Page 118 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)
“I didn’t follow you out here. I had lied about that.” He paces out to the center of the small clearing, then back toward me.
I’ve never seen him like this.
“Hey,” I say, unsticking my feet and grabbing his hands. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you for lying, but… what made you come out here if you weren’t following me?”
“I was out here trying to figure out what the fuck happened.” He stares at me. “I just… I don’t know.”
Impulsively, I throw my arms around his neck. He is frozen for a moment, then slowly returns the hug.
I stroke his hair. “I understand you,” I whisper in his ear. “Why do you think I came out here? To try and make sense of everything, too. Everything is scrambled.”
He grips me tighter, lifting me until he’s standing straight. My feet come off the ground.
“I’m scared,” I admit.
“I won’t let anything bad happen.”
I wiggle loose, regaining my footing. “I’m not afraid of what might happen… I’m afraid of what already did happen. How bad could it have been to make my brain shut off those memories and give me lasting post-traumatic stress from it? I’m not normal, Liam. I have trouble processing. I haven’t even begun to think about Whitney being gone. When my mind goes in that direction, I just go numb.” Tears prick the backs of my eyes. “I don’t want to be numb.”
“If you are, just say the word,” he responds. “I’ll chase you to the deepest corners of your mind to bring you back.”
I dig my fingers into the sleeves of his jacket. “You might just have to.”
When did this thing between us shift so drastically? I’m weightless and heavy at the same time, pushed along by a current I don’t understand.
“You came here, and I was afraid of what might happen if you were left too long on your own—so I interrupted,” Liam confesses. “I was here, I was trying… and then I saw you, and I forgot about everything except what your mother told me.”
I tip my head back. “And what, exactly, did she tell you? That she couldn’t stand the nightmares? That I was better off with the post-traumatic amnesia?”
“Yes.” He closes his eyes. “She… You didn’t just scream, Sky. You yelled until your voice was gone, and even then you carried on. And it was my name on your lips when you woke up. I didn’t get it then, I don’t—”
White spots bloom on the periphery of my vision.
“I screamed for you?”
He nods. His eyes are still closed. I still hold his forearms, and his fingers are light on my elbows. This moment is surreal, impossible…
My chest aches.
It’s been aching all day, but this is different. This is the sort of ache that comes not with drowning but with breathing.
I tear away from him and run into the meadow. My shoulder hits a tree, and I stumble. My knees hit the ground, and I sit back on my heels. My head falls back.
The evening sky is twilight-blue, almost gray. There are faint traces of gold and orange streaked across it, catching wisps of clouds.
Run.
“Oh god,” I choke out. I cover my mouth with both hands.
He stops at my side and peers over me, his face barely making it into my narrowed vision.
His face… now and then. Present and past. My vision flickers again, this time more intrusively. I’m sweating, ice-cold, and my body has officially turned on me.
“You’re hyperventilating,” he says to me. “Please, Sky—”
“You found me here,” I whisper. “You. You found me. I should’ve remembered that. It’s always been you, hasn’t it?”
My fingers tingle, I tremble, and then, as if a candle is extinguished, I slip into the black hole yawning open in the back of my mind.