“You stood there,” I hiss lowly, my mouth so dry from the side effects of whatever shit they laced my veins with. “You looked me in the eyes and let me believe you were someone else. Why not just end the charade earlier? Maybe save Dante from his fate?”
Her expression falters, but it is so brief that I barely catch it. “My father always reminded me not to play with my food at the dining table. This was the one time I could break that rule. The only time I was away from his prying eyes.” She pops her knuckles before continuing, “And I’ll gladly let Dante know how concerned you are for him.”
“What?”
What the hell does she mean?
“You really didn’t put two and two together, did you?” A sardonic laugh leaves her lips, “Did you see a drop of blood anywhere before we left that room?” She watches mefor a moment before speaking again, “I didn’t think so. It’s called a bullet-proof vest, Finnic.”
This is all too much to process in such a short time.
Chloe is Everleigh.
Everleigh plotted against me for my part in the death of her predator brother.
And now I am being used as a scapegoat for her father’s murder.
Dante is alive and apart of all of this shit too.
The same man I worked with for an entire year.
Is Chloe even a real person? Or just another lie?
I let out a deep exhale, “So what happens now?”
For the first time since she’d entered the room, she doesn’t answer immediately.
She straightens, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle from her coat sleeve, as she walks back over to the glass.
“What happens now,” she says at last, “is that nothing changes.”
My jaw tightens. “So I just rot in here for doing something anyone would’ve done?”
She turns her attention back to me, expression settling into something bitter.
“You stay here,” she continues. “Beacon keeps you sedated while they continue to document your ‘psych episodes.’” She makes air quotes with two fingers, her mouth twitching. “Every time you insist you were set up, it just reinforces the narrative that you’re fucking insane.”
The room was cold before, but it seems to pickup a few degrees. “And you?”
“I ‘grieve’,” she says without hesitation. “Publicly. I attend the trial dates I’m allowed to attend. I give statements about how afraid I still am that you’ll possibly get out to come finish me off.” Her eyes soften just enough to sell the story. “I whine about how my trauma lingers everyday no matter what I’m doing. I just can’t seem to move on in my regular life.”
A bitter laugh escapes my lips. “You’re good at this. No wonder I fell for your shit.”
“I was raised this way, Finnic. Not everyone has a parent that kisses their boo-boo’s away.”
My fingers curl until my nails bite into the leather material. “You said this started as revenge.”
“It did.” Her voice drops a notch. “Marco took something from you. You took him from us. That debt was never going to stay unsettled.”
“And your father?”
She inhales slowly. “That part is my business.”
I stare at her, trying to compare the girl who’d whispered sweet nothings to me in the dark of that warehouse with the woman standing on the other side of the glass across from me now.
“Was any of it real?” I ask quietly. “Anything you said to me?”
Her eyes lock on mine.
