I slash at Sherilynn’s leg, and she cries out, letting go of my hair immediately. Gordon stops on the stairs and lunges back down, charging me.

I stumble as I try to stand, my body heavy as I raise my fist and lunge at him. “Leave us alone!” I scream.

And sink the blade right into his neck.

He stops. He looks stunned.

Tears blur my vision, and I start gasping in breath as I watch him without blinking.

He stumbles and paws at the knife still lodged in the side of his neck.

And then he falls.

I back up to the wall, my eyes wide, and I watch him gasp and sputter for breath and the tears dry. I remember Sherilynn is in the room, but it’s quiet. She should’ve screamed. I look over.

She’s lying on the floor, a pool of blood next to her thigh.

I slide down the wall and watch them both eventually stop breathing. I don’t go for help, and I don’t cry.

The early-morning rain set in fast, and I just stared, sitting on the back porch with my arms resting on my knees.

The earbuds still sat in my ears, Hinder’s “Better Than Me” poetically fucking with my head as I squeezed the damp piece of paper in my fist.

Holding her words tight. Holding all I had left of her.

I love him, and I don’t want to. He’s not ready.

I carried the journal page everywhere with me.

It had been four days. Four days and nine hours since she’d talked to me or looked at me or been in the same room with me, and every day that passed my stomach got more and more hollow and my muscles got weaker. I reveled in it. I wanted to suffer. I wanted the pain.

I was miserable without her.

School was the only place where I saw her, but she never looked my way. She sat in her classroom, working with her students and smiling, and then she’d stick in her earbuds and quietly walk home—all the way to Madoc’s house. I hadn’t seen her once over the weekend, and I hadn’t checked on her.

I let my head fall, my stomach groaning with hunger.

I’d cut my run short this morning because I had no fucking energy. No energy because I had no appetite. No appetite because I was scum.

I ran my hand over the top of my head, pushing back the drenched hair and licking the rain from my lips.

“What are you doing?”

I lifted my head at Jared’s voice, hooding my tired eyes. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Well, we need to talk about our father,” he pressed. “Have you been able to find him?”

Everything was tired, including my voice, as I stood up and walked toward him to the house.

“I really don’t give a fuck about him right now,” I said, exhausted.

“Jesus,” he breathed out, grabbing my jaw to look at me, but I jerked out of his grasp. “When was the last time you fucking slept?”

I pushed past him and stepped into the kitchen, going for the refrigerator.

“Answer me,” he pressed.

“Just leave me alone, Jared.” I spoke calmly, but it was a warning.

He tossed his keys on the table and folded his arms over his wide chest. “I’ve left you alone for four days, because Tate told me to stay out of your business, but look at you.” His eyes turned angry as he gestured at me. “You’re pale. Your cheeks are sunken in. What the hell?”

The ache sitting in the middle of my brain spread down my neck, and I couldn’t look at him.

“Why did you fucking cheat on her?” he asked me, sounding as if I’d made the dumbest mistake of my life.

I turned around and leaned against the sink. “I didn’t.” I shifted my eyes away from him. “I just wanted her gone.”

The girl at the party was someone I’d hooked up with before, but prior to Juliet, I hadn’t been with anyone in over a month. I didn’t sleep around, and I hadn’t been with anyone since her, either.

He stood there, silent, probably waiting for me to explain further, but gave up.

“I’m not K.C.’s—Juliet’s, I mean—biggest fan,” he said, taking a step forward, “but she was good to you, Jax. I don’t understand this.”

“You don’t need to,” I mumbled. “It’s not your business. She just deserves better, is all.”

“There is no better. There’s nothing wrong with you.” He sounded defensive. “She was lucky to have you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “She wasn’t. I’d never be good enough for her. She was falling in love, and I …” I swallowed. “I didn’t want her hurt worse. It was time to move on.”

