From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(46)

Josie was shocked, confused, and madder than all hell. “Why are you following me?”

He glanced toward Rhodes’s house. “You decided you weren’t gonna tell me anything about anything, so I had to find out on my own.”

“Oh, you had to, did you?”

“I did. Did you really expect me to give up on wondering what happened to Anne?”

No.

“Yes.”

He laughed, the low rumble filling the small space. “You know better than that. By the way,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, “I’ve been meaning to give this back to you.”

She felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. All the breath left her in a whoosh. “You broke into my apartment?”

“I had a key. That you gave me.”

“Three years ago. Before you disappeared.” She snatched the key from his hand.

“Why didn’t you change the locks, Jo?”

“None of your goddamn business,” she spat. She certainly would now.

“I’m sorry, Josie,” he said. And he even looked sorry, which upset her even more. “But you weren’t giving anything up, and I had to know. You’d have done the same.”

“Fuck you.” Her voice wavered, and she hated herself for it.

“Listen, Jo, I saw your wall, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be following this guy. If he did what you think he’s done…I’m worried about you.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you think is or isn’t a good idea. Goddammit, Jon. Who do you think you are?”

“I’m trying to help—”

“I don’t need your help.” She was almost yelling and took a deep breath.

“No, you don’t. You seem to be doing a fine job on your own.”

She shot him a look, and he shook his head.

“I’m not bullshitting. You might be right about Rhodes, but I don’t believe you couldn’t use help. And I do believe that this whole thing could put you in danger.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been in danger. I know how to handle myself.”

Jon’s brows dropped with his voice, which was resolute. “You stubborn-ass woman. Don’t you understand that I don’t want you to get hurt?”

“I don’t give a fuck what you want.”

He was silent for a moment as he looked over her, and her muscles were burning with restraint. Because all she wanted was to reach out and hit him, push him, get the energy out of her arms through her fist and into him. It took everything she had to sit still; she trembled from the force.

“I don’t believe that either,” he said, plainly and without doubt.

She lost it. “Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you just leave me alone?” Her eyes stung. She was practically snarling. “You left me alone for three fucking years, and now, you’re back and everywhere, even in my fucking goddamn apartment. Jon, you have to stay away. Stay away from me, stay out of my life, and get the fuck out of my car before I hurt you.”

He looked as miserable as she felt as he watched her across the space between them in silence. She counted through four breaths before he finally opened the car door and stepped out, leaning in one final time.

“Please, be careful.”

He didn’t wait for a response, just shut the door and walked away.





Dita stared at her tiled bedroom ceiling in the near dark. Her eyelids were iron curtains, but she found no sleep. She rubbed her aching eyes and rolled over to face her clock.

Two in the morning.

She blinked, slow and heavy.

Shame and anger stirred like a sleeping beast in her chest as she lay exactly where Perry had left her. Dita had lied, but Perry had taken it too far, and now she’d lost Adonis once more. Perry had just destroyed the mirror without any real debate or chance at compromise.

Dita was destined to never have Adonis, the cycle of holding him for a moment and losing him repeating over and over. Something always brought her back to him. And somehow it never hurt less even though it had been expected; it cut deeper every time.

Some part of Dita had been restored just by seeing him, just by knowing he existed somewhere even if he was beyond her reach. But he was gone again—forever. The loss was too much to bear, too cold in her chest, the wound gaping and raw. She wrapped her arms around her knees and squeezed.

Even under the best of circumstances, the hours that stretched through the night were the hardest. When left alone to her thoughts in the darkness, she would obsess about every decision, every mistake. Her heart would break fresh a thousand times every night. She longed for Elysium, for the cool breeze under the olive tree’s canopy, for Adonis’s arms. But it was all gone. It had all been a lie, and she had no one to turn to.

In that moment, she found herself more alone than she had been in her entire existence.

A sob shuddered in her chest, and she drew a shaky breath as the tears she’d thought were gone rolled down her cheeks.

Her life was a thing unrecognizable, a tangled, knotted chain of choices that bound her. How could she have let it happen? How could she have lost everything? And how could she ever break free?

And in her mind she saw herself, a dove in a cage that burst in an explosion of twinkling glass, and she pumped her wings, higher and higher, leaving everything behind until it was small enough that it couldn’t hurt her.