Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,147

hearing Emmy’s moans before I even found the peep hole to her room.

My pulse skipped, and I forgot about the bag, pushing the door open and stepping over the threshold into a pitch-black bedroom. I immediately noticed her lying in bed underneath the covers.

Her breathing shook, raspy and shallow, and she twisted under the sheets, letting out a whimper. I flashed my gaze to the door, seeing the chair propped under the handle, and then I looked back to the bed, inching forward.

She clenched the sheet in her fist, and I squatted next to the bed, gazing at her back like I did that night after I brought her home from the Cove and put her to bed. She wore a tank top and some purple lace panties I assumed she got from Alex. The sheet hung below her waist as her chest rose and fell too fast.

She let out a small cry, and I leaned over the bed, planting my hand on the pillow above her.

Her eye had bruised, and I let my gaze fall down her body, seeing more nicks and scrapes on her arms that hadn’t been there before.

The tumble in the woods, the small fire, the fight with Taylor, and the fight with Alex… I couldn’t help it. I ran my hand over her hair, smoothing it away from her face as her nightmare played out and her body shook.

I’d loved Emory since the moment I laid eyes on her when I was fourteen.

I could still see her—sitting on her bike outside the chain-link fence surrounding the school parking lot as she watched my friends and me on our skateboards that summer.

From that moment on, it seemed I was always aware of her, and everything I did, I did it with it in mind that she was watching.

Every joke in class. Every strut into the lunchroom. Every new haircut and every new pair of jeans.

Even the Raptor. My first thought when my parents bought it was how she’d look in it.

This stupid fantasy of her running to my truck after school, smiling and skipping at my side, unable to keep her hands off me because I was her boyfriend and I always took my girl home from school.

I hated that she was alone. She was always alone, and she shouldn’t have been, because she should’ve been with me.

But the older she got, the angrier she got, and the more desperate I got in trying to forget her, and I just needed this to be over.

Nothing got better with her. It just decayed.

She was never going to lie in my arms in a bed that belonged to both of us.

“I love you, Will,” she said in a quiet voice.

I froze, my hand paused on her temple as I stared down at her.

What?

My legs nearly gave out from under me, and I gaped at her, pinching my eyebrows together and trying to see if her eyes were open or if she was still sleeping, but…

I knew she was awake. Her breathing had calmed, and her body had relaxed.

“Do you remember the night you snuck into my room?” she asked, still facing away from me. “When you’d had it with me and tried to walk out on me?”

EverNight. The night I met her grandmother for the first time.

She sniffled. “I warned you I wasn’t a happy person, and there were so many reasons I didn’t want to let you in, but…” She trailed, trying to find her words. “The only time I ever loved my life was when I was with you.”

My hand still lingered on her brow, unmoving.

Now? She was telling me this now?

“I was always your Em,” she whispered. “No matter what I said or what I did or all the ways I let life win over the years… That night, I knew. I was in love with you.”

The backs of my eyes stung, and I clenched my teeth.

“You can leave, and I’ll survive. I always do,” she told me. “I just wanted you to know that.”

And just like that again, I couldn’t remember why she was bad for me, and I just wanted her where she was supposed to be.

With me.

All the hate and anger and loss melted away, and I wanted to crawl in behind her and hold her the rest of the night, but I knew my eyes would be open in the morning and the light would hurt.

Everything would hurt.

I clenched my fist, just wanting to stay, but I couldn’t do this anymore.

I