Lumen stands up from table so suddenly that her chair falls over and hits the floor. She’s just … staring at the pair of us like she’s never seen us before.
“Why would you do that?” she breathes, searching my face, searching Chasm’s face. “Kwang-seon, what the hell? Danyella worked her ass off all year for that production. So many people had their dreams crushed by that fire.”
Chasm exhales and glances down at me, but I can’t tear my eyes away from Danyella. She offered me friendship within seconds of meeting me. Non-judgmental friendship with no strings attached. She’s been kind and inclusive and generous with her time, offering me a part in the drama club, letting me stay over here and use her to lie to Tess.
How did I repay her? By burning down everything that mattered.
“We don’t expect you to believe how sorry we are,” Chasm tells them, tucking his hands into his blazer pockets and looking down at the table’s shiny surface. I finally break my stare with Danyella and glance his way. If I’m hurting, he must be doubly in pain. He’s known these girls since he was nine years old. They were his friends far before they were ever mine.
“Please leave,” Danyella chokes out finally, slamming the fridge door.
“I’m sorry, and I love you,” I tell her, putting my hands over my chest as she turns suddenly and then throws the seltzer as hard as she can against the far wall. It hits and dents the wall, exploding and spraying fizzy liquid everywhere.
“Get out,” she seethes, her voice low and weird and dangerous. “Just get out.”
“Little Sister.” Chasm grabs my arm and gives me a shake, dragging me toward the front door. Lumen watches us go with an inscrutable expression, her brown eyes tracking me as I pass. She blinks once, hard and intentional, and I swear, it feels like she’s trying to tell me something. I have no idea what it is, but I file the expression away for later.
As soon as we get outside, Chasm closes the door behind us, and I hear the dead bolt click into place a few seconds later.
“Jesus, that was messed up,” he breathes, but I don’t respond. I’m too shell-shocked to form any sort of reply.
I’ve just lost my only female friends in all of Whitehall. One of whom is the queen bee. And the king of the school? He’s still missing.
I might be in trouble here.
“Thank you,” I tell Chasm, looking up at him and wishing that I had more to say, more to offer.
“You’re welcome,” he replies, sighing heavily and then moving around the car to open my door for me.
I should ask him about his father’s security firm. About the woods. About …
Instead, I push all of that aside and text Justin Prior immediately.
It’s done. I told Danyella. I want to see a picture of Parrish in the bed.
The response comes almost immediately.
And you’ve added another pawn to this game. Maxx Wright. Interesting choice. You’ve managed to surprise me more than once this week. That is not something that is easily done.
I turn the phone screen off and lay my head back against the seat.
I must fall asleep without realizing it because the next thing I know, I’m waking up and we’re pulling into the Vanguard’s garage.
Crap.
Crap, crap, crap.
Chasm was supposed to take me back to Maxx so that he could bring me home. Chas isn’t supposed to be here. Tess isn’t exactly thrilled with him at the moment.
“It’s okay,” Chasm tells me, putting the car in park and turning off the engine. He glances my way as I struggle out of a thick, heavy cloud of exhaustion. “This was unavoidable.”
He climbs out of the car, and I follow after, heading into the house to find Tess in the living room. She has a bottle of wine in her right hand, her eyes dazed and staring at nothing. I’m not the only person in this house who had a hard day, that’s for sure.
She lifts her head up like she’s climbing out of a mental fog, her attention focusing immediately on Chasm. A frown flits across Tess’ pretty mouth.
“Kwang-seon.” Just that. His name and nothing else. He’s in huge trouble. “What are you doing here?” Tess turns her attention over to me. “You were supposed to come home with Maxx.”
“I was helping with the search party,” Chasm explains, holding up both hands, palms out, as if he knows how dangerous this scenario is becoming. “I offered to take Dakota home so we could talk.”
“And nobody thought to inform me about what my daughter might be doing?” Tess asks, sounding a bit hysterical. She takes another swig of the wine, staining her teeth purple for a brief moment. “A text or a phone call letting me know about the change of plans would’ve been appreciated.”
