Breaking me.
I cling to that memory of kneeling in the woods while they callously cut themselves off from me, and I use it to shove away the last little bit of emotion vibrating between us. I embrace the void; grip it like a life raft on stormy seas.
In the absence of phantom affection for Frost, my anger steps up.
I rouse all the fury I have over everything the three of them have done to me and let it wash over me, erasing anything else I have left.
“I’m going to kill you,” I growl, wrapping the fingers of one hand around the metal bar. I squeeze it like I want to squeeze his fucking neck.
Our gazes lock, and I fight back the rising sensations inside me. Not the mate bond, but something else. I don’t want to have feelings for him. For any of them.
The only feeling I want to have for them is hatred and the driving desire to see them dead.
“I’ll kill you all,” I repeat, leaning into the bars, letting my anger burn in my gaze. If I say it over and over like a mantra, maybe I can will it into existence. Make my promise come true. “I’ll never stop trying to end you. Only death will stop me.”
Frost doesn’t move. Soft white breaths escape his lips and mine, mingling in the air between us. This close to him, I’m drowning in his presence. It’s a placebo, that warm, spicy scent of his seeming to push away the cold, warming me from the inside.
“I will kill you,” I repeat. I bite out every word in a harsh whisper, trying to make myself believe it as much as I’m trying to convince him.
He remains silent for a long moment. The two of us face off, only inches apart, nothing but the bars to keep me from putting my hands on him.
When he speaks, his voice is so soft I almost don’t hear him over the wind.
“It might be better if you did kill us,” he murmurs.
Startled, my hand falls away from the bars, and I stare at him, not sure I heard him right.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to live,” he adds, sliding his own fingers around the bars. He leans in, his grip tightening, his gaze only for me. For the first time, I see the true hint of an emotion on his stoic face. Something fervent. Despairing. Haunted. “Maybe we shouldn’t have been born.”
Then he unthreads his fingers from the bars and walks away. He’s out the door on a wave of icy, blustery air before I’ve even realized what’s happened.
I stare after him, watching the dark door for several long moments after he disappears.
Maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to live.
I didn’t expect him to say that, but I’m even more surprised by my own reaction to his statement.
No.
It’s a knee-jerk response, an emotional reaction connected to the fact that Frost once told me how much they hurt all the time. Those shadows that constantly waver and shift on his skin make it so he lives in agony, and I hated that for him.
Now he’s implying they should be dead. And… no. I don’t like the idea of him not existing in this world.
Which is the fucking opposite of what I should be feeling.
Deeply unsettled by the encounter and my subsequent emotions, I curl up on the uncomfortable cot. This time, though, I lie facing the entrance so that no one can sneak up on me.
Or so that if Frost returns, I’ll be waiting for him.
Closing my eyes, I let exhaustion take over, and Frost’s haunted expression follows me into my dreams.