Wrath of an Exile: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (The River Styx Heathens Book 1)

Jude

November 17

“Home!” I shout.

The house responds in silence, its emptiness familiar.

I scan the room, eyes landing on the collection of empty vodka bottles scattered across the coffee table like abandoned promises. I grab all five, tossing them into the trash with a force that rattles the bin.

I’ve learned my lesson about leaving them out. Once was enough—a night spent in the ER getting my back stapled shut was the price I paid.

I listen, straining for a sound—any sound—but it’s just me and the hollow thump of my heartbeat. I head for the stairs, my footsteps heavy on the creaking wood.

Let’s hope it’s just booze tonight.

“Put your dick away, old man,” I say through the door, turning the handle and letting myself into his room. “Did you eat today?”

There’s no answer, just the dim, flickering light of a dying lamp that barely pierces the darkness. But it’s enough. Enough to see him slumped against the wall, head tilted unnaturally to the side. My stomach twists, a cold sweat breaking out across my skin.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic, Jude.

My feet move on autopilot, rushing across the room as my bag hits the floor. My hands tremble violently as I tear the zipper open, fingers fumbling for the Narcan. The cap slips, rolling away into the shadows, but I don’t care. I shove the nozzle into his nose, slamming the plunger down with desperate force.

“Come on. Please, come on, Dad.”

I pull back, waiting for the miracle that always seems just within reach. My breath is ragged, each second an eternity that stretches my heart into thin, fraying threads.

One…two…three…

Nothing.

His chest remains still, a void where life should be.

You’re brave. Don’t panic, Jude. Don’t fucking panic.

I drop to my knees, pressing my hands to his chest, the familiar rhythm a cruel echo of too many nights like this. The floor is cold beneath me, biting into my skin, but it’s nothing compared to the ice clawing its way up my spine.

“Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Repeat.”

I chant it like a prayer to a god that’s never once listened, never cared.

“Nineteen…twenty…twenty-one…”

My voice cracks, raw with desperation. I lean down, sealing my lips to his. The cold hits me like a slap, the taste of stale whiskey mingling with the salt of my tears.

But I don’t stop.

I can bring him back. I’ve done it before.

“Twenty-six…twenty-seven…twenty-eight…”

I pause, pressing two fingers to his neck, searching for the pulse that should be there. It’s not. My chest tightens, a searing pain that rips through me.

“Wake up, you son of a bitch,” I hiss, tears finally breaking free, blurring my vision. I breathe into his mouth again, the sound of my own gasping breaths the only noise in the oppressive quiet. “Don’t do this to me. Please don’t leave me alone, Dad.”

I press harder, palms bruising his rib cage, the cracking of bone a familiar horror.

My arms burn, but I don’t care. I don’t stop. I can’t.

“You don’t get to do this to me,” I sob. “You don’t get to fucking do this to me.”

But his skin is too cold. His body is too still.

I keep going, like sheer willpower alone can fix this, like every pump of my hands can force Dad’s heart to remember how to beat. My arms tremble violently, the ache spreading through my chest until it feels like I’m breaking apart from the inside.

Just one more time. Just wake up one more goddamn time.

“Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Repeat.”

I’ve been saying it for so long the words lose their meaning, just a hollow, frantic sound that escapes my lips as I slam my fists against his chest.

“Please, Dad. Goddammit, wake up!”

My voice shreds, the last word a guttural scream that tears through the emptiness. I collapse forward, forehead against his unmoving chest, the icy chill sinking deep into my bones. My tears soak into his shirt, each drop a final, broken admission of defeat.

He won. He finally won.

Finality hits me like a wave.

I wish I could say it was one of the sleeper waves the Oregon coast is notorious for, an unsuspecting hit that pulls you to a watery grave. No, this was simply high tide, calling my name.

I’ve been waiting on an overdose for years.

“Couldn’t give it up, could you? You just had to keep going, chasing it until it fucking killed you.”

