Page 3 of Pucked Around and Found Out

CHAPTER TWO

TOREN

Fear takes mercy on no one.

It consumes your entire being and overrides every rational thought. It can have you acting out of character and force you to become someone you aren’t, or it can bring out the person you are meant to be and force you to rise like a phoenix and fight with everything you have.

I don’t even know what I’m missing anymore. I just know something inside me died over a year ago and it never fully came back. It’s a quiet pain, always present. Heavy on your chest and I’m unable to escape from it.

I’m mourning the loss of someone I never knew. I mourn the loss of my best friend every fucking day. I lost the person I used to be that night. I used to love freely, trust blindly and look at the world with wonder. Now, all I see is pain and destruction. It hurts in the way words can never express or explain clearly. I live with a deep aching sadness inside of me daily, it’s like a constant gray cloud looming over me.

I’m tired of bearing this pain alone, tired of fighting, tired of acting like I’m okay. I’ll never be okay again. This war has taken my innocence. I sold my soul to the devil and he didn’t even have to ask me for it, I gave it freely because it’s broken. Splintered into a million tiny pieces that will never be whole again. I’m a broken fairy like he says I am.

Betrayal is new to me but not to the person sitting beside me.

I can’t even look at Cas.

K. Kyle.

The sight of Kellan’s name flashing across the screen of his phone is imprinted in my mind.

Cas is a traitor.

This whole time he was pretending to be Xaden’s friend, his right hand man but he was just using him to get intel for the fucking CIA. He never cared about Xaden, he just cared about himself and clearing his own damn name.

Knowing what I know now, I feel differently toward him. He stood in that rink and did nothing as Xaden shot Kellan. Yet he was working with him! He never tried to stop him or fight for his friend, he left him there to die so he could protect himself from Xaden ever finding out the truth—that he’s a fucking snitch!

I should out him, I could do it right now and buy myself some more time to think of a plan to escape but…

To teach is to learn. To learn is to excel. To excel is to thrive. To thrive is to live.

I need to live.

But, I have also learned that in order to live, I need to learn. I have learned from my mistakes and grown. I’ve excelled in many things. Maybe not plotting against Xaden but I know better now. In order to live my life, I need to thrive and I can’t do that unless I’m the one wearing the crown.

Outing Cas might get me there but knowing I am the cause of his death would haunt me and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

The car comes to a stop and suddenly every thought evaporates and leaves me sitting here with nothing aside from my fear to keep me company. My own flesh and blood may be seated in the row in front of me, but there is no love lost between him and I. I thought Masen hung the moon, there was nothing my brother could do that would ever make me see him in a different light. He was my hero. My knight in shining armor. I was blinded by my love for him. I was a fucking fool who saw what I wanted.

I didn’t see beneath the layers. Now all I see when I look at my brother is evil. I don’t see the man who practically raised me, he’s gone now and all that is left behind is the monster he kept hidden so no one would know how truly vile and twisted he is.

When the others climb out I realize that this is it.

This is the moment Xaden has been waiting for, he finally has my father, Masen, Meekan and me. The last four people he blames for the death of his loved ones.

Will our deaths bring him peace?

Will he finally get the closure he needs?

I thought death wouldn’t be the end but the start of something beautiful.

I was wrong.

“Let’s go, Terror.” Cas’s voice pulls me from my inner thoughts. I look over at my old friend and see no semblance of the person I knew. This man isn’t the Caspian Vought I spent night after night with, laughing, playing silly games and watching him, Kellan and my brother play fighting in our living room. This new Cas is a man with a vendetta so big it has altered him from the inside out.

I pull my gaze from him and climb out of the car. Chance grips my arm and leads me forward, while Masen is gripped by the other guy and dragged toward the warehouse that has men stationed out front and patrolling the area. I feel Caspian behind me but he isn’t any form of support, he let one of his best friends get his fucking brains blown out without trying to stop it.

Xaden leads us toward the entrance. Despite the situation and the promise of my demise looming over my head, I can’t help but appreciate the sight of him.