Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(99)

Dread balled in the pit of my stomach.

I didn’t slow as I raced down the hall and up the three flights of stairs to his loft.

My feet had finally found their purpose.

Ollie.

Ollie.

I burst through the door.

Then I skidded to a stop.

Dense darkness echoed back.

So dark it coated my eyes.

Coated my spirit.

Only the blips coming from the television that played illuminated what was stricken on his face.

Torment.

Agony.

Slowly, his gaze lifted to mine, as if he couldn’t process that I was there.

Vacant.

I could feel the distance grow so immense between us I had no idea how I would reach him.

Rushing for him, I dropped to my knees in front of him where he sat on the couch.

Unmoving.

“Ollie,” I whispered, desperation on my tongue. I lifted onto my knees so I could hold his face.

His beautiful, tortured face.

His eyes dropped closed, and there was nothing but pain on his lips. “Please, don’t touch me.”

I clung to him tighter. “Ollie . . . I’m so sorry.”

As if my words had snapped him out of the daze, he flew to his feet, writhing as if he were being burned alive.

Misery in his eyes and alcohol on his breath. “This can’t be happening, Nikki. Tell me it’s not happening.”

I fumbled to standing, my arms across my middle as I tried to keep myself upright, as if I could physically hold myself together. “I’m so sorry”

What else was I going to say. That it was okay? Because this was most definitely not okay.

“Tell me what I can do,” I begged instead.

His brow pinched. “What can you do? You can’t do anything, Nikki. It’s already done. My sister is gone.”

Him saying it sent shards of glass blasting through me.

He whirled away, gripping fistfuls of his hair as a groan erupted from his soul.

His entire body clenched, and he harshly shook his head, voice gravel. “I was supposed to save her. I spent my whole life looking for her. Searching for her. Thinking someday, I would make this right. That I’d fix what I’d done. And I can’t fix it.”

A sob raked from him, and he dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands.

“My sister is gone. Oh, God. She’s dead. She’s dead.”

Whimpers echoed from him.

A shattered, broken cry.

The man was falling apart in front of my eyes.

I wanted to hold him.

Fix him.

But neither of us were capable of fixing this.

He was right.

It was already done.

The only thing we could do was be there for each other in the middle of it.

Slowly, I inched toward him, kneeling as I set a hand on his arm.

He flinched.

“I’m right here, Ollie.”

Under my touch, I could feel the tremor roll through him.

Crushed, he finally turned his potent gaze on me. “I have no idea who the fuck I’m supposed to be.”

My mouth quivered, and I searched his face. “You’re supposed to be mine.”

Sorrow swam.

So thick.

So deep.

Quicksand.

“I don’t know how to do that when all I see when I look at you is Sydney standing at your side.”

Pain squashed my lungs.

Obliterating air.

I blinked. Wanting to negate it. To tell him we could overcome it.

“Ollie?” I begged quietly.

Praying he’d refute it.

Say what he’d implied wasn’t true.

But his expression shifted.

Hardened.

The walls coming up.

They swore there was no way for us to overcome this.

My nod was slow surrender as I pushed back to standing.

“I have to go.”

I turned and fumbled for the door.

Barely able to stand.

A new kind of grief cut through me.

Overpowering.

Overbearing.

Too much.

How was I supposed to stand under it all?

“Nik,” he suddenly begged. His voice gruff. “Don’t just take off.”

It only propelled me faster.

I needed to get away.

Run from this grief.

I clamored back out into the hall.

I could feel his presence from behind, a shockwave that banged against the walls.

“Nikki.”

His voice sounded like heartbreak.

Like an apology.

Like a goodbye.

I paused to look back at him, barely able to force out the words. “I will always love you, Ollie, but I can’t be with you when you don’t know how to love me back.”

I’d known to guard my heart.

I’d known. I’d known all along.

Oliver Preston was armor and stone.

Bitterness and venom.

Broken fragments.

Shrapnel waiting to bust.

He was the bullet that pierced right through the center of me.

Barely able to see, I ran back down the hall and hit the door that led to the steps. Holding onto the railing, I bounded downstairs.

Sniffling, trying to hold back the sob that bottled in my throat.

At the bottom, I blew out the backdoor and the sob broke free.