by E. M. Snow
“Don’t deserve this?” He snorts, as if he thinks the notion is hilarious. “There’s a lot you don’t deserve, bitch, but you’re apparently able to get whatever you want with that pussy. Come one. Just give me a taste. I just want to know what all the fuss is about.”
He suddenly reaches out and snags my arm before I can make a move to get away. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of moving so fast, just based on his sheer size. Jerking my body away from him, I try to break his hold, but he’s too strong. I gaze around, panic rising within me as I notice a few people watching our exchange, but absolutely no one is making a move to stop him from assaulting me. Balling my hand into a fist, I punch his arm, trying to get him to drop his hold on me.
He just laughs at my efforts.
“Keep it up, bitch. I don’t mind if you fight me. In fact, I think it makes it way more fun.”
“Let me go!” I shriek, but his grip just tightens, shooting pain through my arm.
“How about we go and find a nice quiet spot somewhere, and you can show me just how good you are with that mouth—”
Suddenly, a first comes flying past my head and slams into the asshole’s face. He lets out a cry and stumbles back, his fingers loosening enough that I can slip my arm free. The next moment, the guy is slammed up against the lockers in front of me, Phoenix’s hand around his throat.
“The fuck you think you’re doing?” Phoenix snarls, sounding almost deranged he’s so furious. “You think you can touch what’s not yours and not suffer for it?”
For all his bluster when he was coming at me, my assaulter turns meek and terrified under Phoenix’s crazed and furious glare. “I…I’m sorry, man,” he stammers. “I didn’t realize you were into her like that…”
Phoenix slams him into the lockers again. The crowd around us is watching in shocked horror, but no one is daring to step forward to help the guy get away from Phoenix.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Phoenix hisses, squeezing his fingers and making the boy whimper. “Whether I hate her guts or not, she’s still mine to do with as I see fit. That fact alone means you do not lay a fucking finger on her. I see you come anywhere near her, and I’ll break every bone in your fucking body, you got that?”
The guy quickly nods as much as he can, given Phoenix’s tight grip on him. With a growl, Phoenix practically tosses the guy away. He doesn’t bother to watch him flee, turning and stalking to me with that fury still burning in his eyes. Is he angry at me? I didn’t do anything!
Without stopping, he grabs my wrist and pulls me after him as he stalks down the hallway.
“Where are you taking me?” I demand when I realize we’re heading in the opposite direction as my classroom.
He doesn’t answer me and continues to pull me along, and my ears burn when I hear a girl hiss, “It’s about time we give that bitch the full library experience…”
I’ve been threatened with that before this year, but there’s something about it that sets off bells in my head now. Unfortunately, I have zero time to think about the Angelview girl who was jumped in the library last school year. Not with Phoenix’s caveman act that will surely be the talk of the school for the next several weeks. We reach the doors to the auditorium, and he opens them, yanking me inside.
“What the hell, Phoenix?” I mutter in frustration. “You’re being more insane than usual.”
He still doesn’t speak, just leads me down the aisle between the theater seats toward the large stage on the other side of the room. There are steps toward one side of the stage, and he stalks up them. I nearly trip as I try to keep up.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be back here,” I insist as he leads me backstage. There’s lots of different prop furniture back here for the upcoming school play. He stops in front of a solid looking desk and turns to me at last. Grabbing my hips, he picks me up and places me on the edge of the desk.
“What are you…?” My question is cut off when he drops to his knees in front of me and shoves my skirt around my hips. “Oh my God.”
“Shut up, Luna.” Before I can say another word, he shoves my panties aside and his mouth is on me. “Just shut up because this is the only thing that’ll keep my mind off of killing someone right now.”
“So, you are with Townsend?”
I nearly jump out of my skin at Easton’s question when he slams into the chair behind me just before Mrs. De León starts Spanish. My body is still on fire from what had happened in the auditorium before, and I nearly wince aloud when I twist around in my seat to face him. I swallow hard at the expression on his face. He looks angry.
