Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point 4)

West tilted his head. “I think you know the answer to that.”

I folded my arms, pissed.

“Let’s go now.” I stared at Grayson. Urgency like hot peppers in my blood.

“Sure,” West laughed. “That won’t be fucking obvious.” As if on cue, workers walked in the window behind West, to attend to Josephine’s grave.

“Then when?”

“New Year’s,” West said.

My shoulders dropped. “New Year’s? That’s so far away.” And so…morbid. Digging up a graveyard while fireworks popped overhead.

“My father will be gone by then, and Tansy has her firework show. Everyone will be distracted.”

Grayson had been uncharacteristically quiet during this entire conversation. I looked to him, eyes wide and pleading.

“That works,” he gritted.

West threw his arms around Grayson and me, squeezing us close. “Look at us working together. We should come up with some kind of special team handshake. Maybe we spit on our fingers, and together shove it up—”

Grayson stepped out of West’s hug and I put myself between them before he could make true on the threat in his eyes.

“We just have to survive it,” I whispered, gripping Grayson’s suit lapels.

“And then what, Snitch?” he growled. “What will become of us after we’ve survived?”

Fear clogged my throat. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing.” He looked away, taking a step back. My fingers slipped from him, holding on to air.

West laughed at my back. “Come on, Angel. We still have a few nights before the new year.”

I took a step toward Grayson, but his eyes stopped me. “Go, Snitch.”

My. Fault. Move on.

As West led me away, I couldn’t help but feel that night had become something…another thorn on the vine weaving us together, thick and bloody, and the more we acted like it didn’t exist, the deeper those thorns dove.

The harder it would be to pull them out.

Thirty-Three

Dear Atlas,

I remember that night in flashbacks of sensation.

Sometimes it’s sound. Your voice, an arrogant, sweet echo.

That night when he talked, it was your voice I heard, sliding down my marrow.

Or sometimes it’s the sounds I made.

The whimpers, the groans.

I made new ones for you but I never destroyed the old ones.

When I groan, do I want him? I don’t know how I can, when I only want to give my sounds to you.