“That was my fault,” I offer, stepping forward and hoping to defuse the situation somewhat. “I fell asleep as soon as I climbed in the car. I’m just … I’m exhausted, Tess.”
There must be something in my voice that catches a bit of that strange sympathy Tess showed me last night. But just a bit.
“Every time the two of you are together, I lose my daughter.” She points at Chasm with the wine bottle. “You took her from the TV studio and disappeared; you cut class together yesterday and nearly gave me a heart attack. Now this?” She gives a harsh, strangled sort of laugh. She’s very clearly drunk and suffering right now. I can’t hold any of this against her. “Kwang-seon, I’ve known you for a long, long time now. You’re practically one of my children.”
“I know,” he says, sounding hurt, needy in a way I’ve never heard before. He really does love this family, and I’d never forgive myself if I ever did anything to mess that up. He moves forward to crouch beside Tess, putting his hand on her knee. “I’m sorry, Tess. I really am. The last thing in the world I’d ever want to do is hurt you or anyone else in this family. You know that I love you guys.”
“How could you do that?” Tess demands, getting sniffly as she reaches out and cups the side of Chasm’s face. “Treat my daughter like … Well, like you treat all the other girls you date. She isn’t a conquest, another notch on your belt.”
God, the way Chas’ shoulders tighten up, the way he hangs his head, I want to scream. I want to just cup my hands around my mouth and yell it out for the world to hear: I slept with my stepbrother, and I don’t care because I love him, and I miss him, and he’s dying right now. He’s dying and there are more important things to worry about.
But I don’t. Because it won’t help. I know Chasm would rather endure this than hurt Tess or Parrish or … me. I’m okay with sacrificing myself, but I can’t do that to Tess and Parrish, not now.
“I promise that I don’t think of her like that, Tess,” he says, adopting a cajoling tone that I’ve never heard before, soothing some of her drunken anger away with his voice. “I really like Dakota. She’s smart, and she’s a fast learner. She cares about other people in a way that blows my mind.” He glances back at me, but I can’t decide if he’s just saying those things to appease Tess or if he means them.
I swallow a lump of pain, and squeeze my hands into fists in the wet pleats of my skirt.
Chasm turns back to Tess as she puts her face in her hand and starts to cry.
“I just want my son back,” she sobs, and my heart shatters.
All this time, I’ve been so focused on DNA and blood and legalities and … I didn’t give enough credence to the fact that Tess loved me. That she carried me inside of her, gave birth to me, cared for me for nearly two years, and then lost me through no fault of her own. It isn’t just DNA that convinced her to uproot my life and drag me here: it was love.
Parrish is not Tess’ biological son and yet …
“Oh god, Chasm.” Tess is weeping now, completely and utterly stripped bare. It’s such a contrast to her mood from last night. I didn’t recognize her then, and I most certainly don’t recognize her now.
I don’t know this woman at all, do I?
Paul comes into the room with a bag of takeout in his hand, his eyes
widening when he sees the state his wife is in. He drops the bag to the floor and rushes over to her as Chasm stands up and moves aside. Paul sweeps Tess into his arms, and I look away.
This isn’t something we need to see.
Chasm and I leave the room and then pause awkwardly together near the stairs.
Should I invite him up? Is Tess still going to be angry with him in the morning or will she forgive him?
“My dad will lose his shit if I don’t get home soon,” he explains, and I exhale a small sigh of relief. Not because I want him to leave. Quite the opposite, in fact. But at least his admission saves us the uncomfortable conversation.
“I really appreciate everything you’re doing for me,” I tell him earnestly, wishing I could express myself in a more eloquent way. Wishing I could tell him how sad I am that those sunflowers are dying. Or how much the sight of his face outside of Parrish’s bedroom that day haunts me.
Before I can second-guess myself, I throw my arms around him and give him a Banks family signature squeeze. That’s our thing back home, big, strong hugs that envelop the body as well as the soul. I’m pretty sure that Chasm doesn’t get hugged nearly enough.
Or maybe at all.
