Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
I can’t wrap my mind around all of this. I really can’t.
And when Felix takes a step toward me, I keep the knife pointed at him in defense. “Don’t.”
“After all this, you still don’t believe us?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. She warned me about you. She knew you were trouble.”
“She was right about that.” Dylan snorts. “That’s what you get for being a kinky fucker.”
“No. She still thinks we bullied her sister,” Felix says.
“Damn right you did. You were there too that night, on the cliff, when she jumped. You didn’t fucking stop her,” I growl.
He steps even closer, raindrops rolling down his forehead. “Neither did you.”
“I tried!”
“I would have jumped after her if I knew what she was about to do,” he growls back.
When I keep shaking my head, he shows me the palm of his hand. There’s a particularly weird tattoo on there, a circular line that moves from the outside of his hand to his knuckle. I’ve always wondered what it meant but never thought it mattered.
Until now.
“Dylan,” he barks. “Show her.”
Dylan moves his fist in line with Felix, but ninety degrees turned so Felix’s knuckles point at the side of his hand. And right there, an overlapping circular tattoo line makes a half circle.
Alistair is next, pointing his fist to an empty space while pushing the side of his hand into Dylan’s knuckles, making the tattoo three-quarters of a circle.
And my breath begins to falter.
It’s the same tattoo as my sister had.
FELIX
“You’ve seen it before,” Alistair says. “Haven’t you?”
Penelope nods, but she can’t even say a goddamn word.
“She has the final piece of the circle,” Dylan says.
“She was a part of us,” I say, stepping closer.
Tears well up in her eyes. “Why … why would she lie to me?”
The knife in her hand steadies, but I’m not afraid, not even as the tip penetrates my skin. Still, I inch closer and wrap my hand around hers. Slowly, she yields to my grip as I lower her hand.
Suddenly, she falls into me, bawling her eyes out.
And I just stand there, not knowing what to do with her.
I haven’t seen her cry like this. Not even as we chased her, bullied her, stalked her, used her, fucked her, hurt her. Not ever … until now.
I look up at Dylan, who makes big eyes and smashes his lips together like he wants me to do something. But these things do not come naturally to me.
After a while, I lift my hand and pat her on the back.
It only seems to make her cry more.
The knife rolls out of her hand onto the ground, and her arms wrap around me.
And fuck me, it’s been too long since I’ve felt this kind of embrace.
It’s the kind of hug I’ve only had from two people in my entire life.
Her and Eve. And it’s the kind of hug that can ignite a long-extinguished heart and set it ablaze, even in this cold, rainy weather.
I don’t know what to tell her except … “I’m sorry.”
I don’t say these words a lot, but today, they matter.
The scars we bear are deep and gnarly, and they still hurt even today.
She looks up into my eyes. “What?”
My lip twitches. “Don’t make me repeat that.”
“I know what you said. You’ve just never said it before.”
“Then don’t take it lightly,” I say.
She wipes some of her tears away, her eyes smudged and stained with mascara. “It’s so hard to believe.”
“She meant a lot to us.” I grab her chin and tilt her face so she keeps her gaze fixated on me. “You mean a lot to us.”
“We just didn’t want you to snoop in our business and find out about Eve,” Alistair says. “Because we knew it wouldn’t take long for the entire school to find out.”
“And my father would kill me if that happened,” Dylan adds. He raises a brow as he clutches his waist with both hands. “But you’re much more like your sister than we thought.”
She pulls away from me and holds up her hands. “Whoa, wait a minute, this is all a little too much to take. You’re all telling me you knew I was her sister, yet you still wanted to fuck around with me?”
“We didn’t set out on it,” I reply, running my tongue across the inside of my cheek. “But you made it impossible to stay away.”
She takes even more steps back until she’s almost on the trail leading out of the cemetery. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I walk closer, but she backs up, almost like she’s still afraid of me.
Of us.
And the thought alone makes me both angry and excited as hell.
“Would you have believed us?”
She rubs her lips together before shaking her head. “You didn’t give me a chance.”
Dylan approaches too, extending a hand, but all it does is make her move farther back. “C’mon, Pen. Don’t do this.”