Chapter 142 It’s Your Fault (Start Of Book 2)
Chapter 142 It’s Your Fault (Start Of Book 2)
TESSA
“Come on, darling, let’s go to the car.”
My mother’s voice was warm, but I could hear the thread of worry beneath it. She always tried to hide it from me, but I could feel it. I could always feel it.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she murmured, wrapping my scarf tighter around my neck before brushing my hair from my face. Her hands were warm despite the cold. “We’ll be at the hospital soon.”
I was a young girl with a weak heart. Everyone knew it. My heart wasn’t like other people’s–it tired too easily. My life was measured in hospital visits, check–ups, and pills that tasted like metal.
‘No acting up today,‘ I told myself. No fainting. No gasping for breath. No frightening my parents again.
Snowflakes drifted lazily from the gray sky as we walked to the car. The cold stung my cheeks, but the snow was pretty. Pure.
I didn’t know then how quickly it could turn red.
We drove toward the hospital, the heater humming softly, fogging the windows. My father was driving. My mother sat in the passenger seat, occasionally glancing back at me with that same quiet concern. I offered her a small smile, pretending I was fine. She smiled back, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
Just then, a loud horn startled my senses. I covered my ears.
Bright lights followed. I closed my eyes.
The screech of the tires made me clutch
my
seatbelt.
It all happened too fast.
The world turned upside down. My seatbelt bit into my chest, my head slammed against the glass, and something wet slid down my temple.
Silence.
Then the noise. Too much noise.
Screams came from different directions. Someone was crying. Someone was shouting. The air was thick with the smell of gasoline and the metallic tang of blood. My ears rang, but over the chaos, words began to form.
“She’s the reason why Beta died!”
I tried to focus, but my vision was blurry. Faces swam in and out. My father’s hand was pale and unmoving. My mother’s hair darkened with blood.
How… how did I not die? I was the one with the weak heart. I was the one who always needed saving. Why was I still here when others weren’t?
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Chapter 142 It’s Your Fault (Start Of Book 2)
“It’s your fault!”
The voice was sharp.
Zaria,
Even then, I knew the tone. I’d heard it before, though never like this.
One moment, I was in the snow. The next, I was standing in a kitchen, the walls glowing sickly yellow under the light. My hands were shaking.
Glass cups flew across the room. It shattered against the walls. Against the counter. Against the floor. The sound was deafening. The shards skittered across the tiles like sharp little insects, catching the light.
Blood. It was in my hands now. My arms. The floor. I didn’t know where it came from.
“Please–stop!” I begged, curling in on myself, arms raised to shield my head. My voice cracked, but I kept saying it anyway. “Please, Zaria!”
But she didn’t stop.
Her voice trembled, but her eyes burned.
“It’s your fault they’re dead.”
Blood in the snow. Blood on the walls. Blood in the air. The nightmare closed in until there was no room left to breathe-
I woke up.
My body jerked upright. My heart pounded in my chest, faster and harder than it should, and I pressed a trembling hand against it, willing it to slow down.
I swallowed hard and shook my head as if that would clear the images away. “Goodness…” My voice was shaky, even to my own ears. “Why am I having so many nightmares again?”
I thought I was over it. I thought the years would dull it and bury it somewhere deep where it couldn’t reach me. But every time I thought I was okay, the same voice dragged me back.
Zaria’s.
most respected in the South. My parents were everything a We were born into a Beta family–one of the Beta could be: wise, loyal, and trusted by everyone around them.
Zaria was going to follow in their footsteps. She had been perfect for it. Even as a child, she carried herself like someone who already knew how to lead.
Me? I was the fragile one. The one who couldn’t run without losing her breath. The one who missed school for hospital visits.
The day of the accident, I was nine. Zaria was eleven. Two years older, but it always felt like so much more. She could take care of herself. She could take care of others. She didn’t need protecting.
I always felt bad for her. She deserved a sister who could keep up.
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Chapter 142 It’s Your Fault (Start Of Book 2)
Our parents loved us both, but I knew they saw her as the glass child—not because she was fragile, but because she was rare. She was the one they could trust with the future.
I, on the other hand, was the one they wrapped in bubble wrap and kept away from anything dangerous. Even if I didn’t want it, my heart always decided for me.
Our relationship had always been strained–two lives running parallel but never truly meeting. And after our parents died, that distance became an unbridgeable gap.
She lost everything. I did, too. But in her eyes, I had taken more than I’d lost.
And she never let me forget it.
I swung my legs off the bed, my bare feet touching the cool wooden floor. The air in the Callahans‘ guest room was still, causing me to purse my lips.
Being alone in the Callahans‘ house definitely did not help with my thoughts.
Arden and Cade were out on a honeymoon–not that they were married yet, but it was close enough. I could already hear Arden’s voice in my head insisting it was just a “short getaway,” but the sparkle in her eyes the day they left said otherwise. Honey was gone too, going to another country with her parents for a much–needed vacation.
That left me here, with an empty house with too many hours in the day.
I was lucky they even let me stay here. I didn’t want to go back to our faction–not yet. The thought of walking those familiar streets, of hearing the whispers that never quite died down, made my stomach twist. The Callahans‘ place was neutral ground. Safe ground.
But safe didn’t mean quiet in my head.
It really left too much time to think.
And moments like this, I couldn’t help but think of him.
Rowan.
The name came unbidden. It was almost ridiculous how something as simple as an empty room could make my mind wander to the one person I’d spent years trying to keep out of it.
I shook my head quickly. “Gosh,” I muttered to myself, raking my fingers through my hair. “Why do I have to think about him now?”
It had been a while since I’d last thought of him–really thought of him, not just in passing. I’d convinced. myself I was over it, over him, over all of it. But sometimes, at times like this… the memories slipped past my defenses.
I couldn’t help myself.
I couldn’t help but wonder where he was right now. What he was doing. Whether he ever thought about me at all–or if he’d neatly tucked me away into some dusty corner of his mind, like I had tried and failed to do with him.
And more than that, I couldn’t help but think about where it all began.
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Chapter 142 It’s Your Fault (Start Of Book 2)
And ended.
At the same time.
