Page 43 of Where He Ended

- Chapter 17 -

Dominic

“How's your cough?”I ask.

Laiken is curled up in a thick blanket, sitting in front of the fire I've made. I'm glad I chopped all that wood. Trying to do it while panicking about how cold we're both getting would have been difficult.

She clears her throat, smiling sheepishly. “Better. Thanks.”

I drape my wet shirt and pants on the mantle over the fireplace, right next to hers. I have no other clothes, so I sit next to her with just a towel around my waist. “Good. We'll keep an eye on it. I won't let you push yourself too hard, exacerbating your lungs when there could be fluid in them still . . .” I shake. “Pneumonia is the last thing you need.”

Laiken rocks side to side, as if she can't get comfortable. Finally, she stops moving and stares right at me. “Bad lungs can really ruin things.” I tense up, studying her warily. “Dominic, did you know your father was medically discharged from the army?”

So that's what's going on. “I did, yes.”

Her eyebrows arch high. “Oh. Did you know before he put you in boarding school?”

“No, after that. It's amazing what you can find out on the internet.”

She's thrown—she expected this to be huge news to me. “Silas pushed you into military school, tried to steer you towards enlisting like you had to live up tohis achievements,when he didn't even have any! Doesn't that piss you off?”

“It wasn't something he could control. I know it haunted him, being unable to serve the way his own father did.” I think about the nights he'd stumble his way to my room, drunk on his feet, coughing all the while. That sound would echo everywhere. The first time he tried to drag me to his study like that, I'd fought back. He was much bigger than me, more violent.

Fighting made it worse, so I stopped.

I shrug, suddenly very exhausted. “It changed nothing for me. If anything, I understood him a little better. He was under a lot of pressure to be as amazing as his father. But he couldn't be, not with his health. I think his hope was that I'd exceed his accomplishments.”

“Except he accomplished nothing.”

“More than me,” I mumble. “I never started basic training. I didn't even enlist, at least he did that much.”

She's staring at me. I predicted sympathy, not suspicion. “Did youplanto enlist?”

I pause, trying to get where she's leading me. “Yes.”

“Then what stopped you?”

Biting my tongue, I look away. “This conversation is over.”

“It's not. Not yet. You're nineteen, right? You would have enlisted right after school, a year ago, yeah?”

I don't respond. I know where she's going and I wish she'd stop.

“And a year ago . . . that's when Bernard died,” she says.

“Laiken, don't.”

“Kara said it happened on a ski trip. I know you spent time with him, lived at his house on holiday breaks! How could you hurt him if you were friends?”

Sweat blossoms along my throat. “You should know that friends can become enemies. Look at us.”

She leans closer, daring me to push her away. “Yes, look at us. Do you really think we're enemies?”

Her sister's scathing words enter my mind.I don't think Laiken will ever let you out of her heart. The kindest thing you can do is remove her from yours.“It would be better for you if you thought of me that way.”

“No! What's better is you telling me the truth!”

“The truth isn't going to make you hate me less!” I roar, throwing my hands up. My voice echoes around us. It whispers the words back in my face, my ears ringing as I breathe heavily. “If it was murder or not, Bernard is still dead! Why does this matter so much to you?”

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