Return to the Darkness - Ripley Proserpina Page 0,4
myself before I had to go back.
Shit. Oliver was right. That motherfucker had read me like a book. The guys hadn’t made a move to gather their things. Instead, they all watched me. I was uncomfortable under their stares, not liking how clearly they saw me.
“You’re right,” I said, even though it killed me. “I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to be in any house that’s within a fifty-mile radius of our stupid, mud pit, shit hole, slice of hell. I don’t want to do it.”
The rain was coming down in sheets now. Maybe the flight would be delayed. I’d sit out on that tarmac for an entire day if that meant I wouldn’t be in the desert.
“We know,” Thorn answered before Oliver could speak. “I know. I saw what the people in that town did to you. I’ve been your friend since we were kids, Lace. I know what it’s going to do to you to go back.”
Oliver touched my chin, guiding my face toward his. “You can do this. It’s just a return. A detour before we get on with our lives. You’re stronger than anything we’ll find there.”
I met his dark-eyed gaze and let my bravado go. “You think so?” I hated being weak and uncertain, but right now, I needed these guys to tell me I could do this. That we could do this.
“No fucking doubt in my mind.”
I nodded. “Thank you. And the next time you yell at me, I’m going to yell back.”
He smiled. That stupid look made me either want to kiss or smack him. “Got it.”
Chapter 2
I’m not sure I could have said what happened on that flight if pressed to do so under oath. The whole day was a blur after we left Seattle. We landed and got our bags. Colton rented a car, and we all got in.
Later on, we’d all rent cars, including me. But for now we just had Colton’s and that was fine. We could get through the next little bit with one large SUV.
I leaned on Thorn’s shoulder. Was it possible I could sleep through the next few weeks? Wake up when I could leave this state and never return to it?
I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I’d beaten Erdirg on my own and taken down Mara. Even if every person in town was rude to me, that didn’t matter. They could all fuck themselves.
Thorn linked our fingers together. I stared at the way they looked, his so much bigger than mine. In a novel, the kinds I’d read when I first got to Anchorage and I couldn’t sleep at night, Thorn would have been the perfect hero, a childhood best friend who became the heroine’s lover.
Actually, all of them fit those roles. Oliver was the kid who had ridden motorcycles and grew up to be complicated but true. Aaron was the sweet one who was filled with depth. And Colton, the jock who had a heart hidden away behind his perfect exterior.
They were all so much more than that, too.
But it was impossible for me to think of my childhood home without thinking of Thorn and everything he’d meant to me.
“Wouldn’t have made it through without you in those early years.” I spoke low, but I was sure the others could hear me.
He kissed my temple. “I didn’t do it right later. Love you. Thanks for… surviving and forgiving me when I finally got my head on straight. I almost lost you to Colton and then when we got compelled away, two guys moved in on you from next door.”
Aaron smirked next to me on the other side. “Guess it’s good that surviving a demon makes people so close they don’t mind the idea of sharing an incredible woman.”
I closed my eyes. Right now, I was just going to think about those playdates with Thorn when we’d both been too young for anything but friendship. And the way I’d felt easy when I was at his house. The way it had seemed that someday, I could have a life like he did.
For now, I was just going to get lost in that moment. Hold myself there. And not let my mind wander anywhere else.
It looks different.
The town that had seemed so rundown—dated and dirty—had undergone a makeover in the decade without me. The main street, which used to be a collection of strip malls, a lone gas station, and empty storefronts had been rehabbed. Tall iron signs lined the street, and each storefront