Page 130 of Misted

Mist

The past can’t stay in the past when it haunts our present and future.

Someone is shaking my shoulder.My limbs spasm and tears stream down my cheeks.

I startle awake to find myself in a bed with Ink and Scar by my side. Ink is the one who’s shaking my shoulder. Scar is meditating at the foot of the bed.

“Where’s Hawk?” I wipe my cheeks. Why the hell am I crying for a dream?

Scar continues meditating. Her T-shirt has ‘Forbidden Fantasy’ written over it, seeming to be mocking me.

“He left,” Ink says ever so casually. “We didn’t catch him. When we came to check, he was gone.”

“No…” I scramble to my feet and my limbs feel weak. As if I… was drugged. “No. It was only a nightmare. It didn’t happen.”

I stare at the clock. More than three hours since I was hugging Hawk right in this room. I clutch the bedpost for balance as I fall back on the bed with my chest twisted in a knot.

You’re not the only one who’d risk it all, Hellion.

His last words filter back into my hazy brain. Hawk went to Hades on my behalf. He’s going to die on my behalf.

Maybe he’s already dead.

Nausea stabs me and I run to the bathroom and heave into the toilet. I remain perched against it, unable to catch my breath.

How could he?

After all that preaching about me leaving him, how could he do this to me?

I barely survived being ripped apart from him in the past. I barely stitched the wound closed, and now he’s ripping it open all over again.

“Mist.” Ink stands at the bathroom’s threshold, brows furrowed. “You need to get it together if you want to work anything out.”

He’s right.

A pity party won’t do me any good at the moment.

I jump up to a standing position, open the faucet and splash water all over my face. I storm past him into the room and dig into the wardrobe for some clothes. “I’m going after him.”

“And then what?” Ink is still leaning against the bathroom’s door only he’s now facing me.

“I’ll tell Hades I killed Nero.” I snatch black trousers and yank them up my legs. “He has my gun as evidence, not Hawk’s.”

He sighs. “And I’m sure Hawk will say something that convinces Hades that he did it.”

Scar cracks one amber eye open. “Hades would looove to have you both like his Christmas present.”

“I don’t fucking care.” I face them both.

I’ve been dead for a long time, if the final has to be with Hawk, then I welcome it. No. I need it. There’s no way in hell I’ll live without him again.

Either we live together or we die together.

“Just find my stalker, Ink.” I retrieve track shoes and point them at him. “I want him dead.”

“Does it matter when you are dead?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Yes. He doesn’t get to live happily ever after all the hell he made me live through.”