into the dirt as they heaved themselves up and onto the clifftop.
"Water," JJ gasped dramatically and I cursed him out while turning and running away from them towards our bags and the boys' bikes which we'd left in the shade of a towering rock.
I tore through the bags, grabbing the bottles of water from them and turned to sprint back to them.
But as I did, I paused, finding the four of them sitting shoulder to shoulder facing the sea, their laughter floating away on the breeze as the setting sun silhouetted them there together.
I dropped the water and fished my phone from my pocket, snapping a pic of that moment so that I could keep it forever.
They'd forgotten their competition and were just joking and teasing one another, elbows nudging and curses spilling from their lips.
They were happy. So freaking happy just there in each other’s company. And I gave them a few moments like that without me, not wanting to interrupt their triumph while drinking in the feeling of their love for one another.
"Get your ass over here, Rogue," Fox called, turning his head to hunt for me and the others all started yelling at me to hurry back too.
I smiled, grabbing the water bottles and breaking into a run again as I approached them. The answer to all the bad in my world. The only good I'd ever had and would ever need.
I held onto that memory as I started backing away, trying to block out the sounds of those same boys screaming abuse at one another, of their fists striking each other and the anger and hatred that lay so thick within the room.
I'd done that to them.
I'd started it by attracting Axel's gaze despite my best attempts not to. I knew that part wasn't really my fault. That sick fuck had been a predator who more than deserved the death I gave him.
But if I'd just called the police when it had happened instead of calling them. If I'd just run and stayed quiet. Or even if I hadn't fought back so hard and my short, pathetically beautiful life had ended then, it would have been better than this.
At least then I would have died with love in my heart and a lifetime full of memories of me and my boys in the sun to guide me on into whatever came next. I could have just been this tragic story which darkened their memories but which they could have moved on from. Anything but this.
I'd become the thorn in their sides. The itch they couldn't scratch. The wedge which divided them and the catalyst to their destruction. The love they'd held for each other had turned toxic and it would only continue to fester the longer I was here.
Chase was gone and I knew in my heart that he wasn't coming back. That far too brief kiss he'd stolen from me the morning of the carnival had tasted of goodbye. I just hadn't recognised it at the time. And now I was standing here watching as the rest of my boys fought and spat venomous words at each other. Watching as they took joy in causing one another pain and feeling every twist of betrayal and heartache that had been inflicted upon each of them like it was a knife in my own gut.
And worse than that, I'd brought the demons of my life without them right up to their front door. Shawn was never going to stop this war. It could only be finished with blood and death, and I knew in my heart that all of Chase's suffering had only been a taste of what Shawn was capable of.
This was all my fault. And if I stayed here, it wasn't going to stop. They wouldn't stop fighting over me, using me to score points against one another and trying to win me for their own. This wasn't some fairy tale where I could just get what I wanted because I hungered for it enough. It was all well and good for me to insist time and time again that I wouldn't pick between them, but all that did was leave them in this pain and torment, this burning cycle of jealousy and envy and heartache every time I moved from one to another. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair.
But there was one thing I could do to end it.
I backed up, moving towards the door and none of them noticed me as I