Consumed by Truths (Truth or Lies 6)

But none of it feels okay. He is the only person left in the world I love. The only person I give a shit if they live or die.

And it breaks me that I have to leave him.

“Maybe—” I start.

“No.”

I huff. “You didn’t even let me tell you my plan.” I don’t have a good plan. Just that I could stay with him, go to a new city, get him settled, get him into therapy. Make sure he’s healed, then we could attack Felix together.

“I don’t need to hear your plan. You know it isn’t a good plan anyway,” he cracks a tiny smile at my expense.

“I have a great plan.”

He shakes his head. “But it isn’t the right plan. You need to kill Felix, now. It can’t wait. Every day you wait is a day he corrupts more of our men. He gains more power. More money. More technology.”

“It doesn’t matter how long I wait. He took everything I love. There is nothing left he can take from me. Only you.” Tears catch in the corner of my eye.

And I can see Langston’s eyes watering. “Felix can’t touch a dead man. He doesn’t know I’m alive, so he can’t come after me.”

“I don’t want to abandon you.”

“You aren’t. You are protecting me. You are avenging Kai and Liesel. You are protecting the motherfucking world.”

I laugh. “I think that’s a little dramatic. I don’t think I’m protecting the whole world.”

He shrugs with a cocky grin I haven’t seen since he returned from the dead. “Maybe not the entire world, just our little part of it.”

I nod. Because I can’t speak. Damn these tears and getting choked up all the time.

“What do you want to do? Where are you going to go?” I ask finally, after clearing my throat a dozen times and wiping my tears on the back of my hand.

“I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because then I’ll be safe to heal. Then you won’t have to worry about me. You won’t put your own life at risk to protect me. Felix can’t torture you to get information about where I am because you don’t know.”

He’s right, but I hate it.

“How will I find you when this is all over?”

He grins and raises his eyebrows. “I have faith you will be able to find me.”

He’s right. I have no problem tracking down someone who doesn’t want to be found. It’s one of my favorite activities, hunting down the hidden. I can find Langston, wherever he goes.

“Fine, don’t tell me. Just promise me you will go see a therapist and get some help wherever you end up.”

He nods.

Good enough.

“I think you should go to Hawaii, maybe Jamaica…no, Australia. That seems like your kind of place. Far away, warm. Filled with plenty of women in bikinis. You could learn to surf and spend your day teaching kids how to surf.”

Langston just chuckles. “I don’t have the patience for kids.”

I laugh. “Maybe not.”

I resist the urge to remind him if he truly wants to be lost, he needs to change his name. Stop using his bank account, credit cards, everything. He needs to exist only in the shadows. But I don’t say anything, because he already knows all of that. We’ve grown up together. The three of us—Langston, Zeke, and I. We taught each other everything we know.