The Truths We Burn (The Hollow Boys, #2)

by Monty Jay

Through the darkest of shit, we’d seen each other through it. Saw each other battle things no person should ever have to see. Bore witness to what Hell on Earth really looks like. We protect each other at all costs. Nothing we wouldn’t do for each other. No length too far.

Masks are still masks, no matter how tightly glued on.”

“You deserve more than that, Rook.” “I don’t need more.” I slip my hand on her cheek, cradling her head as I wipe tears with my thumb that don’t need to fall for me. Knowing one day she’ll look back and see that those were wasted on a boy who didn’t deserve them. “I

She grabs for my shirt, pulling herself into my body, hugging me tightly. Trying to squeeze out all the suffering from me. I gaze down at the top of her head, my heart doing this funny thing, beating faster but aching. Hurting. “I refuse to believe it. There is still good in you. I see it. I know it’s there.”

“I’m with you,” I whisper, meaning it more than I’ve ever meant anything before. “I’m always with you. Even when I’m with him, I’m still with you.”

I’m so selfish, because I will take all of this. Everything he gives, I will take, take, take. Because it might be all I have in the end.

“I missed you too,” I snicker, my voice raw and scratchy. “I did miss you. It’s just…” he whispers softly. “Can I keep you?” And my soul breaks because of it.

I want him to keep me. Always. To stay here, right here in this disgusting rave house bathroom because it feels more safe, more right, than anywhere else I’ve ever been.

He is a human who was hurt by the world. And all I want to do is be the reason he believes in it again. Even if I can’t do the same for myself. Even if we don’t make it out together in the end, he needs to know that he deserves more than suffering. He deserves happiness.

I just want him. The him that makes me feel alive and real.

When I’m with him, it’s like knowing every day that tomorrow the birds will sing.

“You can keep me, Rook.” It’s in this moment I realize I would do anything for him. So much so that I’m going to tell him about the arrangement, see if he can help me so that Rose won’t be just as trapped. Anything he asks, I would do it.

I’ve fallen in love with the devil.

Against my better judgment, I care about her. I want her.

“What is this scar from?” His hazy tone rubbed against my skin like velvet, the pads of his fingers brushing the raised skin. I told him the story of me falling off a merry-go-round as a kid and how after, my mom stopped letting me play on the playground. She was afraid I’d cause permanent damage to my face, and God forbid you look anything less than perfect. “Rosie thinks it’ll tell me who my soul mate is,” I finished. “I think she just tells me that to make me feel better about it.” “Why does she think that?” “Silas has a scar on his pinky finger in the exact same place her birthmark is. Soul marks. That’s what she calls them.” My hands raked through his hair, twirling a few pieces, and I pressed my nails into his scalp, knowing how much he loved it. He moved suddenly, leaning back a bit so there was some space between us. With deliberate movements, he flipped the burning end of the blunt towards him, lifting it to my mouth so I could inhale. I filled my lungs, and when I was finished, he drove the cherry into his skin. The sizzling of skin made my spine rattle. Even though I was high, I knew what he did was real. Jesus, he didn’t even flinch. He barely moved. My eyes widened briefly. “What the fuck are you doing?” I cursed, snatching his wrist to tug the heat away from his body, in shock that one person could handle so much pain so abruptly. He didn’t even think about it; he just did it. A nasty, crimson burn was left behind, just above his collarbone. The angry...

No one tells you how painful panic attacks can be.

Patience has never been my virtue.

Prison doesn’t scare me—what could they do to me that I hadn’t already been through out here? But the boys. I don’t want that for them. So, I stay patient for them. Always for them.

“Just how far are you willing to travel into the dark before you see nothing good remains there?”

How the fuck did I end up here? Why the hell do I attract shit like this?

Sage Donahue is back, and if they thought I was bad before, they’re in for a rude awakening. Because now? I don’t give a fuck.

I’m met with eyes that are half-mast and blazing. Ones that keep me up at night.

Subconsciously, I reach up to my collarbone, rubbing my scar that lies beneath my clothes. I’d done this so many times before for comfort, trying to see if I could conjure up good memories and feelings by touching the mark we now shared.