I crossed my arms over my bare chest, feeling Jared’s eyes studying me. He was doing that more and more lately. Taking time to process and react. But when I looked up, I didn’t like what I saw in his eyes.

Confusion and disappointment.

“Don’t,” I warned. “Don’t look at me like that.”

The corner of his mouth turned up in a condescending smile. “You always act so smooth, Jax, like you’ve got life figured out and you’ve got everyone else’s number. You don’t even have yourself straight.” He shook his head at me. “It took me a long time to see it, but you really have no idea what the fuck you’re doing, do you, Jax?”

My fists clenched, tucked under my biceps. “Don’t,” I bit out, shaking my head back at him.

He was wrong. Everything was going to be in order again. Neat. Organized. Clean.

He stepped forward, inching closer and taunting me. “You make money working for Fallon’s father, you exchange favors with the cops, and you think you can sit up there in that office of yours playing God with everyone else under your thumb, because when it comes to you”—he darted his head out, getting in my face—“and your life, you need to avoid everything to control anything.”

He crowded me, his eyes bearing down. “You can boast your power over everyone else,” he continued, “but even you don’t buy it. You think about where you came from and everything that happened to you, and you think that you don’t deserve to have want you want. You think she’ll end up being ashamed of you. Down deep, you think you’re shit.”

I shot up and scowled down at him.

“At least I cut her loose before it was too late,” I growled, locking eyes with him. “Someday Tate will see through you. Ten years from now when you’re living in the suburbs in your two-story Colonial with hardwood floors and crown molding, and you’re trying to shuffle the kids into the SUV so you’re not late for another fucking birthday party …” I nodded. “She’ll see it.”

He narrowed his eyes, taken aback.

I continued. “She’ll see it, because you’ve stopped talking to her, you’ve stopped touching her, and the Boss has been under a tarp for years, and she can’t figure out why you don’t smile anymore.” I held his eyes. “She didn’t see that you took on a career you hated because you wanted to feel worthy of her. Because you knew how much a doctor would make, and you didn’t want your wife to be ashamed of you. And she’ll notice that over the years, your heart grew colder, the house grew more silent, and she’ll cry at night because she sees how the new neighbor flirts with you and how you like it. It’s the first thing in a long time that makes you feel alive.”

Fear flashed in his eyes, and he watched me, not breathing.

I lowered my voice to a near whisper. “You’re dying inside, and you’re killing her along with you, and you don’t even know it.” I paused, seeing the pain in his eyes. “At least I cut Juliet loose,” I said.

There was nothing more to say. Nothing he could tell me that I hadn’t already called, and I saw the hurt all over his face, because he knew what I said was true.

We were both fucked.

“Jared?”

I shot my eyes up, and Jared jerked his head around, both of us seeing Tate take a slow, single step into the kitchen.

I closed my eyes, letting out a quiet sigh.

Shit.

Tears had welled up in her storm-blue eyes, and Jared and I both knew she’d heard everything.

“Is that true?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Are you unhappy?”

Jared dropped his head, looking away from her as the muscles in his jaw flexed. “Get the fuck out of here,” he said through gritted teeth, and I knew he was talking to me. “I’m going to put you through a fucking wall. Get out.”

He wasn’t lying. And I deserved it.

I grabbed my shirt off the kitchen chair and left the house.

I had no right to judge my brother. Maybe he hated going to school, maybe he hated the military, but maybe Tate was his dream, and for her, he’d put up with anything because she was his happiness.

I’d felt like shit, and I’d wanted him to feel it, too.

When did I start hating everyone?

I drove the quiet streets, still desolate at seven thirty in the morning, as I thought about how screwed up my life had gotten in the past few weeks. The routine that I loved had lost its luster, and I’d be happy if I never looked at a fucking computer again.

Pulling a sharp right, I barreled into the school parking lot with only one thought in mind. To run myself to exhaustion around the track.

But as I pulled into a space, I slammed on the brakes, seeing Liam’s Camaro parked next to the janitor’s truck.