“I promise you. It’ll be you and me forever one day, no matter what.”

The only person this was meant to speak to, is me.

Message received.

“We’re going to Maddoc,” Royce announces as if there was any question.

I sit back, closing my eyes the rest of the drive, knowing one thing for sure.

He’s watching.

“You good, RaeRae?” Royce asks a few minutes later as the last time Raven came down this road she was crashed into by a Bray hating psychopath. “Baby’s good?”

He reaches back, and Raven grabs his hand, giving it a light squeeze.

“Yeah, Ponyboy. We’re good. Let’s get to Maddoc.”

“Couple more minutes.”

Once we’re a couple of streets from the park, I unbuckle my seatbelt. “Let me out, I’ll walk home.”

Royce’s head snaps my way. “Fuck no.”

“Come on, I need some air.”

“You’re ‘bout to get some fuckin’ air when we get out at the park.”

“You pass the street on the way to the courts anyway.”

He says nothing.

“Let me out or I’ll just walk away the second we stop.”

“Then walk the fuck away when we stop,” he growls. “I’m not pulling over.”

I shake my head, throwing myself against the seat.

“Let her out, Royce,” Raven tells him.

“What?!” he shouts. “This is already my fuckin’ ass here, I—”

“You saw how I was after everything with my mom,” she reasons with him. “Come on, Royce,” she whispers. “She only wants to walk home, not run off, like I did.”

Royce’s jaw tics, but when we come around the corner, only a turn or two from the Brayshaw mansion he should be passing to get to the courts, he pulls to the curb, pops the lock but doesn’t look over.

I don’t hesitate, climb right out, and walk a single block up, where I plant my ass on the curbside.

With a deep breath, I grab my phone, trying Maria once more, but this time it doesn’t even ring, and I hang up before I can be told the mailbox is full.

I don’t know why I even tried, I know she’s gone.

The flowers and the wall made just for me is confirmation.

I drag to my feet, attempting to stuff my phone in my pocket as I spin on my heels to head home, but it falls to the cement when suddenly I’m staring into a pair of ocean blue eyes.

Fuck.

Chapter 28

Victoria

I’d swear minutes tick by and neither of us speaks, so I decide to be the first. “I knew you’d find your way to me.”

“I had to.”

I lick my lips, looking to the side only to come right back. “No, you didn’t. You should have stayed away. You should walk away now.”

“I’ve been trying to get you alone for days. I’m not going anywhere.”

I scoff, shaking my head, careful not to bump shoulders as I step past.

“What, can we not even talk?”

No. We can’t.

“Damn it, Victoria. Please.”

My teeth clench, but I keep moving.

“I’m scared!”

I freeze, squeezing my eyes closed.

Don’t fall for this.

The self-reminder fails, and my shoulders drop.

I spin around, my hands flopping out as if to say okay, you got me, but the longer we stare at each other, the clearer it is one of us is out of the loop, and that one is me. “Scared of what, Mallory?”

“He didn’t tell you.”

I don’t allow myself to swallow and manage a calm and clear voice. “Tell me what?”

“He’s letting me see her,” she shares, gauging me.

My heart drops, my entire world—a world that never belonged to me—crashing at my feet.

My Zoey.

Her daughter.

I can’t stop them, my tears building without permission.

She zones right in on the moisture in my eyes, a heavy glint of something shining in her own.

I know what I want to say to her right now, and that’s to back the fuck up and get the fuck out, not to play games she’s not strong enough for, but I can’t.

Calling her out on her bullshit will only backfire and I’ll be the one who takes the heat.

If I want to be Brayshaw, on my own merit and at my own hand, I have to be brave, selfless, even more so in a situation like this.

I have to let the green monster inside her out.

So, I rub my lips together with a nod, fighting beyond the acid coating my throat, begging me to keep the words buried, to stay silent.

“You shouldn’t be afraid of seeing her. She’s… god, Mallory.” A shuddered cry steals my breath. “She’s perfect. Beautiful.”

She cries, the back of her hand coming up to the edge of her nose as tears roll down her pink cheeks.

“I made a mistake,” she whispers. “Lots of them, really.”

Boulders, heavy mounds of them fall onto my chest, crashing into my lungs, and crushing my ribs along the way, or at least that’s how it feels.

“I thought I could do this, but I can’t, I—”

“Wait,” I rush out, pulling air into my aching body. “What are you saying? Can’t what?”

“I knew you’d be at that festival,” she admits.

My brows crash together. “How?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She shakes her head, a barren look taking over her. “I didn’t... I panicked that day, I was hurt.” A small glare forms through her cloudy eyes and guilt adds to the pressure in my head. “Confused. Victoria, you—”

“Stop,” I cut her off.

“Tell him I can’t come, that I don’t want to see her.”

My head tugs back, a broken laugh escaping as I subconsciously move away from her. “No.”

“You have to,” she snaps.

“Fuck you, and fuck no.” I look to her hands she nervously pulls at. “No way.”

Her mouth opens only to close a second later, a bitter, lost laugh leaving her. “He’s with you, isn’t he?”

“You have no place to question me.”

“Don’t I?” she throws back. “Are you in love with him?”

More pain, more pressure.

“You have to tell him,” she demands, and now it’s her who begins to back away, a cautionary flash in her eye. “Unless you want him—want them—sitting and waiting all for no one to show up.”

My shoulders fall, another round of tears flooding my sight.

I shake my head, turning my body away from hers. “It’s like you don’t know him at all, Mallory.” Somehow, I force my eyes back to hers. “I can scream it in his face, record this and play it back for him to hear with his own ears and still… he will be wherever he promised he would. He has to see to believe. It’s who he is.”

It’s almost as if she didn’t hear a word I said, like this entire conversation never happened as a lost look blankets her.

“What happened, Tor? Why’d you—” she cuts herself off, her fear of the answer keeping her from asking the question.