stare after them, feeling a little bereft.

Trying to shake off my trepidation for the guys, I head into the bathroom and start to run myself a bubble bath. I’ll grab my kindle and continue reading about those poor souls who are trapped in an insane asylum, loving each other despite all of the fuckery going on around them.

Surprisingly, the evening passes by quickly, mostly due to getting absorbed by my current read. I get up from the sofa where I was snuggled in one of Jax’s huge T-shirts, intending to head to bed when a knock at the door to the dorm sounds, and I freeze, my heart pounding as I glare at it. My phone dings with an incoming message at that moment, making me jump out of my fucking skin, and I look to see a message from Ryan, Mum’s old boyfriend and the closest thing to a father I had growing up.

Ryan: Surprise!

I look to the door again, and then back at the message. Hesitantly, I step towards the front door, peeking through the peephole, and then squeal in delight at what awaits me on the other side.

Unlocking the bolts, I throw the door open, a wide grin on my face.

“Ryan!” I shriek, throwing my arms around him and eliciting an oomph sound from his chest.

“Hello, Little One,” he chuckles, steering us back into the dorm and softly closing the door behind us. I pull back to look up into his smiling face, noting a slight tension in the lines around his eyes. He lets out a sigh, his smile faltering before saying, “Apparently, I've come to kill you.”

* * *

ASH

Fucking bastards keeping us out all night and then making us attend a debrief so that we have to head straight to the graduation ceremony. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that it wasn’t a mark this time, just some intel gathering and boring-ass surveillance.

I look at my phone again as we wait in our seats for the ceremony to start, biting my lip when I see that Lilly still hasn’t replied to the message I’d sent this morning letting her know that we would meet her here.

“Still no reply?” Loki asks from my left, and I turn to see his tired eyes full of the same concern that I have, his cap and gown an artful mess.Douche.

“No,” I reply curtly, glancing back down at the blank screen that’s taunting me, like the empty space to my right where my wife should be sitting. I don’t fucking like this, and my stomach churns with a feeling of unease.

The principal starts to speak, some shit about us being the best and brightest, but only half my attention is on him, my mind wondering where the fuck Lilly is and if something is wrong. He’s halfway through his speech when my phone buzzes in my hand, and I look down with a small smile on my lips which freezes as I see it’s a picture message from my cunt of a father. I glance back to find him in the rows reserved for parents behind us, and he looks at me with a cruel smirk on his lips that leaves me sick.

I look down at my phone, opening the message, and at first, my eyes don’t make sense of the image before them, the color red causing me to blink a few times to try and focus. When I do, I wish that I hadn't, as my whole body goes ice-cold and a buzzing sounds in my ears.

It’s Lilly, my beautiful Lilly, sprawled out on the floor and covered in so much crimson I can’t tell where the wounds are. I can see her glassy eyes, sightless, her body in a pool of blood that surrounds her.

“No—” a strangled whisper escapes my lips before I can clamp them shut. My vision blurs, and for the first time, I understand why Luc found solace in the choice to no longer live. For there can be no life without her. Pain unlike any I’ve ever experienced wracks my body and threatens to double me over, only sheer determination and years of training hold me upright in my seat as I continue to stare at my worst nightmare come to life.

“Ash?” Loki whispers next to me, and I clutch my phone to my chest as I turn to face him, my movements sluggish as if my body is underwater. “Was that from Lilly?”

“N–no,” I instantly reply, my mind racing as I try to work out how to tell him, how to tell them all that we’ve just lost our light. Lost our soul and reason for living. Before I can utter another word, our names are being called for us to go up and collect our diplomas.

Taking the reprieve, I practically leap to my feet, earning a curious look from Loki as I follow behind him to the stage. I have no recollection of what happens next, and I’m suddenly striding from the area outside where the ceremony is being held, rolled up diploma in one hand and my phone in the other as I round the corner of the building and lean against it, breathing hard.

Footsteps pound after me, and I look up through a haze of tears to see the concerned faces of my brothers by choice surrounding me.

“Ash, what’s happened?” Kai demands, his voice unusually hard as his eyes take me in.

I open my mouth to speak, then close it, shaking my head as the tears fall from my eyes, scalding a path down my cheeks, and I close my eyes, willing the devil to strike me down so that I no longer have to breathe the air that she doesn’t.

“Ash?” Loki asks, his voice trembling. “Ash, man, you’re scaring us.”

Opening my eyes, tears glistening on my lashes, I look at each of them and prepare to break their hearts and rip out their souls.

“Lilly’s—” I start, my chin wobbling, and I have to pause to take a deep inhale, unable to look any of them in the eye when I voice the truth that is breaking me apart. “Lilly’s dead.”

Silence.

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