I splashed through puddles, slowly feeling every piece of clothing on me start to stick to my skin. I wiped rain off my face, but the downpour was so thick, I could barely see twenty feet in front of me.
But I didn’t stop. I raced, not giving a shit if there was a cliff or a car about to come through the mist and right for me at any second.
This was all their fault. Michael’s brother got Damon arrested in the first place, and thank God he was dead, or I would’ve done it myself. If it wasn’t for that, Damon would’ve finished college, and we’d be gone.
And then the rest of them…. My brother would’ve taken a bullet for them, and they chose Erika Fane without hesitation. Years of him always having their backs, and they threw him away like it was nothing. They didn’t even fight for him.
I heard a high-pitched sound ring through the air, and I looked up, seeing that I was on the sidewalk crossing the bridge. I turned my weary eyes out onto the water, seeing a tugboat pushing a barge downstream, its foghorn echoing through the storm.
Looking down at the camera in my hand, I raised my fist and launched it out into the river, seeing it disappear into the black water.
I dropped my eyes, shaking my head. That wasn’t true, though, was it? I could see Damon’s side, because I knew how much he was hurting. I knew how he thought.
No one at home loved him. Our father was a tyrant, and his mother…. He was terrorized by her. I groaned at the sickness rising from my stomach, remembering all the things he never meant for me to see in that tower.
All the things she didn’t know I was there to see.
Because of all that, Damon became very possessive of the few good people in his life.
Me, his friends....
Anything that threatened us was immediately an enemy.
That’s why he hated Erika—or Rika, as everyone seemed to call her. He wasn’t right, but I knew where he was coming from, so I could understand it.
But he got himself arrested by fucking around with Winter, a girl he knew was off limits. In more ways than one.
And it was him who went too far last year and had to go into hiding.
If he really wanted us to be on our own, he would’ve taken me with him. Forget his friends. Forget Rika. Just go and both of us get out of here, and we could finally be free.
But that didn’t happen, and I now realized it would never happen.
I bit my bottom lip, trying not to cry anymore. We weren’t ever going to leave, were we? He was using me, too.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I started walking again, trying to hold everything back, but I just couldn’t. I walked and walked and walked, over the bridge, past the old farmer’s market on State Street, and down the dilapidated, empty lanes of Whitehall, and I didn’t cry, but the tears kept spilling anyway as I clenched my teeth together, shivering.
The rain had soaked my clothes, my head was weighted with the drenched hat, and icy coldness covered my skin. I could feel every hair trying to stand up as chills spread across my body.
I finally stopped, my arms hugging myself as my teeth chattered, and looked up.
Sensou shone in red, an emblem with a maze within a maze next to it and Japanese script in the center. I guess my feet knew where I was supposed to be.
Like a machine. That was me.
With shaking hands, I peeled back my cuff and looked at my watch, seeing that it was eight in the morning. Kai told me last night to be here by nine.
I needed to call David and tell him I didn’t need a ride this morning.
Heading to the front of the dojo, I yanked on the door, but it didn’t give. Locked.
Walking around the side of the building, I entered the dark alley, all the brick buildings around me painted black, even the fire escapes.
Jogging up to the side door, I huddled under the awning and pulled at the door.
But it also didn’t give.
I wrapped my arms around myself again, leaning back against the building.