“Thank you,” Nox said.
“I owe it to you. You, and your mother.”
“There’s a Tunnel that leads into the house?” Rid asked. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Who do you think cooks all the meals for Silas’ research staff?”
Mrs. Blackburn led them to her secret Tunnel like she promised, and when they reached the Outer Door inside Silas’ house, she gave Nox a quick hug. “You know it’s your job to get that girl right again, don’t you?” she whispered.
He nodded.
It’s all I think about.
It’s the only thing that matters.
Whether or not it means she stays with me.
Ridley and Nox didn’t stop again until they were safely out of Silas’ house and in the Tunnels. It was the first time he felt like they actually had a chance.
He pulled Ridley against him. “So where do you want to go?”
She tilted her head, as if she was deciding. “I’m thinking LA.”
Nox felt like someone had punched him in the gut.
LA.
The place where Silas has a bigger lab, and she can get a bigger fix.
“You heard Mrs. Blackburn. Silas is going to LA. We should stay as far away from there as we can.”
Ridley rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. It’s a huge city, with a serious music scene. You can open another club—the kind with no address, where people have to know someone to get an invite.”
“I don’t want to go to LA, Rid. Pick anywhere else.” He needed to stand his ground, but it felt like he was already sinking in quicksand.
Ridley moved closer, her violet eyes searching his. “I want to be with you, Nox. Don’t you get that? This is our chance.” Her expression hardened. “But I’m going to LA. Are you coming with me or not?”
Nox thought about his mom—how disappointed she’d be if she knew about all the bad decisions he’d made—and all the terrible things he’d done.
All the things I’ll end up doing if I go to LA. Not to mention potentially messing with Silas Ravenwood and Ridley’s psycho Cataclyst aunt.
Ridley was offering him love, gift-wrapped in an addiction he couldn’t begin to understand. But for the first time in his life, Nox had a chance to start over. Disappear and do the right things—be a better man.
A man I can be proud of.
There was only one problem. Ridley wasn’t the only one with an addiction. Nox couldn’t live without her any more than he could survive without oxygen.
So he made a decision that would change everything. He stopped worrying about being a better man and focused on being the man Ridley Duchannes loved—the one she wanted to run away with to LA. The one who’d lured a Siren and her clueless boyfriend to New York without thinking twice. Guilt was a sucker’s emotion.
Who cares where we go? As long as I have her.
Nox took Rid’s hand, lacing his fingers between hers. “When do we leave?”
She smiled and pushed up on her toes to kiss him.
Nox felt a snake wrapping itself around their wrists.
Binding them together.
AFTER
Ridley
Here’s the thing.
There are certain times when a girl hates herself.
You know that.
When she teases a guy she has no interest in being with.
When she pretends to be stupider than she is, or more innocent, or whatever it is the boy she loves wants her to be.
When she has to tell her boyfriend about all the boys she’s kissed or loved before him.
When she sees that look in his eyes—the look that says he thought he was the only one, that he had always been the only one.
It’s all pretty dull, but it’s life.
So here’s what I want you to know:
I’m not that girl.
I think I’ve been perfectly clear about that.
I will always disappoint you.
You, and everyone else.
That’s the girl I am.
The one people whisper about.
The scandal.
The problem.
I’m fine with that.
But know this—and I don’t know if you’re listening, and I don’t know if you care—there was a boy named Wesley Lincoln, once.
And I loved him, with my whole heart, and maybe even part of my soul. I imagined a future with houses and children and all sorts of things I had no right imagining.
He gave me a ring once, and I pretended it meant something different than it did.
But that life isn’t for me.
I know that now.
I’m not that girl.
I didn’t deserve him, and I never will.
I deserve lots of things—the destruction of men and boys—the cataclysm of worlds—the end of the New Order, possibly. The heart of a certain Dark Caster.
But I want you to know, just between us, that I lost something.
That there was something I wanted.
Even if it was something I knew I could never have.
There was a boy, an ordinary boy, and he was my heart.
Now I have no heart.
That’s my story.
I hope yours ends differently, but I doubt it will.