Page 108 of Pretty Nightmare

“What the fuck do you want?” One minute into this little meeting and I’ve had enough.

“I need to talk to her. There are things we have to discuss.”

“We’re here.” McKay pans his hands wide. “Let’s discuss.”

Nathan is shaking his head before McKay even finishes. “No. This is between me and her.”

“Then I guess you’re shit out of luck,” I say. “Because if you step one foot onto Old Home property, we’re gonna make damn sure you’ll never do it again.”

“I’m already dead, Adam. Your threats don’t scare me.”

“Obviously you are not dead, Nathan. Because you are standing right here in my fucking face.”

“Well, here’s a threat that should scare you.” He glares at me. And I know what’s coming before he even says it. “Magnolia Accorsi is my child. My legal child. That’s my name on that birth certificate, not yours.”

“Well,” McKay says, keeping his cool—and I am very thankful for that because I’m about to lose mine—“we’ve heard otherwise, Nathan. So if you wanna make this into a big deal, we can. But it’s not gonna make Indie love you again.”

“Again? She never stopped loving me. I was the one who was there. I was the one who saved her. I was—”

He falls on his ass because I punch him in the face. And then I grab that stupid yellow t-shirt of his and wad it up in my fist, dragging him back onto his feet. I push him up against the thick, trunk of the old oak tree. And I lean into my threats, my words coming out like venom. “You did not save her. I did. I’m the one who saved her. I’m the one who took her out of that cage. I’m the one who gave her a home.”

But Nathan doesn’t even flinch. Even though his lip is bleeding and his cheek is red. He just glares at me. “Yeah.” He wipes the blood away from his mouth. “You saved her all right. You took her out of the Garden of Eden and straight through the gates of Hell. You don’t know anything, Adam Boucher. Nothing. You think you’re so powerful? Did you ever ask yourself why it felt so easy, Adam?”

“Easy?” I laugh. “Nothing about my life has been easy.”

“Everything about your life has been easy. It was planned this way. You really don’t get it, do you? He planned this. He planned it all from the very beginning. You’re like a little fucking puppet on a string. So goddamned predictable. Nick and James take out the Company and what do you do? Build it right back up. Did you ever ask yourself why, Adam? Why the fuck would you do that?”

McKay pries my clenched fist off Nathan’s t-shirt and starts pulling me backwards. “Come on. We should go. People are starting to notice us.”

“Who?” I say as McKay pulls me backwards. “Who was it?”

Nathan spits blood at me. And it’s got both distance and aim, because it lands just short of my boot. “You really don’t know, do you?” He smiles then, a little ‘gotcha’ smile. “Let me talk to Indie and I’ll tell you. But not down there. Not at Old Home. You bring her somewhere else. Anywhere else but there.”

“Fuck that,” McKay says. “And fuck you, Nathan. I should’ve finished you off when I had the chance.”

“Yeah,” he says, tilting his chin up and sliding his mirrored sunglasses back onto his face. “You really should’ve.”

“Stay away from her,” I call, walking backwards, never taking my eyes off Nathan. “You stay the fuck away, Nathan. Or you’ll be sorry you ever came back from the dead.”

He doesn’t say anything back. Just spits on the ground and tracks me with his eyes until I turn my back and follow McKay onto the asphalt path towards the mansion.

PART THREE - IN THE SAME BOAT

Or… maybe we’re just flying the same false flag?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - NATHAN

Indie Anna Accorsi was never just the girl next door. She was the saddest girl in the world.

Up until the moment I first met her I didn’t understand much about sadness. I certainly couldn’t smell it. I didn’t realize sadness had a scent until that first moment when I saw her in the woods.

That’s when I noticed that sadness had a scent and it smelled like this girl.

I was surprised at the time. Not that sadness had a smell, but that it didn’t smell like something awful. It smelled like the forest a little bit. Like mud and the thick, humid air that hovers on the edge of the trees. But that smell had been lingering alongside me for as long as I could remember and so Indie Anna’s sadness always felt a little bit like home.

But there was more to it than that when it came to Indie because she hadn’t been in the woods long enough for it to be made of just one thing. Her sadness was made of two things.

The woods and the secrets the woods kept.