Thank youseems inadequate.
“There’s something else,” Valen says, pulling a small notebook from his pocket. “I have a journal…from when I was a kid. About my summer at—” He scratches at his palm with so much force I’m afraid he might draw blood. “At Roots of Salvation.”
Everything stops.
“I wrote about you. A lot.” He holds up the notebook, and now that I can see it, my pulse begins to jackhammer, an aggressive beat that makes me lightheaded. “I called you Bee Girl. Then—” His voice drops with his chin. “Then Honeybee.”
Tears burn, and I blink them back.
He’s watching me carefully now. “I wrote that we deserved to be free.”
“Valen—”
“I don’t remember writing those words. But I—I did…and I want to remember why.”
No one moves. Or breathes. Or even blinks.
It’s just him and me—in a house full of people—with fourteen years’ worth of ghosts hanging between us like a bridge I don’t know if I’m strong enough to cross.
“Neither of you has to figure this out right now,” Chief says, breaking the spell. He pauses, something shifting in his love-weathered face—a softness we rarely get to see. “But we should open that package before Roman’s van gets here. You know, see what we’re dealing with.”
Right. The package.
The one that proves that Savvy’s ex is not my stalker.
The one that proves someone else has been terrorizing me with my own words for months.
I should be used to these emotional ice baths by now, but each one stings more than the last.
“Don’t touch it,” Valen snaps as Chief reaches for the package. “Fingerprints.”
Valen pulls gloves from his pocket and slips them on—he does seem like someone who would carry gloves—then he carefully unties the twine.
The elegant shimmering paper falls away to reveal a plain white cardboard box.
I bite my bottom lip as Valen lifts the lid.
My friends gasp in unison, and I call on my remaining reserve of strength before looking down.
Someone pinned a honeybee to a velvet board as though it’s a specimen in a museum. There’s a note under it with the same elegant writing.
Honeybee, Honeybee, we’ve come to play.
But who protects the Queen when the King’s forgotten his way?
Ticktock, Miss Styx…it’s time to pay.
My knees give out, but Valen catches me before I hit the floor, his arms solid and sure around my waist.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs into my hair.
I do believe he thinks that, but there’s a reason I can’t control the full-body wave of terror rolling through my veins.
Whoever’s doing this—whoever’s watching me, studying me, tormenting me—knows everything.
They know about Valen.
My books.
