Nightfall (Devil's Night, #4)

by Penelope Douglas

“Maybe I’ll return the favor someday.” He stood back up. “When you’re ready to deal with him.”

“I have a sister,” he told me. “Her name is Nik, but everyone calls her Banks.” He met my eyes again. “If something happens, and I can’t be there for her—if they arrest me for this—you need to go to my house and help her. She doesn’t have anyone else. You understand?” Huh? “You’re asking me?” I looked at him, confused. “Why?” He had tons of people he could count on. But he just turned around, shut off the water, and raised his arms, smoothing his hands over his hair. “I’m not sure anyone else would’ve helped me bury a body,” he murmured.

“A tear in the membrane . . .” he mused to himself, putting his arm around me and pulling me out of the shower. “Come on. Let’s go find Will.”

Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the girl who made me want to be better. More. I saw Emmy Scott.

They kept me from being lonely, but Emory taught me that not everything I wanted was going to come easy. That there were things I was going to have to fight for and there was pain in the world that my shallow lifestyle in high school kept me ignorant of. She made me feel like a man.

Her arms around me made me want to take on anything.

I’d loved Emory since the moment I laid eyes on her when I was fourteen.

From that moment on, it seemed I was always aware of her, and everything I did, I did with it in mind that she was watching. Every joke in class. Every strut into the lunchroom. Every new haircut and every new pair of jeans. Even the Raptor. My first thought when my parents bought it was how she’d look in it.

“I love you, Will,” she said in a quiet voice.

“The only time I ever loved my life was when I was with you.”

“I was always your Em,” she whispered. “No matter what I said or what I did or all the ways I let life win over the years . . . That night, I knew. I was in love with you.” The backs of my eyes stung, and I clenched my teeth. “You can leave, and I’ll survive. I always do,” she told me. “I just wanted you to know that.” And just like that again, I couldn’t remember why she was bad for me, and I just wanted her where she was supposed to be. With me.

No one would choose me over Damon. Or me over Michael or Kai, either. No one thought I was worth a damn next to them.

What the hell did he know about her that I didn’t? She was my girl, not his.

My friends wouldn’t be any less strong without me. I had one thing I really liked. One thing that drove me to try. One thing that made me feel like a man.

“I need you,” he murmured. “You don’t know how much we all need you.” I bit the corner of my mouth to keep my emotions in check, but my eyes stung. His lips hovered over mine, the heat made the room spin, and then . . . I opened my eyes, looking over at her. She was sitting against the mats and watching us. She hugged her knees to her body, unblinking as Damon’s mouth ghosted mine, and . . . when I didn’t pull away, he captured my lips with his, slipping in his tongue and nibbling my lip. “We don’t smile without you,” he whispered. “She doesn’t smile without you.”

“I’ll always want you,”

I know you loved him. How can anyone not love him?”

I didn’t want to do anything because of him. Nothing else mattered as I mourned the loss.

I never fit with him. I always knew it, because Thunder Bay was Neverland and the Horsemen were his tribe, and I hated to play. I didn’t do fun.

“If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life,” we sang, “never make a pretty woman your wife . . .” And he spun and spun, and I started laughing so hard as I hugged him to me, catching sight of everyone else by the door watching us.

No one was going to tell me how to feel. Not anymore. No one could make me feel anything I didn’t allow. I was in control. And I was ready for an adventure.

I was glad he had his friends. They loved him, and Will deserved to never be alone. But I also hated the idea of anyone else but me making him happy. Making Will happy was an amazing feeling.

while I didn’t care how I looked in their eyes, I cared how I looked in his.

I could ignore him in class. Pass him in the halls without a look. Act like he didn’t exist. Pretend I was above it all and they were nothing. I did it all. Time passed, seasons changed, he left for college, and a year later, so did I.

What I didn’t know then was that the damage we would do to each other was only just beginning.

I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I watched her.

Goddammit. If my head would just settle on one emotion where she was concerned, that would be fucking fantastic. I hate her, but she’s mine. Go away, but don’t go with him!

She’d needed that bourbon more than she needed air that day, and I got that. God, I got that.

“Because no blade cuts as deep as something that beautiful,” he whispered.

“She puts one foot in front of the other, does what she has to do, and lives honestly. She’s unashamed with her fucking chin up.” His voice grew stronger. “She’s loyal, everyone’s mother with warm arms and a kind smile, a survivor, and she solves the problem without dwelling on the loss.” His eyes hardened, filled with pride. “She’s a fucking Viking,” he said. “And I won’t have anyone else.”

Nothing else mattered. If it killed us, she was the one. In that moment, I didn’t care about her sins, if anyone else had touched her besides me, or that we were both our own worst enemies. That was my girl, scarred, tattered soul, and all. She was beautiful.

“This isn’t young love anymore,” I told her, pressing her tits into the shower wall. “It’s not a crush. This is a man who’s long overdue in showing you what he can do.”

It had been almost two years this fall since I’d last touched her, and nothing was getting better.

I could still hear her laughing that night. My heart ached. God, that dress. Her smile. Emmy Scott happy was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“I would’ve been good to her,” I said, kicking a pebble over the edge. “I was good to her.”

because while he controls all, she controls him.”

“You’re not Peter,”

This was Will.

I looked as Damon stepped through the smoke, laughing as he dipped down, pressing his forehead to his best friend’s.

I’d never told him I loved him. Emptiness had spread through my insides over the months, and even though it made me feel stronger every time I looked away from him his last year at school—proud that I was surviving him

I’d be the first to admit they abused their power, but after helping one of them hide a body, I knew now that people were more complicated than that.

I’ll see you again. Will would be coming for both of us.

You never had to do anything alone!”

“I reached for you,” I told her. “In my head, all these years. Even after you dumped me like trash and I couldn’t fall out of love with you no matter how much I drank and snorted, my brain reached for you always.” She remained frozen, not faltering as she stared at me. “When nothing gave me a reason to get out of bed, my friends were falling in love, making babies, and I felt so alone . . .” I choked on the tears in my throat I wouldn’t let loose. “What do you think was the only thing that made me keep breathing?” My tone hardened as I clenched my jaw. “In my brain, I reached for you. I never stopped reaching for you.”

I almost wish I could go back to the nights at Delcour and fucking with Rika when we thought it was all her fault. How simple it was then.

Her only unforgivable mistake was the years of silence since. She should’ve stepped up and sought us out. How did anyone live like that?

I didn’t want to make her suffer anymore. I just wanted her out of my life for good. It was obvious now that we weren’t right and that she wasn’t one of us.

Then I spotted my mask sitting on the bed, as well. I reached over and picked it up, the familiar texture filling me with memories and a charge of excitement in my veins at all the moments I wanted to keep, despite the ones I wanted to leave behind.

Whatever was I going to do with Emory Scott when we got back to Thunder Bay?

“The role of the villain is only determined by who’s telling the story.”