I press my palms into my eyes, trying to stop the tears that won’t obey. They burn, a searing reminder of everything I’ve lost, of everything I never had.

“You took so much from me, Dad,” I choke out, my voice cracking, the words barely audible. “Why couldn’t you just stay? Why couldn’t you give me this one fucking thing?”

I look down at him—gray, lifeless, with a needle still beside him. His eyes are closed, his face peaceful in a way that feels like the cruelest joke of all.

A laugh breaks from my throat, jagged and hollow, echoing in the empty room.

“You’re at peace, yeah? Fuck you! What about me, huh?” My hand smacks my chest with a hollow thud. “What about me?”

I slump against the wall, my body folding in on itself, the exhaustion finally taking over. I want to hate him. I need to hate him. But my heart betrays me, haunted by the memories of pillow forts and glow-in-the-dark stars, of a father who at times made me feel safe.

I can’t hate him. Not completely. Not like I should.

Because there are two versions of my father, and they exist within me like a brutal paradox.

The man who robbed me of the chance of being a child. The one who left memories in the form of bruises and is currently lying stale on the cold floor.

But I cry for the man who taught me how to love words. The one who laughed and binged shitty horror flicks with me past bedtime. I mourn the side of him I admire, the man who wrote words on paper that would’ve changed lives if he’d published them and fought this addiction.

Anger rattles within me because I know that part of him died with the bitter, tormented man.

The addict who destroyed everything and the man who once loved me in the only way he knew how.

I force myself to stand, legs shaking, every movement slow and heavy. I know I should call the police, but I can’t bring myself to leave yet. Instead, I sink back down beside him, letting the silence wrap around us like a suffocating blanket.

I reach for the notebook on his bed, the pages crumpled and stained with liquor tears. A deep, shaky breath makes my chest ache as I read the words along the page.

This would be it.

There would be no letter or teary video detailing his apologies disguised as “I love you.”

Only this.

An empty heroin needle and the last writings of a tortured man.

“What does it mean?”

I pull my gaze away from the iPad, where Doctor Who plays steadily in the background, its familiar echo weaving around us on the balcony.

Phi sits in my lap, dressed in nothing but a pair of panties and my oversized hoodie that looks more like a dress on her. The fabric drapes over her delicate frame, her hair spilling out like dark silk as she plucks my cigarettes from the pack, doodling notes and smiley faces with a black pen, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.

The notes have definitely softened since the water tower incident. Sure, I still get the occasional “suck my dick,” but that’s to be expected.

“What?”

“The tattoo on your back. What does it mean?” She jabs another menthol dart back into the pack, her satisfaction palpable as she admires her handiwork.

“It means ‘do not be afraid’ in Latin,” I grunt, my palms sliding up her bare thighs, feeling the goose bumps rise against my touch as the cool night air, tinged with salt, brushes against us. “After my dad’s first overdose, the paramedic who brought him back taught me CPR. ‘Don’t panic, Jude. Don’t panic,’ she kept saying. Said it so much as a kid, felt right getting it on my body forever.”

I’m surprised at how easily the words spill out, how effortlessly I can share these pieces of myself with her.

My entire life, I’ve buried my pain, my anger, my truth—keeping it all locked inside, leaking only onto the unread pages of my poetry. Those words were the only parts of me that didn’t belong to Ponderosa Springs or the Sinclair name.

This is the first time in my life I’ve ever wanted to share myself with someone.

The first time I’ve ever trusted anyone with it.

Phi bites down on the inside of her cheek, pausing her vandalism on my nicotine to look at me. “Do you miss him? Your dad?”

What a fucking question.

Despite everything—the abuse, the pain, the suffering—Easton Sinclair was all I had, and some days, I find myself missing him.

He was a shitty excuse for a man, a poor father. He beat the fuck out of me and made part of me believe I deserved it, that somehow, this was how I was meant to be loved—through violence, through bruises, through shattered bones.

