I’m crying.
Fuck, I’m sobbing in the middle of a room with three of the most infuriating men I’ve ever met in my life, and I can’t even think about how much I hate them because I feel like shit.
I feel broken. Like my entire world is crumbling into a pile around me and I can’t fucking breathe. I can’t even think. There’s nothing about this that makes sense—because what kind of sense is there to make when the things that kept me sane are all tattered and ruined?
Just like me.
“Oh… fuck. She’s really messed up.”
No shit, asshole.
The tiny functional piece of my brain that’s left wants to snap at Elias, but my mouth won’t form the words. My throat is constricted as if invisible hands have wrapped around it. Breathing hurts. Thinking hurts. I just want it to stop.
“Get some cold water. Put in on her forehead.”
Gone. It’s all gone. Everything is gone. I deserve this. Part of me knows that I deserve this.
Scratch that. Every part of me knows it.
It’s been written in my stars since the day I was born. We all end up like this. Cursed from the very beginning.
Jared. Me. So many others like us.
“The fuck did you do to her, Gray?”
“I told you, I didn’t do shit. No idea what she’s talking about.”
Their voices dissolve into gibberish in the background, and I feel like I’m floating in a thick fog. Something cold presses to my forehead, and there’s more than one pair of hands keeping their hold on me. I let them. It’s the only thing keeping me upright.
But it’s not enough to really bring me back.
“Why did you do it?”
The question keeps repeating itself over and over again, but I don’t know if it’s just in my head or if it’s actually coming out of my mouth. I think I might actually be saying it. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth, so maybe I am saying it, speaking thickly through the lethargy that’s trying to pull my brain apart.
Someone steps in front of me, a face hovering so close to mine that it banishes some of the red-tinged darkness.
It’s Gray.
“Listen to me, Sparrow. You need to chill out. Breathe.”
His words are low and calming, and worry flickers in his blue-green eyes. But the sound of his voice is like a knife across my skin, the sharp snick of a blade that opens me up and sends a torrent of rage pouring out of me.
“I don’t need to do anything!” I scream, wrestling against the arms holding me again. “You’re the one that needs to do something! You destroyed my art. You destroyed me! How could you… it’s all gone—”
“No. We didn’t. I don’t know who destroyed your art, but it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Declan or Elias either. We wouldn’t do that.”
I hate how sincere he sounds. How concerned he looks.
Liar. Liar, liar, liar—
“I’m not a fucking liar,” he bites out. Was I saying that out loud? “And I didn’t ruin your shit. I don’t know what or who got into your room, but it wasn’t us.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Sparrow, you don’t have to believe me. It’s the goddamn truth.”
He sounds so sincere. And I hate that more than anything. He can’t be an asshole to me so much of the time and then be kind right now.