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"And I call bullshit on you You knohat you o to, all to et justice"

I took in a deep breath, so conscious of how close his face was to mine, soonto ain I had to say what I needed to say and had to say it right Being straight was the only way out

"Javier I appreciate you saving us And I do want to get your sister soet Gus back, then I owe you everything in the world But e shared, e had, is over It was over the moment I found out your true intentions It was over thepuppet on a string And it was over when I realized you and I are as toxic as the poison you put in my necklace That has always been the truth and that will never change The us that was is gone This is the new us We can help each other and if we can’t, then we shouldn’t be in each other’s lives If you’re going to have your own agenda and your own plan other than helping ht, and never look back at each other Never look for each Move on and forget Do you understand?"

My heart was beating so hard I could feel it into take this

He stared at me stone-faced, as if he didn’t even hear ainst the roof of his"I think I understand Yes, I think I hear you" He cleared his throat and straightened up, still straddling rasp His eyes still focused upward and he said, "Angel, angel, angel," while shaking his head back and forth "I thought I knew you I only knew the … fetus … compared to the wo disappointot up andthe door behind hi at ered like aftertaste The thing was, a part of e on Travis But now that it was his idea, I wasn’t about to give hie when it came to tricks, to contacts, to the plan But I felt like I had the e it would last and I didn’t knohat kind of man it would make him – this would be the second time I’d spurned him after all He was a loose cannon, a wild card and it was theout fro if he was in his room or outside the door like he’d said It hurt like hell that he’d asked me to stay with Javier I wanted Camden to be protective, to be my shield, especially nohen I needed hihappen to me, that he would do his best to et Gus back, that he’d return me to California all in one piece I just didn’t kno deep his wounds went either When he was gone, Javier had been the person I relied on, whether that was a smart decision or not But noith Caravitate toward hiht of my nature My real nature, my real self, wanted that person to believe in nore the bad, and make me feel like I had a future Cah now that he was closer than ever, I felt that future being taken away from me All because I made a foolish mistake All because I had no faith

The fact hen I really looked at it, when I really searched deep inside, I was still in love with Camden It was a love I had to bury for the last feeeks, a love I thought I could never have, that I’d never deserve But I felt it, hidden underneath the layers, like the center of the sun It was blinding when you had a glih that you kneas there, shining down on you I’d let et burned if I could

Yet now that everything had changed between us, that he knew I’d been with Javier, that I’d been sleeping with hiuehi But he wouldn’t believe that and even I knew that was a bit of a lie, because Javier didJust for thoseitThat hat I was having the hardest ti ot what it needed at the tied to hiht would come for me What man would ever understand that? Camden was noble but he was still a o out of his way to make sure I was okay but I was afraid he’d never let his own heart get over it I was so fucking afraid that he’d never let hiain

I felt shredded up inside and hed and looked down at my dress It was dirty, brown from mud, and I quickly shimmied out of it and into a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt I brought out of one of the spare bags from the trunk before Javier cao out to Camden, but even then I wouldn’t knohat to say And, he was right Someone had to make sure that Javier wasn’t about to screw us over, especially now that I’d slighted hied on thehis noet hair, with a towel A shoould have been nice considering I had dried patches of dirt onJavier alone right now

"You’re still here?" he asked, tossing the towel across the room He walked barefoot, just a towel around his waist, to the bed "I would have thought you’d left after what you’d said to me"

"Sorry, you’re stuck withmy head away before he dropped his towel like I kneould

"Or perhaps you’re the one stuck with me," he said He climbed in under the shawl-like blanket I’d left on the bed and rolled over to his side

"You’re not going to turn off the light?" I asked

He laughed quietly, facing the wall "Believe el, you don’t want to see what coradually lay back down, keepingand I did ht on, it wasn’t too long before I fell asleep

I akened the nexthands on my face I smiled into his touch, still half-asleep and delirious with dreams

"See, she’s alive," Javier’s voice broke through the clouds I blinked a few times and looked beyond Ca behind Camden’s crouched body, fully clothed and ready to face the day

"Then why is she on the floor?" Ca behind him in annoyance

Javier turned around and left my vision "Because she wanted to sleep there"

Ca his head as Javier left the room "Asshole Like he couldn’t have taken the floor himself" But I could tell he was relieved that I hadn’t shared Javier’s bed I was relieved too I fell asleep and slept all the way through the night I was still exhausted and groggy-headed, though, but I felt est metropolis, Mexico City