9. ~Sebastian~

“Just friends?” Ashley said, repeating my words back to me.

I leaned against the wall outside the room we’d just had our support group meeting in. “Yeah. I’m sorry, it’s just—”

“You’re not ready. Or, perhaps your sponsor doesn’t believe you are.”

“Either way.”

She smiled and stepped up to me, folding her arms across the chest of her pink wrap dress, a silver jeweled purse swinging from her right arm. “It’s not just friends.”

Off my worried look and my noticeable tensing, thinking she wasn’t taking the rejection well, she ended up laughing. “Chill. I meant, it’s a big deal to actually be friends with someone. You know my story from group, I burned a lot of bridges when I hit rock bottom. Outside of my immediate family, I’m pretty much empty on the friend front, especially a friend like you who actually gets all this stuff we’re going through.”

Relief sung through me. I smiled at her taking it so well. “Thanks for being cool about it.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s actually best to avoid going the romantic entanglement route with somebody new, as hot and as sweet as you are. As much as I’ve tried to push it aside so I could focus on getting better, there’s some stuff I do need to actually handle with my ex. Asking you out kind of brought it home to me.”

“I know what you mean there.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“You did?”

“It was kind of all over you. Somebody hurt you, right? You’re still hung up on her?”

“Maybe.” I scrubbed my hand over my face. “It’s fucking stupid, is what it is.”

“Falling in love is never stupid. It’s courageous to take a chance like that.”

That was a nice way of looking at it.

“Like I said, I’ve got my own issues in that area. While I doubt mine can be resolved, perhaps yours actually can. If there’s any chance with how strongly you feel about her, given that it’s still impacting you, I’d take it, Sebastian. A connection like that doesn’t come along often. Not the kind that actually makes you feel alive.” She winked. “You know, without any artificial input like we’re all too used to?”

“Hilarious.”

She laughed. “I know, right?” She adjusted her purse on her shoulder, then told me, “Anyway, I’ve gotta get to a photoshoot right now. See you around, okay?”

“You will,” I assured her.

With that, she spun on her heel and took off down the corridor.

As she was about to turn the corner to head out of the brand-new building, she pulled up short as Cas rounded it. They exchanged a few words that I couldn’t hear from this distance, and then she disappeared around the corner.

Cas spotted me right away.

And I spotted that haunted look in his eyes.

Shit.

I swallowed hard as he approached me.

“What’s happened?” I asked, meeting him halfway as the worry I was feeling from him got the best of me.

“Skylar has been found.”

Well, shit

I pacedthe living room of King Manor.

I’d been pacing the damn space for the last twenty minutes since we’d driven back here.

Waiting the fifteen minutes before that which it had taken to get from here to the house had been a bitch of a thing, as we’d been in separate vehicles, so I’d had to wait until we’d arrived before Cas had given me all the details. He hadn’t wanted to do it over the phone.

And, given the classified nature of a lot of it, he hadn’t wanted to divulge any of the rest of it in a public setting either.

“I debated on whether to tell you when I first got word, but upon unearthing these details,” he said, gesturing at the surveillance photos of a goddamn killing ground, “It’s become clear that she needs help, the kind that requires a personal connection to be able to reach her.”

I grimaced and looked away from the gruesome photos.

Not because it was any squeamishness on my part, but because it was her who’d dealt all of that out.

She’d struggled with that side of herself before, but she’d managed to get it under control.

This, though, it was beyond all of that, she’d smashed right through it and taken things to an unimaginable level.

“This is beyond Onyx,” I finally managed to utter. “I mean, she was always able to handle herself, but this is something else. Being able to walk into that bar and take out half a dozen big motherfuckers like that… shit, Cas.”

“Yes, it’s clear she’s had additional training.”

“So, you want me to go in, reason with her, stop this ill-fated mission of hers?”

“Not you.”

“Of course it needs to be me. I was the closest one to her.”

“And now that closeness has been weakened by distance and whole lot of hate, Bastian.”

“You do it and she’s gonna just see it as you stopping her for the good of your own goal of taking down Elijah.”

“It needs to be Caleb.”

I came to an abrupt stop. “You’re serious?”

He shoved his hand through his hair. “Yes.”

“You really think he’ll just be willing to walk back into all of this, just like that?”

“I think it’s the in he’s been missing all this time, the invitation to come back in.”

Interesting. “Huh.” And then it occurred to me, the absolute certainty coming off him. “You already made contact with him, didn’t you?”

“I did. It’s in motion.”

“Jesus. Okay… good.”

He rose from the couch and came to me. “Now, I need to contain her, but you get to determine where that happens. Ideally, it makes sense for it to be here, a place she’s familiar with and comfortable with, which will make it conducive to being able to reach her. But if you feel that it’ll be too much for you, if there’s any part of you that’s worried it could become a tipping point for you, and detrimental to your recovery, there are other places I can put her up.”

“I actually think it’s just what my recovery needs, Cas.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“This lack of closure, it’s still weighing on me all these years later. Her being here will give me the opportunity long-denied to finally put it to bed.” I sucked in a breath. “To be at peace with it all. With Caleb being pulled back, we’ll be able to get that from him too.”

He still looked worried.

I stepped up to him. “If things start to become too much once she’s here, I’ll make it known to you. I swear it. I’m not going down that relapse road again, not after coming so fucking far.”

He gave my shoulder a squeeze. “So be it. I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”