Page 242 of Chaos Kills

However, he doesn’t move an inch even though blood is gushing from his nose, and pain is radiating like a bitch through my head.

But I’d do the shit again.

“Go on,” Cairo urges gruffly. “Let’s get this over with and move on unless you all want to continue to go in circles for a few more weeks.”

“That’s the thing, Black,” I leer, clutching my fingers into fists. “There is no going back after this.”

“You did it.”

“Then let me go,” I reply, throwing my arms to the side. “You don’t need me. I dropped her in the middle of the fucking ocean and watched her drown.”

The room goes deathly silent for the second time. We all stand in tandem with what might happen. And with each ticking second, nothing else takes place to my utter amazement.

I’m almost starting to think Oz didn’t hear me for a fucking second or that the words never left my mouth.

But that’s the perfect scenario.

He heard me.

I know he fucking did.

“Get your head out of your ass, Torin,” Cairo warns. “Why would she lie about killing Judah?”

“Maybe she’s telling the truth, and she didn’t. But she was there. He died. She didn’t get him any fucking help.”

“She’s never lied before.”

“She lied about dating or not dating Levi,” Reeve retorts. “Still can’t fucking figure out which one was the lie and which was the truth.”

“Shut the hell up,” Cairo carps out. “That’s so beyond the least of our worries right now.”

“Easy for you to say, Black, when the only thing you’ve loved is your hair.”

“I’d love to see you bleed,” he seethes through his teeth, alluding that he’s getting close to losing his shit with all of us. Cairo has had to carry the weight of all our emotions and babysit Ozzy so that he doesn’t get in over his head with Bay. Can’t say I envy the motherfucker. “Get your fucking emotions together, you weak bitch.”

Reeve shakes his head and begins to leave the room. “Are we done here?—”

Cairo’s arm shoots out to stop him. “We’re not. No one leaves this room until we have a plan and an agreement. None of us is walking out of this house and going off the rails again.”

“It’s more than that, isn’t it?” I push on through the eerie silence that follows. “It has to be. You’re smarter than all of us to stay the hell away from her.” I glance over at Ozzy. “Even fucking Judah was dumb enough to care about her. He even wrote it down. Then something went wrong, and he wanted to save her as we tried to do. What you’re trying to do. And she’s that goddamn stubborn that she fucking killed—she’s involved with my brother somehow.”

Ozzy doesn’t break his stare. The black ink littering his body bestows an even more mysterious venture on what’s going on in his head right now.

I’ve failed him.

I fell short of my own expectations and let my guard down. I let Reeve fall in love when I should’ve tried harder to protect him, too.

And now he’s one more line of cocaine away from overdosing or doing something so stupid he’ll never come back from.

Cairo was right the whole time; she is going to destroy us all. One female when we’ve gone through and fought with so much more.

My cousin studies me, maybe calculating what to say or do next. Maybe he understands where I’m coming from and how, for once in my life, I’m fearful of how this is all going to turn out in the end.

Emotionally, he’s the weakest link and can’t carry such a burden. I fucking hate saying it like that, but I need to watch him, more so than ever, because we can’t fail him again.

Bay Astor isn’t Vivian.

She’s worse.

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