“So you think toying with her is okay because Fury Hill hates her? Jesus, I told you I wouldn’t help here if you were messing with her, and you’ve gone and?—”
Snatching Quincy’s wrist, I drag her down the aisle, away from the turned heads and shushed students. “It’s highly inappropriate to air your sister’s business out in front of her classmates.”
“You don’t get to lecture me on what’s inapprop?—”
“I like her,” I snap, giving her wrist a shake before dropping it.
“You like her.” She narrows her eyes, scrutinizing me. “Or you like what she can do for you?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means Elle is a person who loves being loved, and she’s quick to do whatever it takes to feel a connection with someone. That resilience I talked about? It’s a fucking shield. She wears it whenever she breaks her own heart, and I recognize the signs. She’s smiling more, humming to herself in the mornings before class, even initiating calls and texts with our parents. It’s the calm before the storm—the storm where she gets hurt and shuts everyone out, and then no one knows the truth about what’s going on with her for eight fucking years.”
“I’m not…” I swallow, shifting my gaze to the floor. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Then end whatever it is you’ve got going on. Before it’s too late.”
She shoves past me, shoulder checking me as she heads for the doors. I turn, watching her go, and just as her hands find the push bar, I speak.
“No.”
Pausing, she shoots me a malicious glance. “No?”
“You heard me.”
Several beats of my heart pass erratically before she straightens her spine, shoving open the door. “Then I guess I’ll just have to report you both.”
42
ELLE
With trembling knees,I take a seat backstage, listening to Sabrina deliver a flawless recitation of Desdemona taking credit for her own murder. My stomach is crampingbadtoday even though my period ended a week ago, so I asked if we could do my scenes last.
Through the curtains, Sutton yells cut, and the cast scatters to the back. I watch Sabrina in her beautiful gown as she sashays to the corner, gulping down some lemon water she keeps in a metal bottle.
She catches my eye in the floor-length mirror propped against the wall and turns toward me, an unreadable expression on her face. As she approaches, my entire body instinctively tenses up, and I scoot my legs in, as if touching her might drag me back down to those caves.
Sitting down on the closed clothing trunk beside me, Sabrina unfolds her hand, revealing an oblong, nearly translucent white rock.
“An apology,” she says, offering me the object. “For getting you into that whole mess at the Apollodorus. I shouldn’t haveasked you guys to go down there. I wouldn’t fault you if you blamed me for the emotional trauma.”
It’s the first either of us have brought up that night, seeming to choose to pretend it didn’t happen. Out loud at least.
“Uh…what is it?”
“Moonstone. I found it at the quarry.” She turns the object over in her palm, smoothing her fingers against the uneven ridges. “Fury Hill, decades ago, got into mining for raw minerals. A way to make a quick buck, I guess. The school actually shut it down due to environmental concerns, but the minerals are still there—including cool gemstones like this one.”
Slowly, I take the rock from her and hold it up to the light; I can practically see right through it. “Thanks… But how is this an apology?”
“Lexington told me you like astrology and shit?—”
“Astronomy.”
“—so I thought maybe you’d find me more favorable if I found something cool that interests you.” She shrugs, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “I realize now that it’s completely cheesy, but you never know. Lots of people believe in celestial connections between the heavens and the earth.”
“Life and death,” I say.
She sucks in a low breath, nodding. “Yeah, that too.” Bracing her hands on her knees, she looks at me through the curtain of her hair as it falls over her shoulders. “I’m really sorry about what happened at that party, you know. I swear, I had no idea what was down there.”
