by Trisha Wolfe
He strokes my hair. “You didn’t need to prove anything,” he says, echoing my thoughts. “I’ve always chosen you.”
It’s the words I’ve desired to hear for so long—ever since Jeremy shattered my world.
I tell Carter I love him, and he doesn’t reject my love. This moment is solace for all the wrong done to me over the years.
I examine the knife wound Addison left behind, a new scar I’ll forever carry. I’ve lost a fair amount of blood, but no major artery was hit. She obviously didn’t study any anatomy books. After I strip a layer off the bottom of my shirt and secure it around the wound to staunch the blood loss, we maneuver down the steep and treacherous trail to the bluff.
I feel as if I’m leaving something behind. A part of me I always feared—the part that forever questioned whether or not I had been the one to take Jeremy and Irina’s lives that night.
Like so many haunting elements of our psyche, the truth was buried inside me all this time.
After years of being told I committed the heinous act, it had become part of my reality, of my identity. Now, that lie is buried at the bottom of the ravine with all the other traitorous deceits. Moving forward with Carter is like stepping into the sun for the first time since that dark eclipse descended over my life.
Devil’s Bluff is unchanged and yet, everything feels different, new. The car I bought is still parked in the same spot, as if last night was only a dream. Addison’s little Subaru is parked right behind mine.
Glancing between the two cars, I make a decision. We can’t take both, and one has more incriminating evidence. I check the front seat of her vehicle and find the keys still in the ignition.
“Thank you, Addison,” I say out loud. Sometimes the stars really do align.
With a painful limp, I trek over to my car. “It has to burn,” I tell Carter.
Fire cleanses. Once all traces of Sully and Addison are gone, we can finally start over.
I toss Sully’s phone into the backseat as Carter grabs the gas can from the trunk. We douse the interior, then he takes out his Zippo lighter.
A flash of memory of the lighter in my hand as I flick it open…then it’s gone. I shake my head to clear the dull haze and slam the car door closed.
I study my reflection in the passenger-side window. My hair a tangled mess. My face smeared with dirt and blood.
“You’re beautiful,” Carter says.
He moves to stand beside me, Zippo in hand, and I smile. I again look at the window and tilt my head, curious as to why his reflection is missing.
Is he really here, Ellis? Or is it a delusion?
The voice inside me is a tired bitch, and it’s time to shut her up permanently. I pick up a rock and weigh it in my hand before smashing it through the window.
“Goodbye, Dr. Leighton. I don’t need you anymore.”
I look at Carter as he flicks the lighter and, after making sure the flame is strong, tosses the Zippo through the broken window.
We set fire to the car, watch it burn together.
I slip my hand into his, and it’s warm and comforting, just like the flames that lick high into the early morning sky.
“Where do we go now?” he asks.
His trust in me gives me hope, gives me strength. I kiss his knuckles and look up into his pale-blue eyes. “There’s someone I need to see,” I say. “Then we can be together. This time for good.”
His hand covers mine as he places it on his chest, right over his heart.
“What about Black Mountain?” he asks. “This is my home, where I’ll always be.”
He’s right, of course. I can’t leave for too long. Carter needs me here, to help protect him. Just because the threat from Sully and Addison has been taken care of, doesn’t mean there aren’t others.
This place is full of dangerous people. As long as Carter is here, I have to stay with him.
I find my phone on the ground near the waterfall. I hold my breath as I power the device on, waiting for the time to read…
5:59 a.m.
A laugh springs free. The past is really buried. I open the web browser and search a name I hadn’t thought about in years. He was so insignificant to me…at least it seemed.
I wonder where Mr. Whitmore went…
It’s time to find out, as he has a lot to answer for.
Carter’s hand in mind is a soothing balm to the scars. Physical and emotional. His unknown energy isn’t a mystery anymore; we were designed for each other by the heavens.
I had once pondered the existence of dark energy, for how can we believe in a thing that we can’t feel, touch, or see?
The answer is right here with me. Carter. His love is a dark energy so powerful that it dominated and changed the course of my whole universe.
In every story of love and obsession, the saint wins. She gets the boy in the end. The other girl is destroyed. By madness, death, sometimes both.
