PROLOGUE
DUNCAN
Ten years ago
Imurdered a man tonight.
For the first time and hopefully the last.
It was a justified kill, sure. An eye for an eye.
But watching Barclay, my best friend, torture my parents’ killer in ways we never agreed to, that fucks me up.
My senior year in high school wasn’t supposed to end like this. I was supposed to be living peacefully with my parents in Evernote.
Instead, I had to relocate to Cobbledale, the wealthier town nearby in Upstate New York, after they died. To become the Montgomerys’ ward. My best friend’s parents.
Since then, my life has never been the same.
But nothing could’ve prepared me for taking part in a brutal murder.
I pinch my eyes shut, trying to block the world out. The low humming of the heater. The sound of Barclay’s footsteps climbing the stairs.
It doesn’t help. Behind my closed eyes, without the golden light flooding the expansive first floor, everything is somehow worse.
In the dark, memories sip in.
The blood.
The screams.
The gore.
Fuck.
Barclay, unlike me, couldn’t care less. A smile stretched across his face the moment we got our hands on Ross.
The school bully, who happens to be my best friend, enjoyed every second of it.
And while I didn’t get off on torturing him, the least I should feel is relief now that it’s over.
The worst of it is behind us. I got my revenge.
We didn’t get pulled over on the way to the beach, where we burned our dirty clothes.
We’re here, I repeat in my head, wearing clean-ish jeans and a T-shirt with a little sand clinging to them. That’s already better. Much. They aren’t filthy like the ones we wore earlier. Aren’t soaked in blood or streaked with dirt from burying my parents’ attacker behind the old warehouse owned by Barclay’s family.
My skin, though. Dammit.
I’m sure there’s a stain or two I couldn’t scrub off in the sink back…there.
The reminder sends a shiver through me.
A stain means there’s a part of Ross.
On me.
Get a fucking grip. Hit the shower. Sleep it off.
