Page 11 of Queen of Nothing

It takes a moment for it to click in my mind—

The question spills out of me with a breathy tone of disbelief, “You sicked it up?”

Her face starts to wobble. “I didn’t realise… I took the brew that morning, and later that day, I was sick in the infirmary.”

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed to face her. “But the baby is Oliver’s?”

She touches her fingertips to the wet streak on her face. The dim light dances on the gloss of her manicured nails. “Oliver and I aren’t as intimate as we might seem. It could be Avi’s.”

The question arches my brow.

She clarifies, her tone subdued with the same heating her sunkissed cheeks, “Avi Kohen.”

“Zara’s brother?”

She nods.

And my eyes are wide.

Slack, I stare at her. Everything stills in the motel room, musty air stagnating around me.

“The…” My words, my accusation, fails.

I try again, clearing my throat first.

“The made one?”

Serena turns her cheek to me, flaming hot. Her lashes shut on the defeat sagging her shoulders.

“The made one?” I echo, like if I say it enough, it will make it better, or she can tell me I’m wrong, and there’s another Avi Kohen at Bluestone.

Serena sighs something curt, then runs her hands down her face. Streaks of pressure turn her complexion white, but only for a heartbeat.

“It’s either his,” she says, and her voice is almost swallowed up by the fluttering of the curtains as a breeze passes by and rustles her dark, glossy hair. “Or it’s Theodore’s.”

“Teddy?” I almost shout. “You and Teddy—”

“Once.” She holds up her hand. “Just that once. I… It was the night at that halfbreed party by the ruins.”

Dread floods my stomach as my mind is invaded with the memories of Dray finding me in the maze, looking after me in the cigar room.

I shake my head, as though I can shake the memories right out of my skull.

“Oliver was with you,” I say, and it sounds very much like an accusation. “That night, at the party, he was there.”

“And then he wasn’t.” Her smile is tight and watery. “He made some excuse, like he always does, and left me at the party alone. So while Oliver went off to find someone new and interesting to spend the night with, I found Teddy.”

Oliver didn’t leave her to fuck a random in some broom closet.

He left her to find me and Dray.

When I woke up the next morning, my brother was asleep on the armchair next to the couch.

He found us in the cigar room, and he stayed.

I don’t know why.

But I don’t bother telling her any of that.