“Who said I’m high?” I ask.
“Your pupils for one.”
“Because of the pills, then,” I answer, letting him know he’s not going to get anywhere with me. I don’t want to be bosom buddies with him while my own brother and the woman I love hate my guts.
“Why actually?” he insists, with a softening of his gaze. He looks like he doesn’t quite despise me for a moment, and I hate to admit it, but it works.
“Because I’m a bad person, and it’s easier this way.”
I try to push past him, but he doesn’t let me go. He’s quiet, and I can tell how hard he’s struggling for words. Just a moment ago, he told me how little he thought of me, so I’m not sure why my sharing the sentiment seems to bother him.
“What did you mean when you said I heard you’re easy to take advantage of?” Concern and possibly pity burn in the back of his eyes, and I hate the feeling so much I want to fight him off physically.
My cheeks burn, and I realize just how much I’ve said. I must be more fucked up than I grasped, and the sudden embarrassment morphs into a desperate need to get away from him, from everyone. I consider leaving right then and there, but one thing stops me. Sable is behind that door, and even if I don’t deserve to be with her, I’m greedy, I’m terrible, and I want more than anything to stay in her orbit.
“Nothing. I’mhigh,” I say, wondering who ever came up with the term. I’ve never been so fucking low.
“Obviously, it meant something,” he insists.
“Why the fuck do you care, is the better question.” He speaks, then stops, the answer eluding him, just as it eludes me. “We all know what I did, Lex,” I continue. “You know exactly why Sable has bruises all over her face and those cuts on her chest. She leftbecause ofme. Carl Briarwick got his hooks into her because ofme.” The rage and pain swarm inside me, and I wish he would leave me alone.
He stares at me for a long time. “We’ll talk about this later. When you have a better chance of remembering our conversation.” The judgment is so thick in his tone I’d like to peel my skin off and offer it to him. I would do it anyway if I thought it would make Sable hate me any less.
“Should I stay in here?” I ask, meaning the room itself, not the damn bathroom he’s cornered me in.
“Where else would you go?” he responds in that cutting tone of his that feels more suited for corpses than people.
“There are a few rooms in the suite. I didn’t know if you wanted me farther away.”
He sighs before he says, “You can barely walk. Obviously, stay here, but if you can’t avoid the nightmares, do try to stay up.”
I salute him. “Good night, Lex,” I say, wanting him gone, needing to get myself fucked up enough to forget the bruises on Sable’s cheeks and the crusted blood in her nostril.
“Soren, I—” He tries and fails to say something, but I don’t need any more kicks right now. “I’m sorry for what I said before.”
“You have absolutely no reason to be, Lex.”
It feels like he wants to say more, but instead, he leaves, closing the door behind him. Somewhere deep in my soul, I know I’ll never be home again. Pure things are reserved for pure people, and I’m about as far from that as anyone could get. I’m a monster, and everything that’s happened to Sable is my fault.
CHAPTER 27
SABLE
There’sno skin against mine, and the bed doesn’t hold any extra warmth. Was it all a dream? Hadrian, Soren, Liliana calling herselfNina, Lex coming to help me. It all feels too fantastic to be real. Dread fills me where hope hollowed me out. My eyes open to the dark room, my heart beats too quickly, and bile sours my stomach. At any moment, Uncle Carl will twist the knob and come in to announce it’s our wedding day. I never actually made it out. I squeeze my hand. I’m not holding a shoe anymore.
Rushed voices pull me back to reality, and everything clicks into place with violent force. Despite my empty hand, the sensation of stabbing through my uncle’s eye and brain echoes in my hand. I shiver and gag, but now I know I’m not in that bedroom anymore. My chest burns like hell, but my hand finds the bandages Lex placed. A shiver of moonlight reveals the outline of the hotel room. Clean furniture, central air that doesn’t feel stale. In a flash, the past few hours come back to me.
The high heels. The rescue. The fire. The hours alone with Soren and the haunting suspicions that gave me.
My uncle’s dead face and the weight of his body are deeper ingrained in me than the memory of my own mother’s smile.Deep in my soul, I know I’m not the only one who’s been through something awful. It’s written all over Soren’s face, but I don’t have any clue how to get him to let me in when it was nearly impossible the first time around.
Light glows from beneath the door, leading to the connecting room. Lex laughs sarcastically, and suddenly, my heart calms, pounding gently rather than out of my chest. How can I be comforted by the mere presence of that psycho? I sit up and stretch, getting reacquainted with the body and limbs of a killer. Everything hurts, everything reminds me of battle, and it’s impossible not to face what I’ve done. I only pray that this won’t be every day of the rest of my life when I see his handiwork in the mirror.
Over the armchair, I find the hotel robe, carefully kept there for me. I slip it on, keeping my sounds of pain as quiet as possible, as every twist and turn burns. I take a few steadying breaths before marching to the connecting door and trying the knob. Rather than turning, it stops dead in my hands. Knuckles hit the wood twice, but they keep on talking.
Sighing in frustration, I try again, and this time, they stop talking. My mask of confidence that used to fit me so well hangs a little loose at the moment, but it’s better than nothing. Something changed in the past month, and even before I officially became the second murderer in my family line, I didn’t feel like the same Sable as before. Now? I can’t even begin to define myself.
By the time Hadrian opens the door, I’m hugging my midsection protectively. I trust them all well enough, but I’ve never felt more exposed in my life, and that’s saying something, given the days after my father took me off that bridge were lows beneath hell.
