Not in this home.
Not in Huxley Bay.
She pauses at the bulletin board on her wall, staring at a finished sketch of a building tacked to the center. Her fingers tremble as she rips it down. I get a glimpse at the words underneath it in red marker.
Hidden Access Whiskey Keepers - HAWK.
She crushes the sketch into a fist-sized ball. When she moves to shove it into the nearest trash bag, she catches her reflection in the mirror and gasps.
I see it, too.
The hawk on her T-shirt. She tears it off in one motion, letting it fall to the floor. Standing in her underwear, she digsinto her closet and yanks out a plain top and sweatpants, tugging them on with a fierce kind of shame.
It hits me then—the photo she sent me wearing the exact same shirt the morning after she woke up at Brodie’s. I had met him and Chase the night before.
Back then it just came across as a bird. But now I knew it wasn’t that. It was Hawk Skywatcher—Brodie’s character from Gargoyle: Legacy of Shadows. The game he played with Roman.
It had been in front of us this whole time.
I wonder how many times she’s slept in that shirt while he built his empire and kept secrets right under her nose.
Underournoses.
She gets right back to sorting through her belongings.
“Bella, please stop for a minute and talk to me,” I beg.
She halts and looks up, her eyes green icicles.
“The time for talking is over, Erin,” she says, the coldness in her eyes making me flinch. She’s never spoken to me with that kind of tone before. Even angry, she’s always careful with her words.
Not anymore.
“Bella, I’m so sorry. I know it’s not enough, I know it will never be enough, but please don’t leave. This is your home.”
“I need to find a new home now. Away from Huxley Bay, away from all of this, away from…” Her voice catches.
“Me?” I whisper, finishing the sentence she won’t say aloud.
She groans, pressing her palms into her eyes.
“Erin, I know you didn’t know about Brodie or Hawk or whatever the fuck his name actually was until he took you, but youknewabout The Octopus. And you didn’t say a word. I thought we were past keeping secrets.”
When she drops her hands, her eyes are full of betrayal and hurt.
It guts me.
“I was going to wait until you were done in California,” I say, my voice small.
She lets out a humorless laugh. “After Brodie and I finished building HAWK together—the club with a secret room full of Emerson’s Barrel & Sons whiskey and The Octopus’s drugs?
“I didn’t know that’s what was happening, Bella.”
“I know,” she snaps, but then her voice softens. “Maybe if I knew about The Octopus, I would have figured it out on my own.”
“I was scared, Bella.”
“Scared of what, Erin?”
