“Quiet down, please, before someone finds us,” he says. “I guess there are a few things I didn’t mention.”
“You’re going to pay for this later.” I mean it. “Now, tell me right now before I lose my shit,” I whisper the words to avoid shouting them.
“There was a picture in the house of your dad and Nina and…”
“And?” I stress the word.
“And your dad had his arm wrapped around her in a very fatherly and tender manner. It was really strange to see.”
My heart stops and restarts, filtering through all the memories of Liliana when my father was also involved. I always thought she disliked him, but now that I think about it, it makes more sense if she had her own reasons to be angry with him than just not liking a friend’s dad. He was hiding her the whole time.
“What does this mean?”
“I think it means you’re not the last Briarwick, after all,” Soren says, having the easiest time with this because he wasthere, though admittedly probably too high to care about my familial discoveries. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“Did you even remember?” I challenge. Instead of answering, he shakes his head with embarrassment clear on his face.
I push my hands against the nearest alcove and lay my head against the stone as I try to figure out what the fuck I should do. When I turn back to the guys, I say, “Well, what the fuck do we need to do to survive all of this?”
CHAPTER 63
LEX
“I’m done playing games.I need to speak to Cillian,” I say, answering part of her question, but not enough of it. There have been too many revelations today and not nearly enough of the bottom line. The idea that Sable’s father had a love child neither surprises nor titillates me, but the idea that he actually is innocent can’t be ignored. Especially because if that’s true, it means all the things he was accused of are still happening, and the perpetrators are going unpunished.
“Umm,” Sable says, suddenly looking as guilty as Hadrian and Soren.
“Umm?” I ask, turning around to make her face me. She’s so fucking beautiful, and I missed her so much that there’s very little she could actually do or say to make me mad.
“Cillian is the TA in one of my classes, and he was…”
My teeth snap together, and my fists clench. The anger I egotistically assumed I could avoid rages through me. “He was what?” I ask. “Did he touch you?” Cillian is quickly putting himself on the kill list, but if he touched her, he’ll have an express trip there.
“No, but he was pissed about what you guys did to his room, and he said some weird things about my family. Nina was right about him. Whatever he knows is serious.”
I take a few deep breaths, trying to process my feelings without taking them out on her. A lot has happened to her, and barely any time has passed for her to calm down or to come to grips with all of it. She just told me about him leading her to Soren’s rape when we were leaving the cafeteria, and now this. She was in his classafterwe found her picture on the wall, and we didn’t tell her. The secrets need to end. The guys have warned me repeatedly that I’ve been careless with him and underestimate him, but I didn’t realize until today just how right they were. He’s a fucking snake.
“He had your picture on the wall, along with all the other Offerings. That’s why we trashed his damn room.” I’m angry now just saying it.
“So why didn’t you tell me that?” she demands.
“A lot has happened,” I admit, and I think we all agree to take the secrets easier.
“Okay, so the way for us to survive this is—first, fuck up Cillian, and then have a meeting where we tell each other all of our secrets so this doesn’t keep happening,” Orion says.
“Deal,” Sable agrees. “But I don’t think that plan is enough to keep us alive.”
I lead us through the castle and over to the dorms. Sable holds Soren’s hand, knowing this is all traumatic for him. I’m jealous that I’m missing out on her touch, but I admire her ability to see what we all need and respond to it. Soren doesn’t say much, but he takes her support. I make a list of all the things I want Cillian to answer for, some things spanning back a few years. Things I chose to overlook, but seem more sinister now. Maybe I’ll grab a page out of Arabella’s book and drown him in a bucket.
When we arrive at his room, the door is still broken from our last visit. The hodgepodge attempt at a repair barely keeps it closed, and I open it with a rough shove. But even worse than the last time when we found the pictures on the wall, the entire room is empty, and there’s no trace of Cillian to be found.
I open and close my hands, infuriated that he’s gotten the drop on me again. How many times did I ignore my friend’s warnings and let him get closer? Now he’s gone, and I still don’t know what his goal was. My hands move on their own, and my fist connects with an old picture on the wall that likely never belonged to him in the first place.
“Lex, calm down,” she says as she takes my hand and wipes away broken bits of glass. “There’s nothing for us to find here. We need to look into what Nina said about the journalism department.”
The mention of fucking Liliana as Nina doesn’t really help right now, and if it wasn’t for her hands on me, I might break something else.
“Absolutely not!” I say. I need to find him and put an end to this once and for all. This is one too many times to be made a fool of.
