Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 132512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
As if he didn’t want to hurt Cole and was ready to give his life for the sake of misguided secrecy. How dare he? Didn’t Cole deserve to know Ned’s reasons? The reasons why he’d chosen murder over love?
Cole choked up, shivering when Ned’s finger slid under the sleeve of his coat and touched skin, starting a fire to consume everything Cole stood for. Ned’s thumb stroked his wrist even now, as if to say it was all right to kill him.
Cole looked down with his teeth pressed together, ready to spit into Ned’s face, but when he met Ned’s gaze, as green as he remembered it being in the Arizona sun, his heart ached as if it had been stabbed.
Ned was a liar, and even the confession at the gallows could have been horseshit, but the emotions buzzing in Cole were true. Every bit of him longed for Ned, and despite the bitterness gnawing at him from the inside, he’d missed his first true lover. The time they’d spent together might have been a fleeting fancy for Ned, but it had meant the world to Cole. Still did, no matter how violently his mind rebelled against it. This was the only man who made Cole feel understood, and if Cole pushed on his throat with a bit more force, he’d be lost forever.
There wouldn’t be a soul in the world to understand what Cole had gone through.
“I… I can’t kill you,” he uttered, letting go. His fingers were stiff, and every muscle in his body ached, but he couldn’t bring himself to snuff out Ned O’Leary’s life.
He was a pathetic excuse for a man.
Ned clutched at his neck, as if there was still need to pry off Cole’s fingers, but he was breathing again, and each frantic gasp sounded like an accusation.
Cole rolled off him and faced the shallow grave that had been meant to hold his or Ned’s body by the time the sun rose again. The kerosene had burned out during the fight, leaving them in the dark, inches away from Lars’s body.
He couldn’t stand himself.
Seven years wasted on chasing after a ghost, all for nothing. He wished Ned would grab the knife at Cole’s belt and slit his throat, then kick him into the empty hole.
But Ned refused him, and he always would.
Cole no longer had any purpose and no one to call a friend, so he curled up in the snow, resigned to his fate. He didn’t even shrug Ned’s hand off when it squeezed his shoulder.
Ned coughed and spoke with a low rasp, “I will tell you. I will tell you everything if you think it will give you the peace you crave, but… I know it won’t. It will change everything you think you know about Tom and me.”
Cole stilled at first, but as snow melted against his skin, he chuckled. “Don’t think anything could make my opinion of you any worse.”
Ned cleared his throat, taking so much time to cull the constant urge to cough Cole’s tired eyes shut and he almost drifted off into a slumber. What came next roused him more than even the strongest coffee could.
“We met here seventeen years ago. I was the boy in that cupboard,” Ned said in a dull voice. “The one you never spoke about to anyone but me. I’m pretty sure you saved my life back then.”
At once, Cole found it hard to breathe, as if Ned had been choking him, not the other way around. His gaze settled on the roof of the cabin, which was covered by a dense layer of snow, just like it had been his first time here. Seventeen years ago.
“I—” He swallowed, torn between rolling back to see Ned’s face and keeping his own hidden. “You survived.”
“Some days I wish I didn’t, but here I am. We lived here because my father was strong, but had a gentle soul. He wanted to avoid taking part in the war, but violence came to his doorstep either way. When you arrived with the Gotham Boys that night, my mother hid me in the pantry, but I still heard my father scream and beg for mercy. Tom showed him none.” Ned shifted behind Cole, and his voice now came from above, as if he’d sat up. “When Tom and Zeb were done with my father, they ordered my mother to cook. I considered bursting out of the pantry with a knife or a shotgun, doing something, but I was so scared, and my mother had told me to stay silent and not leave the hideout under any circumstances.”
“I remember,” Cole whispered, stiff as if the cold had frozen the blood in his veins. He remained still despite his guts twisting into a painful knot. He hadn’t seen anything beyond the beating that poor man—Ned’s father—had gotten, but even back then, as a small child, Cole had known what the later silence had meant. “They killed your father.”