The pain was just a part of our relationship. A twisted connection I couldn’t sever, no matter how much it bled me dry.

But he was all I had.

“I don’t miss the bruises. I fucking hate him most days.” I clear my throat, rolling my tongue across my upper teeth. “But some days, yeah. I miss his laugh. Miss binging movies with him. I miss reading what he wrote. I used to steal his notebooks, spend the day reading pages and pages because it was impossible to put down. He was good, great even.”

He wrote like his life depended on it, like the words clawing to escape his mind would suffocate him if they stayed trapped inside. I felt the weight of every paragraph, the raw emotion woven into each line—a talent no one ever knew about.

Just me.

It was easy to carry the pieces of him the world never got to witness, reminders of what we could have had, of the man he might have been.

But the parts he showed the world? Those were the heaviest.

“Is that why you sign your poetry with an E?” she asks, tilting her head, her gaze penetrating as she studies me. “For him?”

The way she looks at me knocks the wind out of my lungs. She’s so curious—about me, the world, everything.

With her, every conversation feels like a dance—fluid and dynamic, where we twist and turn through subjects, laughing and challenging each other. She pulls me into her world, where knowledge is a currency and curiosity is the spark that lights the fire.

It’s intoxicating.

Her brain is the most incredible thing I’ve ever witnessed.

“No. My first name is Elias. Started going by Jude in school ’cause it was too close to Easton.”

A smile tugs at her lips as she picks up another cigarette, muttering as she writes along the white paper, “Elias. Jude. Sinclair.”

My name has always been a weapon, a curse hurled at me with venomous intent. It’s been spat out in anger, associated with every misfortune and dark chapter of this town’s existence. But in Phi’s mouth, it transforms completely. She breathes life into it, wrapping it in warmth and curiosity, making it sound like something precious rather than a mark of shame.

For the first time, I don’t recoil at the sound of my name.

I pluck the cigarette from her fingers, bringing it to my lips. “Doesn’t sound so bad when you say it.”

We’ve been out here for hours, dawn creeping closer and closer to the horizon. I’m going to be dead fucking tired tomorrow, but I don’t care. Sleep is boring compared to this.

Of course, we had to pull a serious bait and switch when Andromeda came home from the Grove, her arms full of snacks for Phi. The moment her bedroom door swung open and her voice rang out in the hall, Phi sprang into action, slipping into the hallway wrapped in nothing but a towel.

She quickly concocted a story about her shower not working, claiming she’d used the bathroom down the hall instead. Andromeda, buzzing with excitement over Ezra’s performance earlier that night, didn’t even blink at the lie.

Phi’s a sneaky little shit.

The flicking of a lighter makes me blink, Phi’s hands holding an orange flame to the cigarette in my mouth, helping me light it.

“What’s your middle name?” I ask, releasing a puff of smoke into the air, shifting on the couch beneath me.

“Rose,” she replies, a faint smile gracing her lips. “After my Aunt Rosemary.”

“Your mom’s twin. That’s why.” I pause, not sure what I want to say or how to even say it. “That’s why your family hates my dad so much, yeah?”

“What he was a part of hurt a lot of people. My mom has bad days. All of them do. My aunt Coraline especially. They have these days where they feel like ghosts, and it feels like I can’t reach Mom. She’s there but not really, you know? Like she’s part of this world but also trapped somewhere else.” Her brows knot up, pain etching across her features. “I know he’s your father, but my mom, my family, they⁠—”

My hand cups her cheek, thumb catching the tear that’s escaped from her sea-glass eyes. “Hey, it’s okay, Geeks. You’re okay. I get it. I promise.”

I know my father was a piece of shit. I know that. I’ve never denied it to myself or to anyone else. The things he did—the damage he caused—are etched into my memory like scars, undeniable and unforgiving. He was guilty, and I’ve spent years knowing that truth.