Angrier than I’ve ever seen him.
“It’s … complicated.” God, why do I feel so stupid saying that word.
He sneers. “Didn’t seem all that complicated when he was trying to rip out Ross Ferrell’s throat.” Before I can react to learning the name of my assailant from this morning, he bends his head closer to mine and adds in a soft voice, “Or when he was eating you out backstage in the auditorium.”
I recoil, my cheeks on fire. I’m grateful when Mrs. De León calls the class to order because I’m forced to direct my attention straight ahead, but Easton keeps talking. “He wanted me to see you with him.”
I barely recognize my own voice when I manage to squeak. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”
He waits until Mrs. De León is discussing our homework to continue, “The motherfucker knew I wanted you, and he wanted to prove a point. Why else would he have asked me to meet him there? Why else would he skip class today?”
My heartbeat speeds out of control. Because I believe Easton. Because the move is so typically Phoenix that now I’m seeing red.
Easton doesn’t speak to me again for the rest of class, but once the bell rings, I hear him slide from his seat. He stands over me, his brows dragging together in a furious line. “Do me a favor, Josslyn,” he says, and all I can do is nod. “Tell him that he fucked up.”
I’m not surprised that Phoenix isn’t around to drive me back to the Townsend house after school, and I’m a bundle of angry nerves on the ride home with Reina. She chats the whole way about an art project she has due in a couple weeks, but I can hardly concentrate. When she slams her car into park right in front of the front steps, she casts me an appraising look.
“You okay, Joss?”
“I’m … fine,” I say, but she simply purses her full lips and blinks once.
“I hope you’re not letting what that shitbag sandwich Ross said get to you. Or those bitches threatening to pull that Mallory Ellis shit on you.”
I pause as I let that name stream through my brain. It’s familiar. So familiar. “Mallory Ellis?”
Reina gives a dramatic roll of her hazel eyes. “You know, the girl from Angelview. The one those bitches jumped in the library. Saint Angelle’s … whatever she was to him. Jesus, Joss.”
“Right.” But once again, my thoughts are buzzing. I manage a little smile as Reina murmurs an apology because she won’t be able to take me to see Nina today and then I stumble out of the car. “No, it’s fine. You’ve already done so much for me.”
Just before I reach the front door, Reina honks her horn. I glance over my shoulder to find her head cocked and a huge grin splayed across her features. “Cheer up, bitch! It can’t be all that bad since you got to ride home with my wonderful ass.”
I’m laughing as I wave her off, but my brain is still fixated on that name.
Mallory Ellis.
I’m barely three steps inside before curiosity gets the best of me and I’m Googling it. Pages of information pop up instantly, and my breath feels like it’s knocked out of my body when I realize who she is.
Saint Angelle’s … whatever she was.
The heiress to a billion-dollar fortune.
The daughter of Eleanor Mallory, the woman from the articles that Phoenix had sent me all those weeks ago to convince me my brother was a murderer.
And the same pregnant girl who�
��d given me her number and told me she was checking up on me for Jasper.
32
I had never planned to get in touch with the girl who had introduced herself as Carley, but that’s what I find myself doing. Pacing the Townsends’ massive kitchen and waiting for a girl who’d lied to me to answer my call. Each ring is agonizing because I realize this can’t be coincidence. That there’s more crazy shit going on here than I ever imagined.
Just when I’m sure she’s not going to pick up, and my heart starts to sink, a female voice drawls, “Yeah?”
I drag in a deep breath. “Mallory?”
She goes silent for a few beats and then sighs. “Josslyn.”
My shoulders droop forward. “I—”
“Figured you’d be with my cousin,” a rough voice says from the other side of the room, and I come dangerously close to dropping my phone on the marble floor.
“Alaric,” I blurt out, and a chill rushes through down my spine at Mallory’s sharp intake of air. I hear her whispering to someone, hear a hushed response, and I swallow hard before I return to the call and say, “Carley, let me call you back in five minutes. I just need to go somewhere quiet.”