The Rook I’d once known. The one who’d so desperately wanted to keep me. The boy I thought could love me… Is gone.

She nods. “You’ve actually had a lot of classes with me, but it’s fine. I’m surprised you remember that one. I don’t get noticed often.” The way she says it isn’t sad; it’s just a fact. One that she has accepted.

“Welcome to the Loner Society, Sage.”

In the years I’d known Alistair, he’d never once broken a promise to me. Ever.

Silas and Thatcher can easily conceal their emotions. Hell, Thatch doesn’t even feel them. Alistair and I, we live in the anger. In the feeling. We use it for fuel.

All four of us take our seats and stay there in silence. We don’t need to talk—we never really have. We don’t show up here to chat about our days or talk hair salon gossip. We come here to exist.

To everyone else, we are just random guys living life. Here, we are nothing but the bad apples they can blame their problems on. And at the end of the day, all we really want is to exist in a world that doesn’t paint us as villains.

Her voice stutters, as her fingers reach up to her collarbone, rubbing above the spot where her scar sits, in the same spot I have a scar of my own.

Cold things bite into your skin, sting with their low temperatures, and leave you feeling empty. But I’ve always liked that. I like the way the cold keeps everything frozen, leaving it a permanent memory.

“You do realize if this game requires running, I’m screwed, right?” Lyra looks at us both, before sighing, “Fine, let’s do it.”

she’s so me

Briar is bound by love, and I’m bound by assisted arson,”

Born to ignite. Born to live and go down in flames.

They wanted this, right? They wanted to tear down what was left of a hopeless boy and make him into a monster they could hate. They wanted evil, so I became the king of it.

We all have different motivations for why we need these things to cope with our lives. It’s not about knowing the reason or even understanding it. It’s not about any of that. It’s about being there for each other. Being what each other requires to get by. We made an unspoken oath when we were young. That it didn’t matter how far or how dark we had to go, if one of the guys needed something, we would always be there. We would be that for them, whatever the cost.

The rest of the world had shit on us. Thrown us away like trash. Forgotten us. Left us to decay and rot. All we have is one another, and that will always be enough.

“God, I hate him. I’d love to feed him to fire ants,” Lyra says, shaking her head.

easton deserves this

I’d become a member of their Loner Society, and it felt good.

“You don’t get to die,” I hear. “Not that easily.”

He looks so ruined yet so beautiful. Such a pretty boy, but even Lucifer was pretty once upon a time. The most beautiful. An angel.

I’d gotten distracted. By a girl with torn wings. She’d fallen hard, so quickly I wasn’t even sure I’d seen it.

The way she clung to me in the water, how she was desperately seeking me, stealing my energy. Like she would die if I let her go.

But it’s impossible to control myself when it comes to her. It’s like every feeling, every emotion I have is heightened when she is around, when she is mentioned. No matter how many times I try to rip her out of my system, she just finds a way to crawl back, turning me into someone I don’t recognize, someone who gets pissy with his friends because they look at her a certain way or threaten her.

“Six minutes,” Thatcher says. “Each cigarette takes six minutes off your life, did you know that?” I can’t help but laugh a little. “Six minutes closer to the goal.”

Thinking, how the hell did we end up here? All of us are even more tormented and twisted than we once were, spending every single day getting closer and closer to the grave.

The scene goes deeper, speaking about how quickly love can be destroyed by the ones around you. By the expectations set by your family and friends. How we are expected to marry within our own societal standards. That if you must be with someone that is just right for you in the eyes of the world. Not too young, not too old. It’s the tale of star-crossed lovers in a different setting, a different space. But the pain, it’s still the same. The sting of wanting what you can never, ever have. It’s a sting I know. A sting so sharp that I start to crack through Hermia’s character. My pain, as Sage, flows within the act.

Hermia promises to meet him so they can run off together, a promise I wish I could have given to Rook. Words I wish I could’ve said. It hurts that I couldn’t say how I was really feeling, that I couldn’t give him my truths when it mattered most.

They say you never truly realize how much you care about a person until they’re gone. And when he was gone? He took me with him. But the smoke stayed. It lingered, filling the hollow spaces. The me I’d always wanted to be, he owned it, and I know I’ll never get it back.