CHAPTER NINETEEN

I feel like I've lived a million different lives. It was the worst kind of identity crisis, each of my emotions pulling me in a different direction.

My sorrow wanted to tuck me beneath the covers and keep me there, while the anger raved about setting fire to the house as a whole.

The fluctuation was terrifying. I didn't have any control over anything, and my lungs felt like they were giving out from constantly holding my breath, my body anxiously waiting to see which of my emotions would step into the spotlight.

"No," I pulled my eyes from the flames. "I should probably go find my friends."

The vengeance fizzled out as quickly as it had gathered. Even as unpredictable as I was, I wasn't willing to take this as far as Julian had.

I didn't know exactly where that line was for him, I only knew fragments of the horror, but my imagination ran wild with all of the possibilities.

"What?" His ivory skin glowed a deep orange, but I didn't need his features to help me navigate his feelings; the disappointment in his voice told me all I needed to know. "You're not gonna stay?"

His hand left my lower back. The cold, empty sensation followed its leave. I stared into his eyes for a second longer than I should have. I'm sure that in any other light, they were a pale blue, but the tangle of orange and yellow flames gave everything a harsher edge.

I saw something in there, in his translucent eyes. It was optimistic, the inference he had drawn for our evening together, and I watched it die.

Maybe I was no better than him, the boy who showed me what it meant to be alive before leaving and taking all life with him.

It was too easy, getting people's hopes up, only to go back on everything I choose to stand on. There was now something else staring back at me, and it wasn't optimistic.

But I wasn't afraid; maybe this is just how it was. Maybe we're all monsters crafted by someone else's hand.

I shook my head and removed myself from his gaze. Chris marched off, releasing a puff of air from his chest to let me know that he was upset, and as bad as it sounds, I didn't feel bad for him.

There wasn't enough room in my crowded body for his disappointment, especially when my troubles were much bleaker in comparison.

Something was missing when I turned back to the wall of fire. I felt pretty confident that I hadn't just imagined Julian standing there before. But I guess I really couldn't rely on my own judgment anymore, not when it already betrayed me once.

I gathered what was left of my sanity and let the sound of cracking wood grow quieter behind me.

If I was lucky, there was still a small sip of liquid death waiting for me at the bottom of the bottle, and I intended to seize the opportunity before it was too late.

It didn't take long to locate the small drunken crowd that I arrived with. They were exactly how I left them—red-faced and merry, as they stood in front of the long plastic table.

"You just did it again!" Avery yelled to her opponents at the other end of the table. "That's cheating!"

I didn't feel like I was gone that long, but clearly it had been long enough for Avery's body to dissolve the toxins she had poured into it, bringing back some of her more antagonistic qualities.

And based on the familiar expression Nathan wore, it had been going on for a while.

He was stiff at her side, arms folded across his chest, probably praying for a miracle that would never come.

Aiden exhaled sharply, a troop of red solo cups organized into a point in front of him and Jackson. "I don't even know what you're talking about!"

"You can't lean over the table like that when you go to throw the ball; it's cheating." She explained. "Right, Faith?"

You would think that I was the tiebreaker in this year's Olympic cup pong tournament the way that all eyes were firmly on me. "Sure," was the most neutral response I could come up with.

"Alright, I'm done." Aiden sighed, throwing the small orange ball across the table. It soared swiftly through the air and landed with a crash into the collection of cups at the other end.

They toppled over in a domino effect, the contents of the cups spewing in all directions. "Why would you do that?" Avery's voice was calm despite the obvious hardening in her body language.

Her gaze kept to the grass as she used the back of her hand to wipe each dampened section of her skin dry.

"It was an accident." His choice of words was far from an apology, even if they did have a gentle, remorseful cadence to them.

But none of that mattered; saying sorry wasn't going to be enough to keep the storm clouds from rolling in. "Plus, I'm pretty sure it's just water."

I don't think any of us could've anticipated what happened next.

It was a thoughtless action, her body instinctively going with its innate response rather than allowing her mind the time to work through all of her options. She grabbed for one of the few cups that remained and chucked its contents across the table.

Aiden's lips parted. Jackson jumped back. But the damage was already done. "Are you serious?"

The edge to his voice was like nails screeching against a blackboard, his irritation not as easily masked as Avery's.

We were all speechless, staring with an identical look of disbelief on our faces at the large wet spot that now drenched the front of Aiden's shirt. "C'mon Nate, now I gotta go to the car. I need my sweatshirt."

He walked off, his brows still creased together, with both boys on his heels. It was like time had found a way to reverse itself, and I was back at the gas station, watching him through the glass as he headed back to his broken car.

His face didn't communicate the same message that his razor-sharp tone did. He looked almost wounded. And just like I had in the parking lot, I found myself divided.

My loyalty did, and always would, lie with whatever side Avery found herself standing on. But sometimes I questioned if that decision was the right one.

"You see?" Avery's face was free of all emotion as she moved over towards me. "That's why I could never be with him; he doesn't think."

It definitely didn't help that bias clouded my decision-making. I knew that she could be tame, and kind, and a rational human being.

Perhaps the problem was with me, and I viewed her tantrums in the wrong light entirely. Avery didn't complicate things; she put her feelings above everything else. And I guess in a world as cruel as ours, that was just basic survival.

"Where'd you disappear to?" We strolled across the field, no destination particular in mind, pieces of damp grass gathering on our shoes.

"Lydia wanted to give me a tour of her tent." I skipped out on adding any details about Chris, none of that meant enough to me to be discussed. "I guess she's staying out here tonight."

"Does she have extra room?" Avery asked. "I know Aiden plans on sleeping in the car tonight, but if I don't have to, I'm not."

"Um," I guess it didn't matter whether or not I wanted to think about my brief flirtation with spontaneity; forces outside of my control were going to make sure that I did. "I think she mentioned something about sharing it with some friends of hers."

"Hey, was there anything left in that bottle?" I figured a change in conversation was my safest course of action.

"No, sorry. I kept telling them to save you some."

I was starting to think that there were no limitations on my suffering, that these specific outside forces were testing me to see just how far I could bend before I finally broke.

"But of course, Aiden didn't listen. He dared Jackson to chug the last of it." Her eyes rolled back into her head. "But I still have what we got from Chase."

Maybe there was hope after all. "We just have to find something to smoke it out of."

I guess in the thick of my scheming, I forgot to think about the little details. "Where are we gonna find something to smoke it out of?" My brow arched. "We're in the middle of nowhere."

"Well," Her voice jumped an octave, an action that had a plethora of meanings, not all of them good. "I did have one idea."

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