Disappearing was easy when you didn’t want to be found.
And I really didn’t. At all. Ever again. I wanted to fade into the wind, slip through the cracks of time, become nothing more than a distant memory hopefully everybody would eventually forget. There was too much. Just too much.
Even leaving them a note seemed wrong. Like informing my friends of my intended suicide mission was outlandish. And maybe it was. Either way, I did it, and it was happening.
Denver was a speck behind me. Not even in sight. After having it out with August, I left the safe house, passed Denver, trailed the edge of the highway until it broke off into fields. Even then I continued on, for hours, heart beating a melancholy ballad in my chest. There was nothing left. Angel continued to parade images through my mind. Every single thread of sanity within me broke, one after the other, and I feared the abysmal hysteria that lay on the other side. I may have been created from genetic experimentation, but was I not human? Did I not have feelings and wants and fears? Did I not warrant the right to choose my life?
Apparently not.
Walking along the highway, the toxic memories of my past drifted by me like ghosts. Tia, my town, my fallacious parents. Jim, Esme, Lana, those years in torture, all those months running for my life. The fact that I was still running, defending myself, never able to get even a half-step ahead. Because Angel would be there, always. She was inescapable.
Those memories seemed to guide me, leading me onward through the fields and side-roads, all the way to the edge of a bridge. By this time night had fallen, stars sprinkling the sky. The crisp air bit my skin, reddening my cheeks and hands, but what should I care? In a few moments I could be dead. I would be dead.
Everybody told me to hold on. To be strong, and fight the good fight.
How could they possibly expect that of me?
My feet swung over the cords, resting along the edge of the concrete. Not even a full step and I would be tumbling through the air, ten—twenty—thirty feet below, smacking against rocks and the riverbank, seizing to live. Was this not solving the problem? The Prophets wanted me dead. The government intended to keep me a secret and subjugate me in any way possible. Angel had her own mysterious vendetta against me. Even my allies lacked consistency.
Ryan should be able to attend that Johns Hopkins university.
Blake should be able to go to culinary school and become a world famous chef.
Jessica and August should be together, because that made sense, and because they wouldn't destroy each other.
I was the oddball; the outlier. The audacity of me, to try and squeeze into spaces where I just did not belong, was appalling. How dare I? My heart cried and bled for August and had I remained in that room with him even a moment more, I would have surrendered. Feeling his hands in my hair and his breath on my face, tugging at my loose self-restraint, was my undoing. This fact, though I came to terms with it, was terrifying. Me caring about somebody was their death sentence.
That was just the way it was.
I didn’t even cry standing there with my arms woven through the cords, the strength of my upper body all that kept me from plunging into the dark depths below. Why did I hesitate? Why did I stare into the murky void and feel fear penetrate my heart? I should have been ready. Had this been months ago, I would already be dead. Alas, there I stood, heart in my throat, and indecision festering within my mind like an open wound.
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Angelic (Book 2)
Action(Ellie Armstrong Trilogy Book #2) After finding out she has a colder, much deadlier twin sister, Ellie Armstrong is once again in hiding, trying to figure out what to do next. But Angel doesn't promise to make things easy, and as the stakes rise hi...