This time, the story has a happy ending for that neglected girl. She has a heart, too. She deserves to be loved, also.
And as Carter embraces me in his arms, sheltering me from the cold cruelty of the world, the dawn his energy, the morning stars my solace, I know I’m deserving of his love.
I will never be the other girl again.
Epilogue
That Night
Whitmore: Before
I find her near the water’s edge. The ocean laps at her bare feet as she stares out over the horizon. She’s that place between, where sky kisses water, that perfect, fragile glimpse at absolute beauty.
A goddess.
And she’s waiting for me.
Irina’s auburn hair shimmers in the moonlight, and I long to touch it. Curl my fingers around those lovely tresses and snap her neck.
I spotted her right away that first day in my drama class. I on the stage looking down, her in the audience staring up at me with admiration.
She was too tempting to ignore.
For weeks, I fought my urge to have her. But she was a tempting little vixen, testing my willpower with her sensual, naughty looks, those teasing touches during our private sessions.
Oh, she knew what she was doing. She knew how to bring a man to his breaking point.
At sixteen, Irina had me wrapped around her dainty finger. The eight-year age gap between us meant nothing. When I finally caved and gave in to her desire, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
So tender, and yet so sinfully pleasurable. Every needy desire answered that night as we fucked up against the wall of my office.
I’m hard now just thinking about it, and have to adjust myself as I stalk through the loose sand toward her.
Every night after that one, she’d come to me, and we’d fulfill our need for each other…until that little shit got in the way.
He made her question us, doubt what we are together. As if a high school boy can do it for her. She needs a man.
As if just thinking about him conjures the boy into existence, Jeremy Rivers appears on the shore next to Irina.
My hand coils into a fist. It’s still tender from where I throttled the life out of that dumb slut.
I breathe in the salt air and let it cleanse my system of all the pent-up frustration. Lanie Masters wasn’t supposed to be here—she was an accident, I admit. Her little obsession with the Rivers’ boy had become too big an interference. And well, she asked for it, didn’t she?
They always ask for it, and are so shocked when they get it.
Lanie was so pathetically hungry for attention. Jeremy wouldn’t give it to her; he’d already gotten what he wanted. Fucking dumb high school boys. What’s the point of fucking a bitch once and then treating her like shit? It’s like they don’t realize it’s a sweet piece of ass to have at the ready any time they want.
No, they’re always wanting to move on to the next conquest.
And Irina will never be his to conquer.
In a way, I think as I draw the butterfly knife from my pocket, I’m doing Irina a favor. She’
ll be immortalized as the girl next door. Innocent perfection. No one has to know her dirty secrets.
But she’ll see, as I stare into those beautiful liquid-green eyes while I slice the filth out of her, that I know the truth. She’ll always be my dirty girl.
And that she was so very wrong to choose a boy over her teacher.
I flick my knife open. The blade sheers the air, the wind carries the chime across the shore where she waits for me.
Someone has to teach these girls a lesson.
Want to read more from Black Mountain Academy?
Drama, angst, love, lust, and everything in-between. Light or dark, twisted or sweet, the BMA series has something for every reader!
Check out the Black Mountain Academy webpage to see all the books available:
Cruel: A Necrosis of the Mind Duet
Coming soon
Get a release notification here.
Also by Trisha Wolfe
Broken Bonds Series
With Visions of Red
With Ties that Bind
Derision
Darkly, Madly Duet
Born, Darkly
Born, Madly
Living Heartwood Novels
The Darkest Part
Losing Track
Fading Out
Cellar Door: Standalone
Five of Cups: Standalone
Lotus Effect: Standalone
A Necrosis of the Mind Duet
Cruel
Malady
About the Author
From an early age, USA Today best-selling author Trisha Wolfe dreamed up imaginary worlds and characters and was accused of talking to herself. Today, she lives in South Carolina with her family and writes full time, using her imaginary worlds as an excuse to continue talking to herself.
Get updates on future releases at http://www.trishawolfe.com/
Want to be the first to hear about new book releases, special promotions, and sale events for all Trisha Wolfe books? Sign up for Trisha Wolfe’s VIP list here.