Page 114 of Trigger Happy Ending

All I can taste is despair and grief and hate and guilt, and all I can feel is Cherry’s absence shredding my insides apart. I’m not the woman I was two days ago; I’m back to being the girl I was when my mom was brutally taken from me. I’m a raw, exposed nerve in human skin.

And I hate the fact the Agency was right. Letting someone in is dangerous, causes weakness. Delivers gut-wrenching loss. Heartache. Pain. I should have known better. A tightness wraps around my chest, squeezing until the edges of my vision blur.

God, I’m so fucking exhausted.

From all of it. The deception, the violence, the loss, the never-ending feeling of taking one step forward, only to be shoved twenty feet back.

“Hey.” Soren steps further into the bathroom, still damp from the shower, sweatpants slung low on his hips, nothing else. I turn toward him, palms pressed behind me on the vanity. “You’re okay,” he murmurs as he comes closer. Is he telling himself that? Or reassuring me?

I shake my head once, barely. “It’s my fault.”

He frowns. “It’s not.”

My throat burns. “I’m tired of all this death, Soren. Aren’t you tired?”

He looks down, fingers tugging absently at the drawstring of his sweats. A nervous tell I’ve never seen on him before. When he raises his gaze again, it’s soft.

“I was,” he admits. “Until I met you.”

My heart collapses inward. A painful, beautiful implosion.

“Soren,” I breathe, swallowing hard. “No. Stop."

His brows lift slightly. “Why?”

“I’m damaged, Soren.” It slips out harsher than I mean. “Poisonous. I-I’m fucked up.”

He steps in until the heat of him wraps around me, until I can feel every breath he takes. Slowly, he lifts a hand, knuckles brushing the curve of my cheekbone.

“I don’t think you’re damaged,” he whispers.

A rough laugh breaks from me. “Yeah? Well, you’re not looking close enough.”

“Oh,” he murmurs, thumb stroking the line of my jaw. “I am. I see it. I like a little wreckage.”

He dips his head, lips brushing the shell of my ear, a graze of warmth against the cold hole in my chest. “I like you and all the darkness that comes with you.”

The words tap dance down my spine.

I pull back just enough to look up at him, searching for the lie, the delusion, the deceit. But there’s nothing. No hesitation or uncertainty. Just the brutal sincerity of a man who’s telling his truth. My lips part, wanting to form a protest, a warning, anything, but nothing comes out.

Soren shifts, like he’s about to step away, give me space, give me an out.

But I don’t want to be alone.

Not now.

Not tonight.

“Wait,” I say, breath catching as I hook a finger into the waistband of his sweats.

He stops instantly, eyes dropping to where my finger clings to the fabric.

Slowly, I drag my gaze up, taking him in.

God, he’s beautiful. In that dangerous, ruin-your-life way.

My throat tightens. I don’t know what I want, but I think I know what I need.