It’s like the floor tilts and sways beneath me.
What?
Immediately, my brain pushes back on this. She’s lying.
But why?
Lynx was strict, even now, he values obedience above all else. He’s just lengthened my leash. His punishments were unusual, but he hardened me. Otherwise, the world would’ve devoured me whole.
Then again, Lele doesn’t have the same gratitude for his methods that I do.
Still, none of his overbearing behavior makes my uncle a psychopath.
Not in my mind.
“You watched him drown puppies.” I repeat it back to her with no emotion.
She’s still holding my gaze, and she nods, slow.
“You stayed with him.”
Her throat rolls as she swallows. Finally, she averts her eyes. Her voice is small when she asks, “Don’t you think he’d have done worse to me?”
“Put it in your pocket.”
I glance at the necklace hanging from the display. It’s nothing of real value. My uncle has more gold than exists in this department store. “But I don’t want it.” I shake my head and look at Lynx.
He smiles slow at me, then steps closer.
I inhale the sharp scent of his cologne.
“Take it, Lydia.” His voice is low. The store is quiet. Anyone could be watching. And if I wanted this necklace with the butterfly on it, I could buy it myself with the allowance I get from my uncle. It’s cheap. This exercise doesn’t make sense.
“But I?—”
My uncle cuts off my words with a sharp pinch at my throat.
I flinch, reeling at the sudden movement and the quick pain. I curl one hand into a fist. My other has two fingers in a splint. It doesn’t ball up as easily.
His smile is wider and he leans down closer, his breath over my ear. “The necklace, or your thumb. You choose, Lydia.”
But that was my pain.
Mytraining.
He’s ruthless when he needs to be but it’s always for a purpose.
I glance at my gloves on the floor and I should pick them up, but I stare at them and remember standing on my balcony Friday night. Before the call.
It was the girl at Orange; she found my number in his phone, on his recent texts. But I sensed something outside. Someonein the woods, at the Hollows. And only Lynx would be brave enough to come up on my house through those woods. But why would he bother?
Finally, I retreat a few steps and sink myself down onto a black exercise ball. I keep my spine straight, then I take a breath and look up into Eve’s eyes. She’s good at waiting us Flynns out. No wonder my brother comes at least twice a week, despite the fact he’s fucking ripped and knows how to workout all on his own.
He needs someone with Eve’s patience. But she’d tear him to shreds if they were ever anything more than trainer and trainee. Someone like her could match someone like Lynx. I wonder if Lele knows she hooked up with our uncle or if they decided to keep it from both of us.
“Are you saying he threatened you?”
She doesn’t answer me.
