“… Fia…”
“Related… relationship.”
We were exposed just as we crumbled.
My body was sluggish. My eyes were heavy, my feet nearly tripped over each other as I was flanked on both sides for my walk of shame.
They spoke to me like I was an idiot. “Locker. Empty.”
I didn’t respond. I had only asked one question since Fia left that interrogation, taking away any need for me to speak.
Anyone else could think what they wanted.
She hadn’t picked up my calls, and then it didn’t even ring. She must have turned her phone off.
I stared at the Veltar door. Our font in black and purple.How had I not seen it before?We were the colour of bruises.
What stood beyond this door was likely to be more chaos and angry words that I could only half understand.
And Imre.
He was about to make this all about him.
Livie had told me it was all out there now. I was not to speak to anyone about it. When I asked her how Fia was, she shook her head and bit her tongue before leaving abruptly.
The world was trying to keep us apart.
I kicked the door and walked through, my bodyguards in sync with me.
Not enough to avoid walking into me when I stopped short.
She was in her locker, looking over her shoulder at me, mouth parted, her phone trembling in her hands. It was on. She’d blocked me. Silenced me. The only person I could really talk to.
“Can we talk?” I asked her.
Imre stepped forward, and I was so done with this man’s shit — or shite as Fia called it — I waved a hand at him, ready for him to grumble some nonsense I wasn’t going to listen to.
She ignored me, shoving her phone in her back pocket and slamming her locker closed.
“Fia,” I begged.
“Locker. Empty.”
Fia snapped around to glare at the guard whospoke to me, went to retort, but didn’t. She shoved her bag strap on her shoulder and went to walk past me. I didn’t touch her, but I reached out to stop her from leaving me.
“You want to talk?” she snapped. “I’ve lost my placement. My master’s degree. They think I did this for you because they think I loved you. My name is muddied with yours. My career is over before it even started because I trusted you.” She shook her head, laughing. “Like I believed that you were with me for some reason other than some fucking step-sibling kink—” Imre made a gag-like noise no one cared for — “or to get someone to be your fall guy for your fraudulent medical report. Well, you got what you wanted. Now let me leave.”
“Fia, please. I didn’t know. Let me explain.”
“How could you not know?” she cried. “You were lightheaded. You threw up!”
“I’m allowed to be unwell every now and then. At no point did anyone tell me I could never race again—I’ve seen doctors, I’ve—”
“Every time you lie to me, it makes me less likely to ever hear from you again. It taints everything we had.”
“Have, Fia. What we have.”
She closed her eyes and pursed her lips. “I hate you,” she forced out in English. Maybe it felt safer than Hungarian, because Hungarian was our secret, our truth. If she said ‘gyulöllek,’it would be forever; a promise she couldn’t break.
