Her bottom lip trembles as she stares between my hand and the ledge.
The school is five stories high; if she falls, she’ll fucking die.
“Don’t look there, Ari.” I try to approach her but halt when she glares at me. “Come to me, please. Whatever it is, I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it all.”
Ari’s had gloomy moods before and often asked me what the point of life is when she was younger, but she never once attempted to take her life.
Not once.
This must be on a different level than anything else that has happened to her before.
“I’m so sorry, Gray. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Ari, let me help you, please.”
Her teeth chatter. “You’ll help me?”
“Absolutely. I’ll help you with anything.”
“But you can’t change a person’s heart, Gray.” Fresh tears well in her big eyes and fall down her cheeks. “I…I told Reina I loved her. You know what she said?”
Fuck. Fuck!
“Come here and tell me, Ari, okay?”
She shakes her head, her leg pushing back. I freeze an arm’s length away from her.
“She laughed, Gray.” A sob rattles in the air as tears fall down her neck and soak the hem of her dress. “She laughed at me and asked if I was serious. She said my brother and I are so fucking delusional and made fun of me. Why did she make fun of me?”
Reina did that?
Fucking hell. That’s the speech she reserves for her haters, not for Ari.
When this is over, I’m going to deal with her. She of all people knows how fragile Ari is. She should’ve rejected her softly, not been a bitch about it.
“I’ll talk to her,” I tell Ari. “We’ll fix this.”
“Don’t lie to me, Gray!” she yells, her neck straining with tension. “You can’t fix it. You’re fucking in love with her. I can see it in your eyes no matter how much you try to hide it. How do you expect me to live with someone who made fun of my feelings while my brother is in love with her?”
“I…” I clear my throat. “I won’t be anymore. I promise, Ari. I fucking promise, so come down.”
“Really?” She sniffles. “You’ll really hate her?”
“I will. Anything for you, Ari.”
I’ll cut my heart to pieces and stomp on it if I get to keep Ari. She’s the only thing I have, the only person I can call family.
I did everything to take care of her. If I lose her after Mom, I don’t know what will be left of my life.
She’s so young and deserves another chance at life.
She deserves the world.
“Anything?” she asks hopefully.
I give a sharp nod.
“Then don’t forget this, Gray.” Her face turns stone-cold as the tears and sniffles and sobbing disappear. “Make Reina pay for my death.”
And then she opens her arms wide and jumps backward, her dress flying behind her.
“Nooooo!” I roar as I close my hands, but all I catch is air.
I run to the edge, staring down.
The world pauses then.
Everything fucking disappears as I’m slowly gutted by the sight below.
Ari lies on the ground, her head smashed, blood flowing beside her and down her white dress as her vacant eyes stare at nothing.
A roar rips from me as I drop to my knees. “Noooo.”
As I kneel there, I realize something.
Ari isn’t the only one who died. Today, I died with her.
Present
I’m trembling, my limbs, my fingers, and even my lips.
Silent tears stream down my cheeks as I listen to Asher’s retelling of Arianna’s death.
He’s been standing in front of me the entire time, but he hasn’t once looked at me, as if I’m invisible.
As if I don’t exist.
His entire attention is on the edge where I stood and threatened to throw myself off not long ago. It’s like he can see his sister, as if she’s still there and he can catch her.
Or at least I assume that from the way his hands clench and unclench on either side of him.
His bare chest muscles contract, rippling and never once relaxing. My hands itch to reach out for him, to hold him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault.
But that’ll only backfire.
No wonder he’s hated me all this time. No wonder he planned to kill me. Arianna and her destructive lies have turned him into a killing machine, a hollow existence without a heart or a core.
That doesn’t mean what he did to me is acceptable, but I can’t leave him drowning with no way out.
Asher might have held a grudge against me all this time, but I don’t think I ever felt any hate toward him.
If anything, my feelings have only intensified, turning hotter, brighter, and scarier.
And for that, I need to fix his misconceptions, even though it’ll destroy everything he knew about his sister, the person he considered his only family.
“Do you see now? Do you see how you fucking ended mine and my sister’s lives?” He speaks low and threatening, almost like he’s on the verge of acting on his destructive emotions.
That’s the thing about Asher. Since Arianna’s death, he’s only survived on the thought that one day he’ll bring her justice by eliminating me.
But he hasn’t.
For three years, he hasn’t managed to act on his promise.
“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” I murmur.
“Death is too lenient for you.” He glares down at me so harshly I feel it to my bones. “You have to suffer.”
“I think I’ve suffered enough.” I keep my voice neutral. “Why don’t you kill me?”
He reaches me in two long strides and wraps a hand around my throat. His squeeze isn’t threatening or erotic. This one is meant to suffocate, to kill, like in that classroom when I lay on the ground.
Even though my body revolts, begging for life, I don’t fight him. I just look up at him as my lungs burn with the need for air.
I don’t mean to, but a tear falls down my cheek and onto his hand.
“Fuck!” He releases me with a shove. “Don’t fucking tempt me, Reina. I’m this close to killing us both.”
I massage my neck, wheezing for breath. A small part of me is rejoicing at the fact that he didn’t kill me.
He can’t.
I can see that torment in his eyes; it’s as clear as the feelings I have for him.
“Why both of us?” I whisper. “You only need to kill me.”
“Shut the fuck up, Reina.”
“Why?” I cry. “Just why? Because you don’t hate me as much as you tell yourself? You can’t hate me? You want to be with me?”
He crouches in front of me and traps my jaw between his thumb and forefinger. “Because I can’t fucking live without you. I tried it and it was hell.”
“But Arianna…”
He closes his eyes for a brief second. “That doesn’t mean I stopped hating you.”
“Then you hated me for the wrong reasons.” I swallow. “I think we’ve been both played.”
“Played?”
“I remember the day Arianna talked to me.” His jaw clenches but I stop him with a hand on his arm. “Let me finish.”