This Time Around (Maybe #2)(55)

And secrets silently destroy them.



First chapter subject to change, unedited, release date: 24th Feb.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20324107-destroyed?from_search=true



Prologue

Roan

I didn’t believe her when she said she was complicated.

She didn’t believe me when I said I had secrets.

I didn’t understand the truth, even when she let me glimpse behind her mask.

She didn’t understand that I couldn’t live with the consequences.

I thought she was a saint.

She thought I was a sinner.

Too bad we didn’t try to find the truth.

We both paid the price.

We destroyed each other.





One

Hazel

If I knew now what I suspected then, I’d like to think I would’ve done things differently. I would’ve planned better, worked harder, stressed out on more important things. But I was young, na?ve, and woefully unprepared for the big scary world of life.

Now, I looked back on the past with a strange fondness. While I lived it, it seemed hard, but now it seemed so incredibly easy. Now, the present seems completely impossible and the future dire and bleak.

That is...until I met him.

Then it got worse.

*****

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Clue.” The gothic mansion rose from the gravel and soil like a beacon of doom. Gargoyles decorated plinths and overhangs; huge pillars soared to at least six stories high. I didn’t know anything like this existed in Sydney, let alone in the rich and exclusive Eastern Suburbs.

Alarm bells hadn’t stopped clanging in my head ever since we stepped off the train and headed toward a residential suburb instead of the party district in town.

Losing ourselves in a rabbit warren of streets, my heart never settled sensing this might be one experience that might end up killing us.

“Stop being such a worrier. You said you’d come. I need my wing woman,” Clue said, her gentle voice turning slightly stern.

My mouth hung open, gawking at the intricate stonework, trying to see past the grandeur to reveal the tricks of such a place. It couldn’t be real? Could it?

It seemed misplaced—as if it’d been transplanted from a long past century.

Huge double doors before us opened with a creak. Thick wood with wrought iron accents in the shape of a fox on a wintry night, revealed a black-suited bouncer with oil-slicked hair. His body looked like a mountain while his face looked like a cross between a bulldog and a biker.

But it was his eyes that froze me to the spot. He captured both of us with just one look.

“You better have the password; otherwise you’ll wish you never set foot on this stoop.” His gaze swept to the concrete stoop beneath us. A motto had been engraved painstakingly with a chisel. It looked hand done and rudimentary but held a certain threat all the same.

Was that Russian? I couldn’t make out the verse, but I inched to the side in my stupid kitten heels to avoid standing in the groove of letters.

“We were invited by Corkscrew. He gave us a one night pass.” For the millionth time since I’d showered, donned this ridiculous gold and silver dress and coaxed by thick chocolate hair into some resemblence of curls and waves, I wanted to throttle Clue.

She was my dearest friend, closest confident, flatmate, babysitter, and non-blood sister, but I wanted to kill her in that moment.

Clue and I had history. We were linked by shared dreams and hopes. We wouldn’t let the other fail. And that was the only reason why I hadn’t knocked her out and dragged her unconscious body back home.

She knew all I wanted to do was return to our crappy two bedroom apartment. She also knew I’d suffered so much in the past few weeks that I’d hit rock bottom and I had no energy left to fight. She’d taken advantage of my weakened state and in true friend fashion was sick of me moping. She wanted me to get up, bandage the road-rash, and keep going. Problem was, this time, I had nothing left.

Life had effectively pulled the rug, the flooring, and the f*cking planet from under my feet. I didn’t want to be here.

But as I grumbled and shed a tear or two on the couch, hugging my very reason for existence, she swore and cursed me.

She reminded me that I may be in a bad place, but she needed me. That life goes on, solutions come, and tragedies happen. I couldn’t change the future either moping on the settee, or dressing up like a hooker and coming out with her.

So, as much as I wished I had a hacksaw in my cleavage so I could threaten her to take me home to Clara, I didn’t.

“Corkscrew, huh? What discipline?” The bouncer crossed his arms, raking his eyes over me. I’d lost weight from the stress of the last few weeks, but I felt like a stuffed sausage in this slinky dress.

My stomach twisted as I plucked the loaned attire that clung to me like scales. A web of lace covered my shoulders, but it couldn’t hide the sulttiness. My entire figure was on show, complete with perky nipples from the chill in the evening air.

Damn Clue and her fetishes for blingy, completely impractical clothing. I always seemed to be forced to wear the worst one.

She said I was too serious. Too focused. Too obsessed with creating a future where nothing bad from the past could find us.

And she was right.

Where she was a rainbow, I was the cloud. I never meant to turn into a weeping, rain-filled cloud. Life browbeat me into it until I gave up on colour and sacrificed happiness for survival.