She’s saying something as I disconnect the call, but I tell myself I’ll find out what that is—what everything is—as soon as I call her back.
“You didn’t have to do that.” Alaric gives me a smile that refuses to reach his eyes as he storms toward the refrigerator. “I’m not Phoenix. I don’t expect to be entertained.”
My fingers go taut around my phone, just as a text comes through. I ignore the message, focusing instead on his tense shoulders. “Why do you have to say shit like that?”
“Because it’s the truth. We all let him play us, and now look what he’s doing to you.” Since I have no idea how to even respond to that, I stand frozen, my breath puffing out angrily while I watch him sift through the contents of the refrigerator.
He must not find what he’s looking for because he slams it shut a few seconds later and bangs his fist against the stainless steel door. “Don’t feel too bad, Hendrix. Like I said, he played us both. You with that bullshit about his arrangement with your brother. Me with that fake message from Jasper to get you to do exactly what he wanted you to do. We both fell for it, and we still don’t know what the fuck he has going on.”
The noise that springs from my lips is a strangled cry. “What?”
“That day he brought you here.” He doesn’t look at me as he says this, but I’m not sure I want him to. Not when he’s telling me these things. Not when my heart feels like it’s seconds from exploding. “You didn’t drop your fucking phone, Josslyn. I was returning it. He asked me to find your brother’s information, so I did. Everything Phoenix has told you is a lie.”
“I…” But what the hell can I say? I can’t even move from this spot.
“Just do what they say,” Alaric says, and my blood turns to ice. “I promise I’ll explain everything.”
He’s quoting my brother’s text. The one that convinced me to take Phoenix’s threats seriously. The one that brought me to this house and to their world and into Phoenix’s bed. He had sent it.
“How?” I rasp. “How did you do it? Why did you do it?”
“Does it even matter?”
“Yes! It does matter. You tricked me. He tricked me and used me and—” I can’t even breathe now. I’m doubled over, my phone vibrating furiously in my palm and my heart rattling violently against my ribcage. “Why are you telling me this? Why after so many months?”
At last, Alaric turns to face me and his hazel gaze meets mine. “Because you need to go, and you need to do it now before it’s too late.”
The Range Rover is already parked in front of my grandmother’s house when the Uber driver drops me off at the front gate. I hadn’t read any of Mallory’s texts until well after I’d stormed out of the Townsends’ house—until after I was already inside the car I booked—but they were all frantic.
Unknown: Where are you?
Unknown: Please tell me you’re not with them.
Unknown: Answer me, Josslyn! Are you okay?
I had messaged back that I was fine, that I was going home, but she hadn’t responded. I figured that would be enough but judging by the fact she’s sitting on my front step with her brow furrowed, it obviously wasn’t.
“You were with Alaric Hartley,” she says once I slip through the chipped gate.
Just hearing his name causes me to deflate. He had hurt me. He had gone to excessive lengths to hurt me and simply because Phoenix had asked him to. I don’t think I’ll ever understand that.
“Yes,” I say. “I was with him.”
“So, when you said you were staying with friends…” she trails off, her blue eyes widening as I slowly nod. “What the actual fuck?”
“Says the girl who lied about her identity,” I growl, walking around her and heading to the front door. “You can leave now, Mallory. I don’t need more lies. I don’t need any of—”
“Jasper worked for my mother,” she blurts out, and I freeze a few inches from the door. “And before that he worked for Jameson Angelle. That’s something we have in common, Josslyn. Jasper and Angelle.”
That’s another name that always seems to come up. Angelle. “Make it make sense,” I whisper, and Mallory gives a broken laugh from behind me.
“God, how many times have I said that same exact shit?” I hear her car door open, and a few moments later she calls out, “Get in, Josslyn. You can’t stay here, and if you want the truth, you’ll just have to trust me.”
