DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 80: Smart Girls Forgive What They Can Never Forget

Marley, just after the Irish fall

It's dark, and I can't see the grievous injuries of the dead Irish on the ground, but it doesn't matter. I saw Avery Thompson's brains splatter all over Bodie and TJ, and I saw his soulless eyes and gaping mouth. I know I will see every one of the dead Irish, just like that, in false memories that I will push away with my rational mind.

It's likely my brain will push back and insist on serving up their blank stares in nightmare.

The mind is made for imagination and the soul for guilt. When they come together, one can graft horrors on the other that are more real than reality itself.

I understand now, why Bodie has been haunted by Cain Priestly. I tighten my grip on Darius, who is thankfully numb. I feel guilt more searing than the brand that burned away my skin.

In the last twenty four hours, Darius has been abducted and brutalized. He's witnessed my tortured, and saw Daemon—who is not his father but is still a man he has been compelled to treat like a father—brutally stab a completely innocent girl. He's seen his other father shoot a man in the leg without even a thought, and he's witnessed ten people die.

All my fault. I brought my son here to this place. Because I love his father. I threw away all my reason and followed Bodie blindly—just like I once followed Daemon—and it led my son to this.

There's no point in denying it. Even now, with Bodie's arms around both Darius and me like a steel cage, I know I love him.

The problem is, I love him too much. I love him more than my own self-preservation, which might be okay except...I don't have that luxury of putting any man before myself.

"I'm sorry." My words shake in the space between my lips and Darius' ear as I hold on, incapable of letting go. "Oh Darius, I'm sorry."

He pries loose a little, shaking his head, grabbing mine almost like his father would. "You didn't do this. He did it."

Bodie hears his words, and he loosens his grip slightly, stepping back to look at Darius' face.

"Not you," Darius says. "Him."

His gaze is on TJ and rips free of both me and his father and shoves TJ, hard. "You are a fucking liar!!! You lie to me, and my mom, and Pat, and Bodie and Daemon and maybe the worst? You lie to Shay. You see what all your lies bought?" He shoves TJ again. "We almost all died and it all started with your fucking lies! I hate you!"

"Darius—" Bodie begins, but Darius cuts him off.

"Don't fucking defend him!" Darius throws a punch that lands squarely on TJ's jaw.

Bodie doesn't say anymore. He just yanks Darius away roughly, turning him toward Adam who is approaching us with a face full of...well...full of light. Like an angel.

The Preacher, always the best comforter, takes Darius by the shoulders and cups his face gently, like he were no older than Lennon. "Hey. Darius. Hey. We gotta get your mom to the hospital, okay? On the way, you can call Gwen. I just called her and told her you are okay—safe—but she needs to hear your voice. C'mon..." he's leading Darius toward a large truck that one of the Sixers has pulled close. Leed has already swooped Row up and is putting her in.

Bodie uses the momentary distraction Adam is providing to embrace me fiercely again. The contact to my burn is agonizing and I feel the swell of a scream in my chest, but it doesn't come out.

It can't. My voice is frozen.

I'm traumatized, I realize. My body at war with too many physical and emotional wounds, and I'm shutting down to feeling nothing at all. Apparently the voice goes first.