Page 179 of The Unravelings

The only person I can stare at is the devil’s eyes before me. This fucker! There’s a knowing spark there. Like he’s had me figured out from the very beginning. Has he? Have I been too immersed in my own grief and despair that I didn’t see this coming?

Probably.

Since I set foot in Greenwood the night I stood at my grave for the first time in five years, I haven’t been the best agent. I’ve been the worst. But what does Jonathan expect when he brought me back here to do this? He knew they destroyed every molecule of me that night. That I wasn’t mentally capable of being okay here. Sure, I can pretend I’m fine. It’s my motto after all. I’m fine. Everything is fine. Always.

But not right now.

Malic is staring at me like I have the answers to life. Like he wants to peel back my layers and find out everything about me.

“I—” What the fuck is happening? “What are you talking about?” I don’t dare gulp the lump in my throat as he looks into my eyes and sighs heavily.

“Olivia Viotto,” he breathes millimeters from my lips. “You can’t hide from me. Ever. You should know by now. Funny how time can drag us apart, but I’ll always be that little boy, and you’ll always be her.” He grins as Wilder stands close to us at our sides.

“Malic?” Wilder asks, twisting his face. “Dude, that can’t be Olivia Viotto. I knew her. That’s Mack’s little girlfriend. She died like five years back.” Wilder shakes his head and lifts his eyes. “It can’t be…” He trails off as his gaze darts around my face. “I mean, it’s an uncanny resemblance.”

“It’s uncanny, lad, because she never died,” Malic grits out.

A weird tension rises in the air as the three of us stand together. Malic doesn’t let go of my face. He keeps inspecting it, going over every freckle meticulously with his gaze. And me? I’m stuck. Frozen. Unable to move from the look in his eyes. It’s like my body wants to give in to him and confess who I really am. But I can’t.

“Malic,” Wilder sighs, running a hand down his face. “I’m sorry about him. I’m going to have to take him to the doctor again and get him evaluated,” he growls. “People don’t come back from the dead, Mal. She may look like Olivia, but she’s not.”

Malic grins at me. “Who said they have to come back from the dead when they never died at all? I was there that night, you know?” My heart aches in my chest when he tilts his head. “I know exactly who pulled you out of the fire and saved your life.”

I clamp my mouth shut. He wants me to ask questions and out myself. It’s working. Almost. I want to ask him how he knows and if he was really there, because my uncle Jonathan swears up and down that he was the one who saved me and pulled me from the flames. He swore to me in the hospital that he was my savior.

And I believed him.

“Malic,” Wilder sighs.

“Tell him who you are, Little Ghost,” Malic whispers. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“You’re asking a lot,” I say, lifting my chin. “And I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” I curl my fingers into fists.

Malic doesn’t lose his smile or his patience as he strokes my face. “He almost died that night, too. You know? When he walked through flames to drag you out. It’s odd he doesn’t share the same scars as you.” Gently, he traces my scars and burns on the side of my face. My breath stalls in my lungs when his fingers run along the scar on my throat, too.

“He got off scot-free after handing you over to whoever took you to safety.” What is he talking about? Handing me over? He pauses momentarily, dragging his gaze over the slash across my throat. “They cut deep, didn’t they?” He clicks his tongue a few times. “But not deep enough to kill you. Whoever did it had no idea what the hell they were doing with your wounds, did they? They probably have others do their dirty work.” He shakes his head. “It’s a good thing, though. Or you’d never have come back here. That begs the question, Little Ghost. Why have you come back? Revenge? Because that’s juicy.”

Sweat forms on my brow, and I squeeze my eyes shut. “Shut up,” I hiss, trying to knock his hands away from me. I don’t want to hear anything else he has to say. He’s trying to scramble my thoughts, so I confess that I’m who he thinks I am.

Physically, I could probably knock him down and make a run for it out the front door, but my cover seems to be completely blown. Not that I could get my limbs to move, anyway. I’m stuck in his grasp, gasping for air, and mentally begging him to get away from me.

“It still haunts you, doesn’t it?” Malic asks softly.

“Malic, would you let the girl go? She’s not whoever you think she is,” Wilder grunts, attempting to slap Malic’s hold off me, but it doesn’t work. Malic holds me tighter, focusing only on me. “Malic,” he grunts, grabbing Malic’s wrist and holding tight. “You need to get a grip. She’s not⁠—”

“She is Olivia Viotto,” Malic grits out. “I know she is. I also know she’s been pretending to be Oliver fucking Davenport since the moment she walked onto campus.”

I suck in several breaths as his fingers caress my cheeks softly despite the roughness in his voice.

“You’re fucking delusional, Mal. You need to stop this and get the fuck out of your head.”

“Why, Olivia? Why the fuck are you here now?” he begs. “Tell me, Crumpet. Tell me so I can help you bring down the bastards who thought they could kill you. Was it them? Those three fuckwits? I’ll hang them by their ears and rid them of their intestines.” He grins manically at the thought of torturing the three boys I swore tried to kill me. “Tell me who tried to end your life and is too stupid to realize you’re alive.”

I want to cover my ears. I want to run away. I want to be a bad agent, fall on the floor, and curl up in a ball. Everything about this town is too fucking much for me to handle. I knew it from the beginning. I knew when Jonathan crossed the boundary of Greenwood, California, that something bad was on the horizon. I felt it deep in my bones.

Now, Malic, the goddamn psychopath, knows who I am, but not why I’m here. Not exactly. I’m better than this. Tougher than this. Fuck. Why can’t I get my instincts to work with me? Why do I feel so weak in the face of danger? Especially here in this town. It’s like it’s dragging out every logical thought and feeling with incompetence. Shit. I knew I should have crawled out the window upstairs and avoided all this.

“Olivia Viotto died, Mal,” Wilder coos, forcing Malic’s crazed gaze to his. “You know that, right? She died. Even though I hate the bastard, she was good to my brother.” He raises his brows, trying to force Malic to understand.