Cade kissed me for all he was worth before we called it an end to a thrilling night.
C H A P T E R1 9
Cold Hard Truth
Ella
The Present
2:02 a.m.
Iwas reaching the end of my rope.
Cold and bleeding anguish from every orifice, I walked back into the school with my very own grim reaper trailing behind me. A constant stalking shadow that never,everleft me alone.
Dark energy swirled around Cade. He seemed perturbed by his thoughts. I didn’t ask him what was on his mind. Not when my own was a graveyard filled with ghouls feeding off memories that were best left forgotten.
I increased my pace, but my whole body protested, tired from tonight’s events and turbulent emotions.
I shouldn’t have come to Initiation Night, making history be damned. I was safer in the perimeters of my home, drinking wine at that stupid dinner party and playing the good girl high society daughter. Anything was better than being here.
All my scars were ripped open again. Cade left me unbalanced; my armour fully shattered. The only thing keeping me held together were the strings of my pride. The universe was having an enormous laugh playing the puppeteer to my puppet.
I felt like a queen on a chessboard forced to retreat fromthe opposing king’s pressure. Halfway through conquering my desires—my healing and freedom—yet now I receded back to square one. Scared and bone-weary.
The bronze key in my hand, akin to the one we found in the library, weighed me down. Keeping me hostage. Telling me to finish what I started and not run away like a coward. Regrets would eat me alive later and I wasn’t about to submit to anymoremaybesandwhat-ifs.
To avoid looking at the presence behind me, I read the paper threaded through the key’s bow with the next dare again.
Blind as a bat, but the truth lies in front of you…
SW-3-208
South wing, third floor, room 208. I deciphered the coordinates and Cade followed me wordlessly like a lost puppy. Still desperate. Still obsessed. Still lovesick.
The moment in the woods replayed in my mind on an endless loop, his despair-fused voice resounding in the chamber of my heart like a lonely echo.
“No one can give you the feeling of euphoria like I did. And that’s what kills you. You search for me in all those men, don’t you, baby? You want to feel the way I used to make you feel—like a fucking goddess—when I worshipped the ground you walked on.”
Yes. I searched for him in every single guy I encountered since our breakup. I tried to find his dimples, his warm smirks, his serene blue eyes, his protective streak, hisdevotion. The tarred edges of my heart curled on themselves, birthing a big hole in my chest the longer I searched…to no avail.
“Why would I cheat on you when you were all I ever wanted?”
I asked myself that question a million times. If Cade loved me the way he claimed, why did I catch him in the act with a random girl, his mouth, jaw, and neck lavished with red-stained kisses?
I meant it when I said I gave him everything and he threw us into the flames.
Room 208 on the third floor was strategically hidden behind a row of portable lockers. I knew every nook and cranny of this school. But weirdly enough, I’d never seen this room. We rolled aside the portable lockers and entered an old student lounge of sorts, the door already unlocked.
“What are we looking for?” Cade’s voice lacked animation.
“‘Blind as a bat, but the truth lies in front of you,’” I whispered without looking at him. “That’s what the dare says. I think we’re looking for a bat, or something with an imagery of it.”
Or anything else, really. This particular one was very cryptic.
And truth be told, I was ready to get this night over with. I no longer felt optimistic about winning this competition.
The exchange from the woods had deflated us both.
