He went mute, but his eyes were on mine. He was listening.

He was giving me this time.

“Let’s beat him up. Please,” I rasped. “You want him to pay? Make him live with what he did. Beat him so bad he doesn’t walk. Do that. Just don’t kill him.” My lungs rattled. My whole body was shuddering. I pressed my forehead to his. My lips grazed just over his. “You pull that trigger, and I lose everything. I lose you. I can’t lose you.”

The truck was turning. Slowing. We were on a gravel road.

“Taz loses you,” Jordan added, his voice strained. “You’re hurting your sister. Again.”

Cross didn’t move.

He didn’t pull away.

He didn’t reach for me. He didn’t take my hands in his. He didn’t move his face back.

He sat there, like a rock. He was cement, on the outside and inside.

I was going to lose him.

He wasn’t going to change his mind, and realizing that, I did the only thing I could think of. I crawled onto his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck and curled my legs in, and then—then—he moved. His arms pulled me the rest of the way.

He held me close, and I lifted my head. I put my lips to his ear and whispered, “Please don’t leave me. I love you.”

I was on repeat, saying nothing else.

But so was he.

He said nothing else.

He just held me, like he was saying goodbye.

Then we pulled up to Durrant’s house.

I’d never forget that house.

Every piece of chipped paint. Every crack in the sidewalk. Every step it would take to go up the patio and through that door. I’d never forget the yard, or the manmade lake it was on.

The temperature was burned in my memory.

It was hot. It was unnaturally hot. My shirt stuck to Cross’ chest. There was a sweet smell in the air, mingling with our sweat. I remembered noticing that, and then feeling the goosebumps on my skin.

Everything was wrong that day.

I was usually the dark one. Cross was my light. We’d switched roles today. And that, somehow, was wrong too.

Jordan was the reasonable one.

Zellman wasn’t even here.

All of it. All wrong.

I thought all of that before Cross opened the door. I hadn’t moved from his lap, but it didn’t matter.

Even the creak of the door was wrong. It was usually silent. Not a sound came from it. Jordan would’ve cursed about it. He was anal about the upkeep of his truck. And then that flashed from my mind too as Cross stepped out, carrying me with him. He set me on my feet, his eyes holding mine the whole time, just like always.

Then he reached around me.

His chest touched mine. His arm brushed against me before he stepped back, the gun box in his hand.

“Cross—”

“No!” He looked over my shoulder. “Both of you.”

Jordan had stepped out on his side, his door still open.

“I mean it. This is my decision.” Cross looked between us. “You’re either with me or you’re not. Which is it?”

“When you become one of us, you have to agree to three oaths.”

“You made me promise to three oaths,” I said.

He was ignoring me, getting the gun out.

“Hey!” I grabbed his shoulder, whipping him around. “Listen to me!”

“…will you treat us as family?”

I pushed up until my body was touching his. “Treat you as family.” I cupped both sides of his face. “You’re more family to me than anyone.”

His eyes started to close.

“Don’t!” I clipped out. “Look at me! You’re going to do this, you’re going to have to look at me before you walk away.”

He shook, quivering, and he opened his eyes again.

A small amount of pressure lifted from inside of me. A small part of that icy dread warmed, just a tiny bit. But not enough. Not goddamn enough.

“Will you fight for us as you’d have us fight for you?”

“I’m supposed to fight for you like I’d want you to fight for me, and I am fighting for you. I’m fighting for you because you’re me. We’re a unit, whether we want it or not. I love you. I love you.”

I was so close, my lips were grazing his, and I felt every word vibrate to my toes.

I couldn’t stop cupping his face. I couldn’t stop pressing against him, as if I could literally keep him from moving.

I felt him shifting, putting the gun in his pants, and then his hands came to my arms. They were gentle, but he moved me back.

“Bren.” His hand touched the side of my face. “Let me do this. I have to. He touched Taz. He keeps touching you. I can’t—this has to be done.”

His body stiffened. His hands went to my shoulders again.

He was going to push me away, and then he was going to step away, and then he was going to go away.

“I want to die,” I cried.

He stopped.

I’d pulled the last card I had.

“And the last, will you forgive as if we’re one person?”

I felt her touch on my back. It was gentle and loving, and I felt her strength seep into me. I didn’t care what anyone told me. I felt her presence as strongly as when she’d held me before I turned nine. I felt her heat. I smelled the rose perfume she wore.

I didn’t feel her inside me anymore, not the way she used to be. It changed that second, that day. Searching Cross’ eyes, seeing how stricken he was, I didn’t see her in him anymore either.

“Bren?” he choked out, reading inside me.

“That’s why I go to my house. I go to see her, but I go because I want a mom again.”

A wall crumbled inside me. Everything was spilling out.

I needed to say it. I just knew I needed to.

“I want my dad back—the one he was before he drank, before she left, before Channing left. I want everything how it used to be, before I had to stab a guy to keep him from raping me.”

My chest rose and held. “I can’t have any of that again, so the only way is if I die too. You’re keeping me from going down that road. You’re keeping me here. I am fighting for you every goddamn day of my life! Don’t you get that?!” Anger licked my insides, pushing everything aside. It rushed over all of it, and I was suddenly enraged. “I don’t give a shit what’s going on at your house. I don’t give a shit how much you want to kill Alex. I don’t give a shit how much you’re hurting. You hurt more. You give a shit more. You deal with it more. You keep taking it, enduring it, fighting back, and you goddamn keep going, because that’s what I’m doing!”

The edges blurred.

I wasn’t seeing straight.

I grabbed for the gun.

Cross’ hand closed around it, but I rotated my back into him, pulling the gun out and away. He couldn’t keep his hold, and as soon as it was free, I flung it. As far as I could throw, as hard as I could throw.

Cross swore and started to go around me.

I hip-checked him, slamming him back. “No! NO!”

He shoved me away, getting in my face now. “This isn’t your decision!”

“FUCK YOU!” I hit him. I hit him again. “It is because you’re mine. You’re MINE!” I started pummeling him, one fist after another to his chest.

I would fight him with everything in me.

I was crew. That was it for me.

I heard a crunch of gravel behind me. I heard Jordan’s voice saying, “Here.” And Cross bundled me up, shifting me to the side as he reached out.

He passed me to Jordan, as Jordan passed him the gun.

My mouth fell open. “Wha—”

Jordan’s shoulders seemed to slump, and his eyes were bleak too. “It has to be his decision.” He was resigned.

“Wha—”

“I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know who said that, but Jordan held me back, wrapping his arms around me.

It happened in slow motion after that.

My heart ripped out of my chest.

I struggled against Jordan’s hold. I kicked at him, twisting, trying to fall out of his arms. None of it was working and he slumped to the ground with me, wrapping his legs around mine, keeping them in place and positioning his head next to mine so I couldn’t hurt him that way either.

I was a pathetic, wiggling worm, and I watched Cross go into that house, the gun in his hand.

I waited.

Nothing.

I waited longer.

Still nothing.