“Shh love,” he whispered cradling her tight against him. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped this. It is not your fault.”
He soothed her hair back, kissing her gently as he held her head to his chest. Shivers began to wrack through her, goose bumps broke out on her flesh. He rubbed her arms and legs, trying to get some heat back into her frozen flesh. Her sobs abated, but tears still rolled down her face. He needed to get her out of here and he needed to get her somewhere warm.
Lifting her gently, he groaned at the feel of her slight weight in his arms. Even if she didn’t accept him back into her life, he was going to make damn sure that she started to eat. Soon. She curled tighter against his chest, her hand clutched his shirt. The shivers wracking through her grew stronger as the wind began to pick up. The skeleton branches of the trees clicked louder as the wind howled through them.
He moved swiftly through the snow, breaking over the top of the hill as Chris and Melissa rolled to a stop in Chris’s car. Apparently they had decided to come here in search of her. He was grateful for that as Melissa jumped swiftly from the passenger side, and grabbed a blanket from the backseat. She hurried toward them, her dark eyes questioning and worried. Devon took the blanket from Melissa and wrapped it gently around Cassie, pulling it firmly against her.
He followed Melissa back to the car and eased Cassie into the backseat. Sliding in beside her, he gathered her back into his arms, unwilling to part from her for even a moment again.
CHAPTER 5
“You need to eat.”
Cassie lifted her head as Devon appeared in the doorway of her room, a tray of food in his hands. She felt hollow, shaken, exhausted. But she did not feel the fury anymore. It was as if the tears had burned it all away, washing it clean, purifying it. She still felt the burning need for justice, for revenge, but the inner rage that had fired so brightly before did not flare anymore. She tried to find it, for it had been what was keeping her going, but she couldn’t summon the strength for it anymore.
She watched as he moved slowly into the room. His shoulders were set; his body was tensed in preparation, as if afraid he would scare her away. Her heart flipped over, tears burned her eyes once more. Tears she would have thought had run dry by now, but seemed endless. She had been so cruel to him, so cold and unforgiving when there had been no real reason to be. And yet, despite all her cruelty he had been so loving to her today, taken care of her and now he was standing there with a tray full of food for her.
She did not deserve him. She did not deserve many things, she realized. He moved slowly toward her, his eyes weary and watchful. Placing the tray on top of her bureau, he turned toward her. “How are you feeling?”
Cassie shrugged as she twisted the towel in her hand. She still felt cold, even though she had spent almost a half an hour in the shower. She was fairly certain that the chill was permanently in her bones, and she was certain that it was not about to go away anytime soon. She just didn’t know how she felt emotionally though, not anymore. She had been enraged for two weeks, now she was just empty. She didn’t know how to describe that to him. She didn’t even know how to figure it out for herself.
“You went home?” she asked quietly, glancing over his clothes.
He looked down at his fresh pair of jeans and deep green sweater. He hadn’t been wearing them before gym. “No, Chris grabbed some clothes for me.”
Cassie’s eyebrows drew sharply together. Chris had been to his place? She had never even been to his place. A shudder wracked through her, she grasped her elbows in a vain attempt to warm herself. She had known all along that Chris and Devon still talked with each other, but it sounded as if they had become far closer than she’d realized. She didn’t know how to feel about that. Though, she knew that they had needed each other when she had so brutally shut them both out of her life.
She rocked slightly forward, waves of self hatred crashing over her, leaving her shaken. “Cassie…”
She held up a hand, holding him off as he approached. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’m so sorry.” Tears rolled freely down her face, sobs rocked forcefully through her once more.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he said gently, the tone of his voice loving and longing. “Cassie, listen to me, you did nothing wrong.”
She shook her head, wiping the tears from her face as she tried to stifle her sobs again. She had been crying for hours, how could there possibly be any tears left in her? “I treated everyone so badly, especially you. How can you even stand to look at me?”
He came swiftly toward her, dropping to his knees as he seized hold of her hands. “Look at me,” he ordered gruffly. “Cassie look at me.” She lifted her head slowly, her gaze clashing with his bright emerald one. She swallowed heavily, love swamping her. He had been everything to her, and she had turned her back on him. She had turned him away, cutting him deeply, and wounding him greatly. She had blamed him for something that was not his fault, but was in fact hers. She had hurt him greatly, and there was nothing that she could do about it, there was no way to take away the hurt that she had caused him.
“What you went through, what you are going through is an awful, brutal thing. No one knows how they are going to react when they lose someone they love.”
“I was cruel though, mean…” her voice trailed off as she turned her attention to the window.
Her forehead furrowed as she tried to recall the way she had felt for the past two weeks. It was as if she had been a different person, as if something had taken her over, filling her with hatred, making her someone alien and cold. Someone she couldn’t stand to be around, but had to live with every moment of the day. She couldn’t say that to him though, she couldn’t tell him that it had been someone else in her body, for it was a cop out. And of course it had been her, who else could it have possibly been?
She turned her attention back to him. “I was someone that I didn’t want to be, that I didn’t recognize. But it was me, and I was disgusting. I never thought I could be like that.”
His hands tightened on hers, his emerald eyes rapidly searched her face. “Stop Cassie, stop doing this to yourself. Stop hating yourself. I love you Cassie. No matter what, I love you.” Cassie’s eyes widened, anguish tore through her as more tears spilled forth. She didn’t deserve his love, not at all. He never would have turned against her, never would have hurt her in this way. “No matter what happens I will always love you.”