“It was this ugly-as-fuck lamp that she had in the front room, a room I wasn’t allowed in because it was only for when they entertained important family. But I’d heard a noise, and because I was a kid and didn’t always think things through, I decided to explore. The noise ended up being the neighbor's cat, but that didn’t mean anything after I broke the lamp.”
Rafe could have been a statue—there was no emotion on his face at all.
“They locked me in a closet for three days, and I almost died.” I said it succinctly, like it was no big deal. But it was a big deal. I’d been struggling with myself ever since. And no matter how much therapy or training I’d been through, nothing ever let me forget the hunger and thirst. Fuck, the thirst had been the worst.
“I remember my throat closing over,” I whispered. “Or that’s how it felt to me because my tongue was so thick I couldn't swallow. I couldn’t breathe. I was literally dying when they finally opened the door and dragged my body out.”
His fists tightened further, veins standing out, but his expression remained neutral. It was only because I was trained to notice minute movements of the body that I even saw his hands shift. I was dying to know what he was thinking, but I had to get this story out first.
“After that, it was like the monster in them had been freed. I was punished in so many ways I couldn’t keep track. But the closet, that tiny fucking closet was the worst. So many times I lay there in my own piss because it wasn’t large enough for me to go anywhere except where I sat. So many times I wondered if this was my last moment on Earth and if that would really be so bad. I was a fucking child, and I was already done with the world.”
Tears tracked down my cheeks silently. Tracks of my pain. I allowed myself a second to feel them, and then I shut it down because I was not that person any longer.
“How long were you with them?”
“Too fucking long.”
He shifted a little closer to me; I could feel the heat of his body, almost like the fire had somehow been lit.
“Did you kill them?”
I smirked for the first time since starting my tale. “Let’s just say they’re not around any longer to torture little kids.”
I hadn’t been the one to kill them, but I’d set the situation up so they would be in the wrong place at the right time.
Sensei had punished me for letting my emotions get the better of me.
But it had been worth it.
Brandon and Claudette—and possibly Alex—were going to face the same fate because apparently I couldn’t be the bigger person.
Fuck that.
Chapter 6
After Rafe and I left his "special place," he waited outside of my room while I changed into a new uniform. The scratch on my shoulder only needed a patch and I was good to go, so we headed back to school. Near the dining room I started to drag my heels. The absolute last thing I wanted to do was be in the same room as Alex, where he’d expect me to play my part.
I couldn't do it. Not before speaking to my friends and explaining that I hadn't just suffered some kind of mental break... Not before I spoke with Jordan.
"Hey." I placed a hand on Rafe's forearm, halting him before we turned into the hallway that would take us straight to the breakfast room. He looked down at my hand on his bare skin—because he'd rolled his shirtsleeves up in that devastatingly sexy bad boy way—then gave me a brow raise. "About earlier. What you saw..." I trailed off as shame and guilt rushed through me. Not that I owed Rafe fuckinganything, but it was how I felt nonetheless.
I expected some kind of scathing insult from him, something about how weak I was to "fall" for Alex's lies again.
That's not what I got.
"It was a smart move," the grumpy royal commented, his lips tight with displeasure or disgust or something. "We didn't get much of a chance to strategize, but I probably would have suggested the same thing. Play along until we understand this situation better. Who knows what Alex would do if you tried to publicly end things with him?" He frowned, his gaze unfocused while he thought that out.
I swallowed heavily, fear coursing through me. My friends—and Rafe—had always suspected Alex was behind Jasmine's death. And now I knew he was. Or at least he’d had a hand in it all.
"He knows I know," I admitted in a small voice, feeling like the biggest moron on the face of the planet. Of course I should have talked out a plan with the other royals. What kind of idiot—
The kind who had never known anyone she could rely on. That was what kind.
Rafe said nothing, but the slight narrowing of his eyes allowed me to fill in the blanks.
"Anyway," I hurried on, not wanting to dwell on my stupidity, "he told me that I need to keep dating him, publicly keep up the pretense or I'll get killed like Jasmine. Or worse."
Rafe's brows shot up. "What's worse?"
