Read Online A Fractured Light (Beautiful Dark) by Jocelyn Davies - Free Book Online Page A

something to herself. “But it felt like everyone needed something different from me . And I didn’t know how to handle it all. Like everyone had a different idea of what my life should be. I had to get away.”
    “Skye,” she said softly. “What happened to Cassie was not your fault. One thing has nothing to do with the other.” I wished right then that I could have told her everything, but that’s how Cassie had gotten hurt in the first place. If I broke down and told Aunt Jo, I’d only be putting her in danger, too. And after seeing Cass in the hospital that day, her face bruised and her arms and legs in casts—that was something I couldn’t face.
    I just had to handle this on my own.
    Not on your own , a voice in the back of my mind whispered. You have Asher now. You have the whole Rebellion on your side.
    “A cabin,” Aunt Jo mused, breaking me out of my thoughts. “What kind of cabin?”
    “Kind of old. There was one of those toilets with the chains and weird closets with lots of little drawers. But someone was living there much more recently: there was coffee from at least the nineties or something.”
    Aunt Jo got a funny look in her eye. “I know that place,” she said. “I put that coffee there. Into the Woods has been trying to buy it for years, to use as a trail stop.” A small smile spread across her face. “How funny that you ended up in that cabin. That’s really where you went?”
    I nodded.
    “Thank you for telling me,” she said. “I’m not happy that you felt you had to run away for a few days instead of talking to me about it—”
    “You were never here!”
    “—but I understand that I was gone a lot. Jeez, Skye, I was just about to say that. I’m so sorry I left you alone for so long. I’m here now, and I’ll be here when you need me. Just talk to me, okay?” She eyed the cut on my face. “Believe it or not, your old Aunt Jo was a teenager once.”
    “Please,” I snorted.
    “All I’m saying is, I may know what you’re going through better than you think.”
    “Fine.” I slowly let my fists unclench under the table. “I’ll try.”
    “Good, but for now, you should go to bed,” she said. “You look exhausted.” She stood up and walked toward the door. When she got there, she turned around. The light from the stairs cast a fuzzy halo around her blondish-gray hair. There was something in her eyes that I couldn’t figure out.
    Things were definitely different between us now. First Ian, now Aunt Jo.
    I realized that the look in her eyes—it was worry. Fear. It was different from the looks she’d given me earlier in the winter, each time she was about to go away and afraid of leaving me alone. No, this wasn’t about what might happen to me. It was, I realized, about what I had done—or might do.
    It was the same way Asher had treated me at the cabin. Like I was something fragile and yet unpredictable, something extremely precious.
    I glanced at the window, wondering if he and Ardith—and Gideon now, too—were out there. Watching. Keeping me safe.
    When I turned back from the window, Aunt Jo was still staring at me.
    “You look older,” she said. “You know that?”
    I thought about all that had happened to me since I’d turned seventeen.
    “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I am.” There were dark circles under her eyes and the lines in her forehead looked deeper than I’d remembered. She looked older, too.
    “G’night,” she said.
    “Night, Aunt Jo,” I whispered back.
    I couldn’t really remember what it felt like to be with my mom, but if I’d had to guess, I figured it probably felt exactly like this.
     
    I stayed in the kitchen for a few minutes longer after Aunt Jo went upstairs, absently nibbling on a cookie. The spicy sweet taste reminded me of everything from before. Suddenly my stomach flipped, and I didn’t feel so great. A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered that time in the kitchen, at night, alone, when Raven had first confronted