Violence (Antihero Inferno #3) - Lily White Page 0,41

us up front.

With that problem solved, I run a hand through my hair and head toward the house. I’m walking around the side of the grand staircase when my jacket is grabbed and I’m tugged aside. Not far because the person yanking on me is half my size.

Smirking down at Emily, I silently follow her into a small hallway much like the one I’d dragged her into earlier.

She crosses her arms over her chest and stares up at me, concern bleeding through her expression.

“Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She gets that look on her face that’s always amused me, the one that calls me out on my bullshit without the need for her saying the first word.

Apparently, she can read me, too.

“You had that look on your face. The one I know so damn well. The same one you always had when you came back from those fucked-up weekends.”

Rolling my lips to keep from grinning at the snap in her voice, I straighten my shoulders and cross my arms to mirror her posture.

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business anymore. Not when you ghosted me as soon as I left for college.”

Fire rolls behind that blue-green glare, and it takes a serious amount of self-control to keep from pulling her close so I can remind her exactly what it does to me.

We stare at each other for what feels like hours before she remembers just how to drop me to my damn knees.

Reaching up, she holds her hand in place, an invitation for me to lower my head and accept the touch.

How many times did she do this in high school?

Emily always demanded to know what was happening to us, and when I refused to tell her, she lifted her hand to cup my cheek, a silent promise that she stood beside me.

She was only there for three of those weekends, but she might as well have been there for all of them. That’s how deep she’d carved her name into our hearts. That’s how badly we needed her.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I refuse to give her what she wants. I wrap my fingers around her delicate wrist instead and lower her hand between us.

“Not anymore, killer. You lost that right when you walked away without telling me why. You broke the promise. Not me.”

Tears shimmer in her eyes, not enough to fall, but enough for me to know I still matter to her.

If I stand here any longer, I’ll lose the ability to walk away.

Without saying another word, I turn to stalk out of the hall, her voice stopping me in place.

“I’ll answer this time. That is, if you actually call me.”

She has no idea how many hours my thumb must have hovered over her name on my phone, how much of a fight it was not to press it.

I don’t answer, just walk off with a heavy weight on my shoulders, and one fucking memory in my head that is screaming louder than all the others.

She did this.

Not me.

It just sucks that both of us have to suffer for it.

Emily

Ezra has nightmares.

I guess the full truth is that both of them do, but Ezra’s are far more violent. He doesn’t like to acknowledge them, or anything even close to admitting they happen, but they do.

I’ve seen them.

Not often because we’ve only spent the night in the same room twice in our lives.

Both times, I woke up to watch him struggling against something only he could see, whatever nightmares he battled still hidden despite the fact I was sitting right there to watch them happen.

I can’t put into words how frustrating that is, can’t even pretend to accurately describe the helplessness of knowing somebody I cared about was being hurt and there wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do to help him.

So I did the only thing I could both those times. I placed my palm against his cheek the same way I always did when he returned to school after those weekends.

Even unconscious, he accepted that touch, his large body going still as his lungs drew in a breath that was deep and strong, a breath that helped me breathe right along with him.

I never told him what I saw those two nights. Not that there was much to tell. He didn’t talk in his sleep or do anything that clued me in as to what was going on.

But I was desperate enough to go to Mason about it. Not that I felt entirely comfortable