28. Ash
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ash
I f that was how things were going to be, then what the hell was I waiting for? The only reason I’d been putting off the opportunity to start over was for Lorraine’s sake. She didn’t want to stay here with me. She’d said so herself, so I wasn’t going to keep playing this game. I knew what waited for me—a whole lot of pain and heartache—and I wasn’t ready to walk that road again. This time, I was the one who got to decide how this would work. “Hey, man,” Rowan said, running to catch up with me when I stormed past. “You have to listen to this. I was with Clea…” His voice faltered, and he frowned at me as I stormed on. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing,” I snapped. “Why don’t you go back to your business and leave me alone?”
“What the hell is going on with you?” Rowan asked, grabbing my arm to spin me around. I yanked my arm back and glared at him, but he got what he wanted—I’d stopped long enough to pay attention to him. “I said mind your own business.” My words were clipped, hands balled into fists. I was fucking furious. Rowan narrowed his eyes at me, not bothered at all that I was about to lose my shit in a big way. Then again, he’d never really been scared of me. “What happened?” he asked. “Nothing happened.”
“Come on, man, stop being a dick and tell me what’s going on. Is it Lorraine?”
I shook my head, but I didn’t say the words because of course it was Lorraine. “What did you do?”
“Rowan asked. “Why the fuck do you assume I did something?” I demanded. “Didn’t you?”
“I’m not the one who said that this was over!”
Rowan paled. “Did she call it off?”
I ground my teeth, trying to keep it together. “What did she say?” Rowan asked, probing. It pissed me off that he wouldn’t just let me go, but he was set on finding out what was going on, and I knew the only way to get rid of him would be to tell him what he wanted to know and save us both some energy and time. “She said she wasn’t going to stay here with me.”
“Okay… that’s big,” Rowan said. “Did she give you a reason?”
I didn’t answer him. Her reason had been because I was pushing her into a decision she wasn’t ready to make, but if I said it out loud, Rowan would tell me it was stupid of me to react the way I was reacting. I knew it was stupid, but what the hell was I supposed to do? “What was her reason, Ash?” Rowan asked again, his brows knitted together. “She said I had to give her more time,” I bit out. “More time than All Hallows’ Eve?”
I sighed and looked away. “More time than right now.”
Rowan shook his head, confused. “You asked her to make her choice right now?”
“I had to know,” I said. “I told her to choose, and she did.”
Rowan shook his head. “Damn it, Ash, what’s the hurry?”
“The rest of my life!” I cried out. “I have a chance to leave it all behind, but I couldn’t wait for her to decide if she wanted this or not. I have to decide soon, and if she’s not on board with staying here with me, then there’s no reason for me to stay.”
Rowan bristled. “Thanks, asshole.”
I shook my head. I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with Rowan and his need to feel accepted. He knew what I meant. “Look,” I said. “The fact of the matter is it’s over, so I’m leaving, and that’s all there is to it.”
“You were going to go without saying goodbye?”
I sighed. He was right; I should have gone to find him to say goodbye. I’d just been so driven by my pain and so ready to leave it all behind that I hadn’t thought straight. “I just had to get out of here,” I said, knowing how shit it sounded. “That’s good to know,” Rowan said bleakly. “You know what? I don’t understand you. You have so much going for you, but you can’t deal with even one small thing going wrong.”
I stared at Rowan. “What did you just say to me?”
“You heard me,” Rowan said, jutting his chin up at me. “I know you’ve been through a tough time, but do you think life is all sunshine and rainbows for the rest of us? We all go through shit, man. We all deal with tough times, but the rest of us don’t keep looking for a way out, and we sure as shit don’t hurt the people who care about us in the process.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to stick around for a lecture. If this is what you want our last chat to be, then I’m out.”
“Fine,” Rowan said. “You just remember when you’re wherever the hell you’re going in your shiny new life, that the one thing you can’t escape after all your effort… is you.”
I glared at Rowan. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rowan shook his head and turned his back on me. A pang shot into my chest when he walked away. He’d been my best friend for as long as I could remember, but I’d fucked that up when I’d pulled away from him. I’d fucked up a lot of things in the past couple of weeks. Whatever. It didn’t matter.
I’d told Lorraine to suck it, and Rowan could go and jump in the lake for all I cared, because once I took Dolus up on his deal, I wouldn’t know any of it anyway. It was the only reason I’d ended it with Lorraine now, no matter how much it hurt, because I wasn’t going to know about all of this when I finally went… wherever Dolus was taking me. Pain didn’t matter when I wouldn’t know what hurt me in the first place. That counted for everything—Lorraine, Ava, the three centuries I’d been building a crappy life, losing my best friend and the other gods and goddesses. It was time for me to leave my past behind and step forward, and Dolus had offered me an out. That was what I’d wanted all along, and now that I knew what my future would be, I knew that I didn’t want it. I marched on until I was in a different part of the forest where I didn’t know the trees so well, didn’t know the druses that lived in them. “Dolus!” I shouted. Nothing. Where the hell was he? “Dolus!” I shouted again. “Come on, man, I know you’ve been watching me. Now would be a good time to show yourself!”
He appeared in front of me, his broad, flat grin stretched across his face. “You rang?” he asked sarcastically. I rolled my eyes. “I’ve made my decision.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded. “I just need you to tell me again—I won’t remember anything, right?”
“Nothing at all, your past will be gone, and you can start over.”
“Where am I going?” I asked. “I told you, I can’t tell you that,” Dolus said. “That will just give you another choice, and I’m sick of you and your choices.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I let it go. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
Dolus grinned broadly. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“You’ll make sure I end up in a good place, right?” I asked Dolus. The world around me started to tremble and shake. I looked around, but it was as if I wasn’t in the world anymore, rather, floating detached from it. A rumbling sound started, getting louder and louder. “Dolus?” I cried out. “Answer me!”
The sound of Dolus’s laughter echoed all around me, getting louder and louder. “Dolus!” I shouted to be heard at all. “Where am I going?”
“What does it matter?” Dolus cried out. “You won’t remember anything, so you won’t know what you’re leaving behind!”
“Dolus, what does that mean!?” I cried out, but Dolus was gone. Only his echoing laughter remained. The magic inside me came alive, and it started tugging at my core. It filled me up, ripping and tugging at me, making me feel like I was unraveling, coming undone at the seams. I screamed, but I could barely hear my voice above the rumble and Dolus’s laughter around me. And then it all went black.