The thing is, I don’t trust anyone. Not my brother or the Townsends. And certainly not this girl. But she’s right about one thing: I can’t stay here.
So, I get in the car.
Like the damn fool that I am.
In the time it takes Mallory to drive to the seaside cottage we end up at, my phone goes off no less than twenty times. Every message is from Phoenix. And every message remains ignored.
“We should get rid of that thing,” Mallory says as she ushers me inside the house. She gives a brisk nod toward my phone. “They could be tracking it and God knows I don’t want them here.”
“They’re not,” I say, but I don’t sound at all convinced. Mallory isn’t either because she tilts her head to the side and crinkles her nose.
“Are you sure you’re Ghost’s sister?” she asks after a beat.
If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t even be surprised. I’m not sure anything can surprise me anymore.
She disappears for a few minutes, leaving me with a million and one questions as I pace her massive living room. It’s plainly furnished, with no personal touches, and I can’t help but wonder if this is even her house.
I don’t realize I’m muttering that aloud, until she chirps, “It is. I just won’t be here long.”
I almost bump into a side table as I spin around to face her. “I…”
“I don’t blame you for wanting to know. I spent half the school year last year with your brother chauffeuring me to vacant ass houses so my mother could terrorize me for an inheritance I knew nothing about.” There’s not a hint of amusement in her beautiful features. When I swallow hard, she gestures to the couch. “Sit. Seriously, this shit is so crazy that you want to sit.”
So, I do. I sit on the edge of my fucking seat for the next hour as Mallory tells me the story of how she met my brother, how he’d helped her birth mother do unspeakable things to her for months, and how she’d ended up helping Jasper.
With my tuition.
With hiding from the authorities.
With … everything.
“Why?” I blurt out when she finally finishes, and she settles back, cradling her stomach. “You said the baby isn’t my brother’s.”
“He’s not Ghost’s,” she says, but it seems like she’s choosing her words carefully and there’s a strange gleam in her eyes that makes my chest clench. Gnawing at her bottom lip, she taps a soft beat against her bell
y. “Ghost saved my mother’s life when Jameson Angelle wanted her killed. Your brother did fucked-up things because he trusted Nora, but he wasn’t—isn’t—bad. Not completely, at least. He just hated Jameson Angelle, and if you ask me, he had a damn good reason.”
Her lips are parted, and I can tell she’s about to drop more bombs. After all, she hasn’t even touched the Townsend family yet.
And when she releases a deep breath, I know it’s coming, so I brace myself.
“It was a list, Josslyn. Your brother stole a list from the Townsends. Victims of Angelle, women he took and did God knows what with. Men that … helped. That’s why he was in their house. That’s why nobody’s seen Royce in months. There are bigger players than Angelle and Royce, and they won’t let him go until they have that goddamn list.”
I grip the armrest until the fabric squishes beneath my fingers. I wish I could tell her that this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, but I can’t. Because right now, ridiculous is what makes sense. It explains why Phoenix was constantly asking if I heard from Jasper. Why I’ve never seen his parents. It explains everything.
“So, where’s Jasper?” I finally ask. “Where’s my brother?”
Mallory’s shoulders lift in a shrug. “I … I’m not sure, I—”
The sound of shuffling coming from the hallway sends my nerves scattering, and I’m on my feet in a second. Mallory is, too, one of her hands stretched out and her head shaking wildly.
“It’s fine, it’s just …”
But she trails off, squeezing her eyes shut as a new face makes its appearance in the room. It’s a face I’ve seen before, plastered all over the news. A face framed by platinum blond hair and split with a cocky grin.
A face belonging to a boy who’s supposed to be … dead.
“Dammit, Angelle,” she growls, and I can’t quite catch my breath as Saint Angelle flops down in the spot I just left and glances up at me.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he drawls, and what he says next rips away my balance. “Fuck, it’s good to finally meet you, little sister. I’m Saint.”
