Apathy by L.K. Reid
Ash
I fucked up.
I fucked up majorly, and now I didn’t know what to do.
My entire life has been wrapped in all these plans, all these things I needed to do—train, move back to Winworth, get our revenge, and get the fuck out.
But now things have changed.
God, I didn’t expect to mess up the entire thing by falling for the one girl I could never have. Out of all the girls in Winworth, hell, in all the places we’ve been to, she was the one I was only ever supposed to use. But I couldn’t even fathom hurting her, even though she was an enemy.
She belonged to them, and I would always be on the other side. I knew she was going to choose them when the time came, but I wanted her to choose me. I wanted her to keep looking at me how she looked at me one week ago, when it was only the two of us in her room, when she told me the things she kept hidden.
I wanted her to tell me more, but whatever was haunting her didn’t want to be revealed yet.
After she was admitted to the hospital, I had a chat with my uncle, who insisted on me getting closer to her because he thought Skylar was the key. I was trying to do the right thing, dammit. I tried ignoring the fact that my chest hurt every single second while she was in the hospital.
Updates from Lauren stopped on the second day, and I knew that if I wanted to know how she was, I had to be there. I had to see her, but I couldn’t fathom seeing her and not breaking apart.
Because that’s what she did to me. She broke me.
She took all those pieces I was hiding and ripped them away from me, making me see only her. A month ago, I would’ve been furious. I would’ve been angry at myself, but right now I didn’t give a fuck.
The problem was, I lied to her. I lied when I told her that she would always get the truth from me. I lied while I held her, while I told her that everything was going to be okay, because it wouldn’t be okay.
Not until she gets out of this town. Not until she forgets about me and everything that happened here.
And even though she was sitting next to me, talking to Lauren, it already felt as if we were a million miles apart from each other. Because the truth I was hiding was going to destroy what we had.
My arm was loosely hanging around her shoulders, while she kept her hand on my thigh, as if she too didn’t want to stop touching me.
We were in Danny and Rowan’s house, celebrating their birthday, and instead of going through their house, trying to find more clues, trying to find out more about their family, I was wrapped up in Skylar. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
I just had to figure out how to avenge my parents without burning her in the process.
A good man would let her go. A better man would tell her all the secrets this town was hiding, giving her a much-needed advantage, but I never said I was one of the good ones. I lied, cheated, played the people around me, and I would do it all again if it would bring me back to her.
I would burn everything in my path, if I knew that she would be waiting for me at the end of the road.
“Now you’re the one thinking too loud.” Her voice penetrated through my thoughts, and I turned to the side, seeing her smiling face. Her eyes were already bright from all the alcohol she consumed since we came, and it was only a matter of time until her pupils would dilate. There was no way that she wouldn’t take the drugs Lauren brought.
The rest of the group was hanging somewhere around the house, but I didn’t give a fuck about any of them. If it were up to me, the two of us would be back in her room, getting lost in each other.
We didn’t have enough time. With October creeping up on us and Samhain just around the corner, I feared I wouldn’t have enough time to do what I needed to do and to save her from this world.
If she hated me after that, at least I would know that she was safe. That she was as far away from here as possible. I couldn’t save my parents because I was too young, but I could save her. I could make it better for her, even if it killed me letting her go.
I hated being here, surrounded by all these people I didn’t know. I didn’t have control and any one of them could be the killer. Any one of them could be the masked monster who attacked her the other night.
We’ve been in Winworth for four months, and I still knew as much as I did when we came to the town. They kept their secrets well-hidden, and every single attempt to sneak into City Hall failed, filling me with more and more anxiety.
They had the upper hand here, and I hated that even after all the preparations, after all those stories, all those sacrifices we made, we were nowhere near close to the truth. I had no idea who was killing those girls or why. It was obvious it had something to do with the Black Dahlia.
The runes carved into their skin, the way they were dismembered, Skylar’s name on them, somebody went through a great trouble to prepare for Samhain.
I just couldn’t understand why Skylar was involved. That was one piece of information that never fit in. One puzzle piece neither my uncle nor I could understand. If the documents were right, the last time they did ritual killings like these, was when they had just arrived in Winworth. So why now?
I was getting frustrated by the lack of information from Lars, our only source as to what The Order was planning. After that meeting with Indigo, all I got was radio silence.
It was getting harder to hide the truth from her, especially when she looked at me how she was looking at me now—innocently, with stars in her eyes, as if I could make the world a better place just by being here with her.
