by S. T. Abby
There’s pain, and then there’s agony.
It’s been a long time since I felt the agony I unleash on my victims.
But I feel it now.
It’s bone-deep, gut-wrenching, and powerful enough to pulverize you from the inside. Naked and cuffed to a bed as I cry the painfully hot tears, I try to ignore the agony that continues to rip through me with a relentless force.
But it’s useless.
I’m still too raw from the wounds I opened up last night.
I’m too in love to pretend I don’t care.
And the heartache is too real not to feel it through every cell of my very existence.
I no longer wish to be a romantic. Because it hurts too fucking much.
“Logan, I—”
“You’ll shut the hell up right now, Lana,” he snaps, his eyes glistening with his own unshed tears. “I loved you. I cared about you. And you? All you fucking did was lie! You used me!”
I start to speak again, but he grabs my mouth, painfully pushing it closed. The worst thing he could do is what he’s doing now.
Silencing me.
It was the worst part of it all.
Being silenced, because no one wanted to hear.
Now the one person I’ve opened myself up enough to love is silencing me.
I grasp for anger; I search for the cold; but I’m greeted with nothing but more misery and tears as they cascade with too much freedom.
But he’s cold. He’s like ice. Yet says what I felt was a lie.
“You’re sick. You need help. And I honestly have no fucking clue what to do with you right now, because… You know what? You figure out why. You made this mess, threw me in it without giving a damn about how it would affect me, and you can stay in here and stew on what’s about to happen.”
He turns abruptly, and I rein in my words.
“Kennedy Carlyle,” he says under his breath. “Un-fucking-believable.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to explain everything, but that coldness finally washes over me, stealing some of the pain as I close my eyes and search for it…beg for it.
Jake was right. Logan never would have chosen me.
He just proved it.
He didn’t even ask.
He didn’t even care.
As he slams the door and storms away, I slowly open my eyes, staring at nothing as I slide my wrists down the pole. My body works on auto-pilot, my foot finding my purse and dragging it up.
I never take my eyes off the wall as more of the coldness creeps in, rushing through my veins with renewed purpose. I want to be numb, but that will take a while. It’ll take more kills than I have time for today.
It’ll take more of my soul that I just got back.
As I find the lock pick kit and work it up to my hands to find the proper tools, I continue staring ahead, not needing my eyes for anything. I’m not usually too good at picking locks, but apparently having your heart ripped out is some extra incentive to get it right.
As soon as I’m freed, I slowly climb out of bed, dress myself, grab my things, pack my bag, and casually walk out of the cabin like there’s no reason to be in a hurry. My mind is almost blank. Even as fresh tears fall, the coldness grows stronger.
As soon as I make it to the newest place Jake has set up since abandoning his father’s hunter’s cabin, I find my best friend.
His eyes come up, and his features pale as I drop to my knees, my body giving out as it starts to shake with the silent pain I’m working so hard to suppress.
I thought love would rip my heart out.
I thought it would set me on fire.
Instead, it turned me into ice.
End of book 4