“Why is she here?” I ask, aiming the question at Hadrian. He just shakes his head and gives me a look that says he’ll explain later, but I’m not feeling very patient right now. “What are you doing here?” I say, and when Soren looks up for a brief second, I add, “Liliana.”
Yes, I want to know why he’s here too, but he can beg and crawl if he wants me to talk to him.
“Liliana” gives me a cutting look, her expression different from what I’ve ever seen before. She’s sharper, rougher. Even her voice is deeper. “Your little boyfriends couldn’t find you, so the musician choked me to get me to show them the way.”
My face puckers as I turn to Hadrian, expecting him to deny the accusation. Instead, he shrugs.
“I would have killed her too.”
“And you’d be dealing with this yourself, pretty boy.”
“You just happened to know I’d be here?” I challenge. Not bothering to get to the other confusing aspects like how the hell would she know what to do and since when does she call people pretty boys? Every guy she ever showed any interest in was as rich and entitled as they came.
“I didn’t even know you were gone, but they said they checked everywhere. Not many people even know this place exists, and I assumed they weren’t smart enough to find it themselves.”
“Screw you, I found your real name, didn’t I?” Hadrian spits.
“Depends what you think my name is, I guess.” She laughs.
“Anyway, I didn’t feel like dying when I could help them find you.” She waves their threat away as if it were nothing.
The pain and exertion make it hard to focus, too much information falling on my lap when all I want to do is lie and sleep for ten hours, but I can’t move back to this bed, not when the hot metallic smell of the blood makes me gag, and my eyes find the body of my uncle on the floor.
What the hell did I just do?
Fingers tingle with the phantom feeling of the heel shoving through his brain, the sin trapped forever beneath my skin. This is my most vulnerable moment, my biggest mistake yet, and staring back at me are the worst knights in shining armor a girl can ask for. Soren is a lie wrapped in poetic melancholy, Liliana is a snake waiting to eat me whole, and Hadrian is not that reliable either. I may have given him some loose permission, but he fucked me in my sleep for months without me knowing.
My heart betrays me when all I can feel when I look at them is relief that I don’t have to die alone.
“I think burying him out back is the best option. We need to get this done.”
“Why are you in such a rush?” Hadrian asks.
“School starts tomorrow, dumbass. What’s going to happen when you two don’t show up?”
“Our grades will slip?” he drawls out sarcastically.
“People will notice you’re gone, and they’ll try to find you.”
My gaze focuses on her, and a deep suspicion runs through me. “Who the fuck are you really?” I demand, a question I’ve desperately wanted answered since she was revealed as a fraud at school. Clearly, something much deeper is going on. The Liliana I knew was a spoiled rich girl, and she sure as hell didn’t have the guts to deal with a dead body, let alone the know-how.
“Nina. Nice to officially meet you.” If it weren’t for my exhaustion glueing me to the bed, I’d launch myself at her.
CHAPTER 17
SABLE
“Get in the damn car,”Hadrian grunts at Soren as he shoves him along the path and back toward the car. The once smooth and even rocks are icy and overgrown with patches of dead weeds. Soren stumbles as he goes, his rumpled clothes hanging off him. He’s much skinnier than the last time I saw him, and I can’t make sense of why he’s in such terrible shape.
He bumps into the side of a black Audi, then struggles with the rear passenger door before finally letting himself inside. I’m not sure which one of them it belongs to, given they’ve never even taken me anywhere outside the school. Like my uncle carved into my chest, I’ve never been anything more than their whore, and for Soren, I wasn’t even the only one. Men still like a whore, though, and Hadrian wraps a gentle arm around my shoulder as he guides me.
“Is he alright?” My angry thoughts aren’t enough to entirely eliminate the part of me that cares for his well-being, and something is most definitely wrong here.
“It doesn’t seem like it,” he says as if he’s choosing his words very carefully. His fingers tighten where they wrap around my arm, and I worry that I’m pressing something sensitive when we’re already in a completely insane situation. “Whatever he’sdealing with is his own fault. You, of all people, don’t need to worry about him. Especially not now.” He looks at me with affection, but there’s pity there too, and no matter how hard I try not to let it affect me, it nearly breaks me.
“Right,” I say as I swallow back thick tears I refuse to shed. Despite everything, I don’t really agree, and I continue to worry about Soren as he finally shuts the door behind him.
The frigid air makes my skin tighten. The mountains look much the same as they did when I was a kid, but everything else in my life is so violently different. I do everything I can to avoid shivering and drawing more attention and pity to myself. Hadrian’s presence feels too good right now, and I have to remind myself that I left for a reason. Soren did what he did, but that wasn’t the only problem. I’m not sure if I believe any of them take me seriously. It makes so much more sense that it was all a vicious game.