I stood up, letting her hand fall away from my thigh. “I’m gonna get another drink.” I shook my plastic cup. “Do you want anything?”
She knew something was up, of course she did. Skylar wasn’t as clueless as she wanted people to think, but instead of pressing me and asking about my behavior, she just shook her head, and turned back to Lauren, who was talking with Danny.
Right. Drinks then.
Truth be told, I just had to get out of here for a minute. The room was filled with more unfamiliar than familiar faces, and I slowly started feeling like I was suffocating. As if I carried all the weight of the world on my shoulders, and I didn’t know how to shake it off.
Getting lost in her was one way, but once the high wore off, when she wasn’t there to hold my hand, I was left alone with my thoughts and the things that were weighing me down.
Was I going to fail?
Was I doing the right thing?
How could I hold her, sleep with her, and still lie to her?
I passed a couple kissing in the hallway and entered the spacious kitchen, heading straight toward the counters in the middle where bottles of alcohol, known and unknown to me, laid scattered. I didn’t want to think anymore, and instead of reaching for another bottle of beer, like I should’ve, I took a bottle of Jack Daniels and started pouring it into my empty cup, not even bothering to mix it up with some Coke.
Lifting the cup up to my lips, I took a hefty amount inside, relishing in the burning sensation spreading from my throat, all the way to my stomach as the liquid started spreading through my system. I poured another one when I finished the first, wishing for all these things to get the fuck away from me, just for one night.
I just wanted to be an eighteen-year-old who liked a girl and had the usual teenage problems. I didn’t want to be fighting in a war where I was a commander without an army.
I leaned against the counter as I downed the second drink, my knuckles turning white from the force with which I held on to the marble top. Music suddenly increased in volume, and I focused on that instead of the thundering of my own heart. I hated parties, but Danny and Rowan had amazing taste in music. As the first beats of “Temptation” by Imminence spread through the house, I straightened up and closed my eyes, letting the familiar lyrics wash over me.
My teeth tingled, and I knew I was close to getting drunk, but I didn’t care. None of us were heading home tonight, and I wasn’t driving. Maybe I should’ve stopped. Maybe I should’ve drunk some water instead of pouring another glass filled to the brim with the amber liquid, but everything was slowly catching up with me, and I didn’t know how much longer I would be able to hold on.
Every time I thought I was closer to finding out the truth, I ran into a wall, and I had to start all over again. I couldn’t even remember what my parents looked like. All our pictures were burned with the house we had, and with every new day, I wondered if what I was doing was correct.
People came and went, neither one of them talking to me or asking me if everything was okay. The liquid in the glass bottle of Jack Daniels went down and down and down, and when I took a step back from the counter, when the room started spinning around me, I knew I drank too much and way too fast.
“Ash,” a voice from my dreams and my nightmares whispered, barely audible over the sound of music, while her hands plastered against my back. “Are you okay?”
“Moonshine,” I said, or at least that’s what I think I said. She really did remind me of moonshine—so bright and yet so dark. She kept illuminating my life just by existing, but she was going to hate me.
She was never going to want to see me again.
I turned around, and almost fell on her as my right foot slipped on the marble floor. The laughter erupted from my chest while she kept me upright, but she didn’t laugh with me.
“Oops.” I smiled down at her, placing my hands on her shoulders. She was so tiny, so much shorter than me, and I wanted to hide her in the pockets of my soul where no one would be able to take her away from me. “I think I’m a little bit drunk.”
“You think?” Uh-oh, she didn’t sound happy, and I wanted her to be happy.
I placed my hands on her cheeks and my thumbs at the edges of her mouth, pulling them to the side.
“Smile, Moonshine. I love it when you smile.”
“Ash—”
“Shhh.” I pressed a finger against her mouth. “No talky-talky. You need to smile first.”
But she didn’t. She wasn’t angry. She didn’t seem worried like all those other times when she allowed me to see what she was feeling, but she didn’t look happy either.
“How the fuck did you manage to get drunk in the last half hour?”
I simply shrugged, because pronouncing Jack’s full name felt like too much hassle right now, and all I wanted to do was to take her to one of the rooms upstairs to show her how much I loved her.
Oh.
Oh.
I loved her.
There. I finally admitted it to myself. I was in love with Skylar Blackwood, and that wasn’t supposed to happen. How could I fall in love with the enemy? My parents would be so disappointed in me if they knew what I was doing.