I never hated the Hollow Boys and their families because of how they felt about my dad. No, that hatred runs deeper, tangled in the raw, exposed nerves of my own insecurities.

I hated them because I was jealous.

Jealous of their lives, their ease, their bonds forged in a world where love was given freely. I watched them from the sidelines, a spectator to their laughter and lives, while I sat in the shadows, feeling like a ghost haunting the edges of my own existence.

They had the privilege of family, of connections that seemed unbreakable, while I was left to navigate the wreckage alone.

Their indifference felt like a betrayal, a knife twisting deeper with each day I spent isolated from the world. I was drowning in the echoes of their laughter, suffocating in the weight of my loneliness, as I tried to make sense of a life that felt so utterly devoid of love and support.

The resentment burned inside me, fueled by the hollow ache of abandonment. I wanted to scream at them, to shake them and demand to know how they could turn their backs while I struggled to find my footing in a life that felt so cruelly unfair.

I felt invisible, overlooked, and the bitterness consumed me, leaving nothing but a hollow shell where hope used to reside.

And yet, how could I blame them? Truly, how could I hold it against them for wanting to leave the past—me included—behind?

They were merely trying to carve out a future free from the shadows of their own trauma, desperately seeking light in the darkness that had enveloped our town. Who wouldn’t want to escape the weight of the past, to unshackle themselves from the chains of pain that tethered them to memories they’d rather forget?

They were just kids, really.

Children trying to navigate a world that had handed them too many burdens, and I was a reminder of the pain they had fought so hard to distance themselves from.

That didn’t stop the hurt from festering inside me, didn’t quiet the voice that screamed for recognition, for understanding.

But like I told her, I get it.

Phi lays her head on my chest, curling into me as smoke curls from my lips.

“I’m sorry, Jude. For the fire, for all⁠—”

“Stop apologizing to me,” I grunt, cutting her off. “I don’t want your apologies, Phi.”

The girl who set St. Gabriel’s on fire wasn’t the vixen. It wasn’t the Queen of Disaster.

It was Seraphina Van Doren.

A fourteen-year-old girl who wanted to belong.

Who dyed her hair for the first time, hoping to feel a connection to her mother. She was a shy, nerdy girl who craved love and validation, who once trusted the wrong person and found herself shattered, piecing together fragments of a heart that refuses to stay whole.

I don’t want apologies from that girl. I don’t need them.

“Then what do you want from me?” Phi asks softly, her voice barely above a whisper, as she turns her head to rest her chin on my chest, peering up at me with an intensity that makes it ache.

The soft pinks and warm oranges of the horizon dance across her face, casting a delicate glow that enhances her features, her skin glowing with the ethereal light of dawn.

Those sea-glass-green eyes shimmer in the early morning hours, reflecting a mix of exhaustion and unspoken emotions, but there’s something else there too. A gentleness, a coaxing warmth that draws me in, urging me to share every single secret I’ve hidden from the world.

I’m a poet.

A shitty one, but still.

I’m supposed to have words for this, and I do. So many words. But right now, not a single one feels right for her.

Pulchritude is too formal. Selcouth too distant. Elysian too peaceful for someone who thrives in mayhem. Aether, maybe? Because right now, she fucking looks sculpted from the gods’ own ethereal breath, but even that doesn’t seem enough.

Even ineffable, meaning so beautiful it defies words, falls short.

I have words, I do.

Just…none worthy of her.

“Just this, Phi. Our universe. I wanna stay here for a little bit longer.”

A smile tugs at her lips as she echoes the words I once said to her. “We can stay here for as long as you want, Loner.”

No, we can’t, but I don’t have the heart to tell her that.

Phi will always choose her family over this universe we’ve created, and I don’t blame her for it. Her loyalty is one of the reasons I’m drawn to her—this undying need to shield the ones she loves is just another piece of her alluring puzzle.

She wouldn’t be Phi if she chose me.

But it’s okay. It’s fine.

I’ll just sit here, stealing pieces of her like a thief.