Court

Chapter 0

Fake It Till It Breaks You

Hudson

We are totally fucked.

And if Grace’s terrified expression is any indication, she knows it, too.

I want to tell her everything is going to be okay, but the truth is, I’m terrified, too. Just not for the same reasons she is, though I’m not ready to go there yet.

Right now, she’s sitting on my couch in front of the fire, her hair wet from her shower, her curls glistening in the flickering light. She’s wearing one of my T-shirts and a pair of my sweatpants all rolled up.

She’s never looked more beautiful.

Or more defenseless.

Fear threatens to overwhelm me at the thought, even as I tell myself she’s nowhere near as defenseless as she looks. Even as I tell myself that she can take anything our fucking world can throw at her.

Anything but Cyrus.

If I’ve learned one thing about my father, it’s that he’ll never stop. Not until he gets what he wants and fuck the consequences.

The thought turns my blood cold.

I’ve never been afraid of anything in my whole miserable life—not of living and definitely not of dying. Enter Grace, and now I live in constant terror.

Terror I’ll lose her and terror that if I do, she’ll take the light with her. I know what it’s like to be in the shadows—I’ve spent my whole bloody life in the dark.

And I don’t want to go back.

“Can I—” I clear my throat and start again. “Can I get you a drink?” I ask, but Grace doesn’t respond. I’m not sure she even hears me as she continues to stare into the red-and-orange flames.

“Right. Okay. I’ll only be a few minutes,” I tell her, because she isn’t the only one in desperate need of a shower.

She still doesn’t answer, and I can’t help wondering what she’s thinking. What she’s feeling. She hasn’t said more than a few words since we got back to school and realized Cyrus had tricked us and kidnapped all the students while we were fighting on the island. I just wish I knew what I could do to help her. To reach her before everything goes to hell again.

Because it will. Cyrus’s terrifying new alliances are proof of that. As is his bold kidnapping of the children of the most powerful paranormals in the world. There’s nowhere for him to go from here, nothing for him to do but destroy everything.

Not wanting to leave Grace sitting all alone in silence, I walk over to my record collection and riffle through the albums until my fingers land on Nina Simone. I pull the vinyl from the sleeve and place it on the turntable, click a button, and wait as the needle swings out and lowers with a crisp bite of static before Nina’s whiskey voice fills the quiet space. I adjust the volume so it’s more background music, and with one last look at Grace’s still frame, I turn and head to the bathroom.

I take the fastest shower on record, considering the amount of blood and gore and death I need to wash away. I get dressed nearly as fast.

I don’t know why I’m rushing, don’t know what I’m afraid I’ll find when—

My racing heart slows as I see Grace right where I left her. And I finally admit the truth to myself: the reason I haven’t wanted to let her out of my sight is because I’m afraid she’ll realize she made a mistake in choosing me.

Is it an irrational fear, considering she told me she loves me? That she chooses me, even with everything going on, even knowing what a burden my gifts are? Absolutely.

Does that make it go away? Not even close.

That’s the power she holds over me, the power she’ll always hold.

“Do you need anything?” I ask her as I grab a bottle of water from the fridge in the corner and carry it over to her.

When she doesn’t take it from my outstretched hand, I walk to the other side of the couch and sit beside her, set the water on the table in front of us.

She turns from the fire then, slays me with her wounded gaze, and whispers, “I love you.” And my heart pounds again.

She looks so serious, too serious, and even a little bit desperate. So I do what I always do to pull her out of her own head: I tease her, this time with our favorite movie line. “I know.”

When a slow smile touches the edges of the shadows in her eyes, I know I made the right choice. I reach out and pull her onto my lap, relishing the feel of all of her against all of me. I glance down and run my finger along the promise ring I gave her, remembering the vow I made that day, the trembling conviction in my voice as I said those fateful words, and my chest tightens.

“You know,” she says, pulling my gaze back to hers, “you said if I ever guessed what promise you made, you’d tell me. I think I’ve figured it out.”

I raise one eyebrow. “Do you now?”

She nods. “You promised to bring me breakfast in bed for the rest of my life.”

I snort-laugh. “Doubtful. You are a brat in the mornings.”

The first real smile I’ve seen from her in what feels like forever lightens her face. “Hey, I resemble that.” Then she laughs at her own joke, and I can’t help myself from joining her. It’s so fucking nice to see her smiling again.

“I know…” she continues, pretending to ponder alternatives. “You promised to let me win every argument?”

I give a full belly laugh at that ridiculous suggestion. She loves arguing with me. The last thing she’d ever want is for me to roll over and just let her have her way. “Not likely.”

She stills then, blinking up at me. “Are you ever going to tell me?”

She’s not ready to hear what I promised before I even knew she would ever love me back. So instead I joke, “Now where would the fun be in that?”

She fake punches me in the shoulder. “I will get it out of you one day.” She runs her soft hand along the stubble on my jaw, her eyes turning serious again. “I have forever to keep guessing, mate.”

And just like that, I’m on fire.

“I love you,” I whisper and lean down to brush my lips across hers. Once, twice. But Grace is having none of it. She reaches up and holds my head between her palms, her lashes fluttering across her cheeks just before she demands everything from me. My breath. My heart. My very soul.

When we’re both breathless, I lean back and hold her gaze. I could get lost in the depths of her warm brown eyes for an eternity.

“I love you,” I tell her again.

“I know,” she teases, repeating my words from earlier.

“That smart mouth is going to be the death of me,” I murmur and start to kiss her once more, thoughts of picking her up and carrying her over to my bed dancing through my head. But she stiffens, and I know my thoughtless comment about dying reminded her, reminded us both, of everything we’ve lost, could still lose.

My heart nearly stops when I see the tears filling her eyes. “I’m sorry,” I murmur.

She gives her head a quick shake, like I shouldn’t be beating myself up over my slip, but, well, not going to happen. Then she bites her lip, her chin quivering as she tries to hold all the pain she’s feeling inside, and for the billionth time, I want to kick myself for always speaking first and thinking second when she’s near me.

“Babe, it’s going to be okay,” I tell her even as everything inside me turns to liquid. Bones, arteries, muscles, all of it just dissolves in the space from one breath to the next, and all I’m left with is what I’ll be without Grace. An empty, bleeding shell.

“What can I do?” I ask. “What do you need—”

She cuts me off by placing her small, cold fingers against my mouth.

“Luca died for nothing. Flint’s leg, Jaxon’s heart, everything… It was all for nothing, Hudson,” she whispers.

I pull her back into my arms, hold her while the anguish of what we’ve survived works its way through her system, her shaking now becoming my own as I know I’m out of excuses.

In this moment, while I hold the girl I love—the girl I would do anything to save—I know my time has run out. The cold hard truth I’ve spent the last hour doing my bloody best to ignore slams into me and steals my breath.

It’s all my fault.

Everything. Every agony, every death, every moment of pain Grace and the others felt on that island—it’s all my damn fault.

Because I was selfish. Because I didn’t want to give her up yet. Because I was weak.

I’ve spent my life running from a destiny my father always wanted for me, but I realize now I have no choice. It’s coming for me whether I want it to or not, and there isn’t shit all I can do to avoid it. Not a second time. Not with Grace’s happiness at stake.

And when it does, it will destroy us all.