“He’s drunk because he knows you will never belong to him,” somebody slurred from behind me. When I turned, I saw it was Kane, leaning against the door leading to the backside porch. He looked like hell, and that was saying something, especially coming from me, because I almost always looked like hell.
I would rather go through the Spanish Inquisition than deal with him right now. Ever since Skylar came out of the hospital, Kane was evasive. He never spent time with the group anymore, and even Lauren started noticing his absence.
“Shut the fuck up, Kane,” Skylar sneered as she stood next to me. The only thing that was keeping me standing now was her. I wanted to erase the smirk from his face, but wanting and being able to were two very different things. If it wasn’t for her holding me up, I would probably be on the floor.
“Why?” He took a step closer and threw the beer bottle he was holding to the floor. The sound of glass shattering overpowered the sound of music, and I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be too long until we had company. “It’s true. You will never be his, not really. Not how he wants you to be.”
“And I guess she belongs to you?” I bit back. “Jealousy looks bad on you.”
“You stupid, stupid, fool!” he yelled and came closer to us. I pushed Skylar behind me, afraid of what he might do, and stumbled before she grabbed me by the shirt, balancing me.
I was on the receiving end of his wrath once and I’d be damned if I let him harm her in any way. The guy I met that first day of school was nowhere to be seen. He used to look calm, collected, a true Golden Boy of Winworth High, but the person in front of me was everything but calm.
The crazed look in his eyes froze the blood in my veins, and I worried what he might do to Skylar. I didn’t have to be a genius to know that he had an unhealthy obsession with her. Whatever the story was between the two of them obviously left scars.
Scars that would forever be there.
“She will never be yours, but she will also never be mine,” he cried out. What the fuck was he talking about? “Can’t you see? Can’t you see what they’re doing to us, what they’re doing to her?”
Skylar gripped my elbow, hiding behind me, but I wanted her gone. I wanted her out of here because I knew where he was going with this. I knew that he didn’t have control anymore over what he did or what he said, and what he could say in this state could shatter Skylar forever.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice small, almost shaky, because she also understood that Kane knew more than he was voicing. “Kane?”
He gripped his hair and started walking backward, murmuring, shaking his head.
“Kane?” She stepped around me and attempted to go to him. When I pulled her back, shaking my head, she sliced me with those stormy eyes. It wasn’t safe.
“They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re… He will get her, and she will be gone, forever.” Kane continued crying, his voice bouncing against the walls of the kitchen, mixing with the painful lyrics Amy Lee was singing through the song. He suddenly looked up and came in front of me, grabbing me by the shirt.
“You have to save her. You have to,” he begged. “He will take her from us, Ash. He will—”
“Who is he?” Skylar asked,
Whatever was going through Kane’s head was too strong, and instead of answering her, he bypassed me and stopped in front of her, as still as a statue. He lifted one hand and placed it against her cheek, while his shoulders shook.
“I’m so sorry, Sky. I didn’t know,” he sobbed. “I didn’t know that this was going to happen.”
“What, Kane?” She placed her hand on top of his, and if that burning sensation in my gut was jealousy, I would never say it out loud. He needed her now more than I did, and whatever was going on with him, obviously messed him up enough to act like this. “You didn’t know what?”
For a moment, the only sounds in the kitchen were the sharp inhales of breath from him, and Skylar’s soothing voice, trying to calm him down.
Not once did she look at me, and I couldn’t blame her. He was fucked up, and I didn’t mean only about alcohol and God knew what else he poisoned his body with.
“You have to run, Sky,” he murmured, barely enough for me to hear. “You need to get out of here now, because if you don’t—” He stopped and turned around, facing me now. “You need to get her out of here, Ash. Just get her out of here, before he comes back for her. Please. I’m begging you, man. Save her.”
He swayed on his feet as he tried coming closer to me, and if it wasn’t for Skylar who rushed after him and held him up, I was pretty sure he would have ended up on his knees.
“Kane, calm down,” Skylar said. “No one is going to take me.”
But as Kane lifted his head and looked up at me, pleading with his eyes, I recognized the fear coursing through him. He knew and he hated it.
He knew about The Order, and it was eating him alive.
He was asking for help.
“Please,” he begged. “You don’t have much time.”
Samhain.
Something big was happening. Something I had no idea about, but he did. I just had to get him to talk.
“Kane, please. What are you talking about? Who’s coming? What’s coming?”
“The man that gave you that.” He looked at her bandaged arm. “He’s coming, Sky. And this time, he won’t be leaving without you.”