Page 166 of Endgame
Tomorrow morning, every lawyer who’s ever handled Aurora’s cases, who’s been to jail or their house to sit down with them—they’re all getting thrown out of there. They’re fucking lucky they won’t get disbarred for not looking deeper into her case.
“How’d you do it?” It hurts to keep digging into this. I have no other choice. “How did they let you out?”
She tells me her gut-wrenching story, pain lacing her voice, tears glistening in her eyes.
She’s stomping on my heart, killing me one painful word at a time.
Aurora isn’t just innocent.
She’s a victim.
A survivor.
With my lips on Aurora’s forehead, I whisper, “I’m sorry.”
“God, I was stupid, wasn’t I?” Her pain slices into my soul. “To think that’d hurt them.Youmanaged to do that, not me. A hurricane, that’s what you are. I’m a mosquito at best.”
It’s my turn to laugh. “A mosquito?” I pull away without letting go of her face. I won’t ever let go. “Aurora, you’re a wildfire. A hellion. You’ve crawled under my skin, reaching parts of me that I closed off to the world long ago. You’ve gotten under theirs, that’s for goddamn sure.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can’t?”
Kissing her is unavoidable. I sink my teeth into her bottom lip, sucking her essence into me.
Breathless, I draw back, looking at her with fresh eyes. “While you were in prison, they hardly ever talked in the Royalty meetings. When they had to engage with anyone, it was pitiful. Short sentences. Clipped words. They did everything in their power to avoid uncomfortable conversations about you. A mosquito? You weren’t born to be something as small as a mosquito. You could never be one.”
The tears slip free at last, tracing wet streaks down her cheeks and soaking into my palm. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. And you know what? You don’t have to fight them alone anymore.”
I flip her so that her back is turned to me. A basic impulse inside me demands that I have her closer. So I mold her to the front of my body, my arm tight around her waist.
My face in her silky hair, breathing her in. “I’ll make sure they pay for it. For everything.”
“For her too?” She isn’t prying, isn’t demanding. Though she could do either, Auroraasks.
And since the question doesn’t cut deep anymore, I can offer her an answer.
This one is simple. “Forthem.”
29
EVERETT
Aurora fell back asleep hours ago.
I can’t be anywhere but here, lying at her side.
Can’t do anything other than hold her, be a human shield that’s wrapped around her.
My mind races. Has been racing from the moment Aurora told me about the abuse she’d endured.
With a few sentences, she turned my world upside down. Again.
Self-loathing grinds my teeth together. Doubt crawls under my skin.
Her much smaller hand rests on top of mine. She’s at peace, this angel, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
