Fate's Surrender (Eternal Sorrows Book 3) by Sarra Cannon (android based ebook reader txt) 📕

in that photo, you know? I thought having a house like this or being married to the right kind of guy would make all the difference,” she said. “But mostly, I just wanted to get out of my house and away from my dad. I was counting down the days til senior year and then graduation. Now, looking back, I don’t know that I would have made it another year in that house without losing my mind.”

“It was that bad?” he asked.

He didn’t want to press her on this particular topic. He was pretty sure he already understood the kind of guy Karmen’s dad had been. The types of things he’d done to her.

Whenever he thought of it, he wanted to pick up his machine gun and go looking for the dude. Even if he was already dead, Crash wanted to kill him again.

“There aren’t words for how bad it was,” she said, her voice hitching slightly. “But you don’t want to hear about all that.”

He wanted to change the subject, to protect her, but he wondered if she somehow needed to let it out and talk about it for once.

“I want to hear about whatever you want to tell me,” he said, turning toward her. “Maybe we’ll find out we have more in common than we thought.”

“How so?” she asked, carefully wiping a finger across her cheek.

“My dad was a piece of shit, too,” he said. “He used to beat my mom. She’d go into the hospital and swear she was never coming back. But then, he always convinced her to come home or held something over her head until she felt like she had no choice, like she was some kind of prisoner. He liked to toss me around a bit, too, and I have no doubt it would have gotten a lot worse if Mom hadn’t finally gotten me out of there.”

“She sounds like a very strong woman,” Karmen said.

“She was incredible,” he said, closing his eyes and picturing the way she used to read to him every night and push his hair behind his ears just before she kissed his forehead. “Losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

“You were lucky to have someone who loved you like that,” she said.

“Everyone deserves to be loved like that,” he said.

Tears glistened in her eyes, and she reached for his hand, snuggling up next to him.

This whole time, he’d looked at Karmen like she was stuck up or too good for him. Like she’d never go for a guy like him because he wasn’t worthy of her.

But now, in the light of the moon here by the water, he saw her for what she truly was.

A girl who had never once believed she deserved love, yet who needed it more than most.

She wasn’t angry or mean or rude. She was just guarded to an extreme, and for good reason. The truth behind those walls she’d built was scary and almost unbelievable. Not the kind of thing you’d have thought a beautiful, rich cheerleader from the perfect preppy neighborhood would have gone through.

He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and take it all away.

Since he couldn’t change the past, though, and nearly everything about their future was uncertain, he did the one thing he knew he could do to help.

He put his arm around her and pulled her closer, no longer afraid to make a move or scared she’d reject him.

Talk about a waste of a life, he thought. Well, he wasn’t going to waste another second.

“Tell me about your favorite books,” he said. “I saw the way you were eyeing my copy of The Catcher in the Rye. You’re a reader like me. So, spill it. Your favorite author, favorite books, favorite characters you would change places with if you could. Tell me everything.”

She leaned forward and looked at him skeptically.

“Seriously? We’re out here under the moon, sharing our deepest secrets, and you want to hear about my book collection?” she asked.

“Yes, I do,” he said. “We’ve got a few hours until Noah takes over the next watch, and if you’re as wide awake as I am, I can’t think of any better way to spend it than right here with you, talking about our favorite things. I have a feeling we have more in common than we thought.”

“Wow, my favorite,” she said. “Are you sure you’re up for this, because I don’t think there’s any way I could possibly pick just one. This could take a while.”

“I’ve got all night,” he said.

Their eyes locked, and he saw something there he’d never seen before.

Trust.

A slow smile spread across her beautiful face, and she lay back against him, finally relaxing as she put a hand on his chest.

“Okay,” she said. “So let’s start with this fantasy series called The Wheel of Time. Have you ever read it?”

“What do I look like?” he asked. “An amateur?”

She laughed, and for the next five hours, they lay there together talking, the heated pool and the state of the world long forgotten, if just for a little while.

Twenty-Five

Karmen

Despite all she had been through, Karmen was happy to find the beach could still raise her spirits. She awoke feeling refreshed.

And thinking about Crash.

It had to have been around three in the morning when Noah had found them out by the pool, their bodies tangled together, laughing and talking about things she’d never been free to share with anyone.

He had made all her exhaustion disappear, like she could have stayed up all night talking.

There had been a part of her that wanted to invite him to come back to her room to sleep, if only so they could stay tangled up the way they had been for hours.

But in the end, she’d been too embarrassed.

Or too scared of where things might go.

It wasn’t like they could really date each other during the apocalypse, and she didn’t want to fall for him only to watch him die.

But she