“God, Little Sister,” he chokes out, putting his hand on my upper back. “You’re going to make me get all teary and whatever.” He rubs my back in slow, comforting circles as we both shiver in our damp clothes and miss our friend so bad that we ache in unison, that we hurt together. It still isn’t fun to be in this much pain, but it’s a hell of a lot more bearable when there’s someone around to share it with.
“Keep being you. It works.” I pull away from him only to find that he’s looking down at me with an expression that I feel like I’ve seen before on someone else. On Parrish. Chasm is staring at me the way Parrish did on that last day, when I kissed him and reluctantly slipped away to my own room.
The sound of a car pulling into the garage draws us both out of whatever trance we were just in.
Maxx comes in fairly quickly after, tossing his keys in the air and catching them. He pauses when he sees us both waiting there.
“I have to get home; Seamus is not in a great mood today.” Chasm looks away sharply, and I remember the bruises I saw on his arms earlier today. The thought of that man throwing Chas around makes me see red. “Don’t bother Dakota too much, okay? We can all sit down together tomorrow and talk.”
“Take care of yourself,” Maxx tells him, which isn’t so much an agreement as it is a careful avoidance of the subject. “Drive safe and text me when you get home, okay?”
“Sure, Mom,” Chas says with a roll of his pretty amber eyes. He offers me up another half-smile before disappearing out the door and into the garage.
Now, it’s me and Maxx having a weird, uncomfortable rendezvous at the base of the stairs.
He meets my eyes without flinching.
“I knew you were good,” he says, which makes me smile. That exact line is in the English dubbed version of Spirited Away which, as we know from my soot spirit pen, is one of my favorite movies of all time. In a strange way, Maxx reminds me of the dragon in that movie. “I knew it.”
I raise a brow but then find myself forced to stifle a yawn because I’m exhausted beyond all reason.
“You knew it, so it must’ve been true, huh?” I ask, and Maxx gives me a loose shrug of his shoulders. His face is relatively impassive, but I can see the desperation just behind his eyes. He deserves to hear about what’s happening. He deserves to know. I lean in to whisper, even though I can still hear Tess sobbing far too loudly to hear me. “If I agree to tell you what’s going on, do you agree to keep the information to yourself? You won’t tell another soul?”
“As long as I feel that keeping this a secret will benefit you and Parrish more than telling it would be,” Maxx whispers back, leaning in close to me. Our faces are within inches of one another. If I turned sharply to the left, I’d …
Fuck.
Gross.
I retreat back a step and turn, gesturing for Maxx to follow me up the stairs.
I invite him into my room and lock the door. As soon as I do that, I realize how awkward it really is having him here. Sort of like when Chasm’s in here.
Actions and not thoughts. Actions.
If the universe knows anything to be true, it’s that I love Maxine more than life. Even if X is attractive and perceptive and fiercely protective of those he loves, even if he has a good sense of humor and says really wise things at the base of waterfalls, I am not interested in him. Because, even if he and Maxine don’t end up together, she had him first.
He will be forever forbidden, forever off-limits, and I’m okay with that.
I am.
“Sit.” I point at the chair beside my desk, the one that I got for twenty bucks at a yard sale and helped my grandmother refinish. X raises both brows at me, but he does what he’s told, pulling out the chair and sitting facing me on it, his arms crossed over the back.
I take a seat on the edge of my bed and immediately remove my wet shoes and socks, my blazer, my tie. Maxx watches me so intently that I start to feel uncomfortable, and then he glances away sharply, as if he’s just realized what he’s doing.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” I say, sighing and running my hands over my green and black hair. It’s still wet. That’s what happens when you drag ass-length hair through a rainstorm. More than once. Oh well. In the scheme of things, it isn’t important in the least.
I start with the dream that wasn’t a dream, then the mysterious bloodstain on my bed, the ATV accident. Maxx listens patiently, waiting for me to get to the relevant portions of this story, with the video call, the demands, the fact that … that …
“So, I guess you heard the part about him being my father,” I start, closing my eyes and wishing I could melt into the floor. I open them again, watching as Maxx exhales and sits up straight, bringing his folded arms in against his hard chest. “The really fucked-up part of this all is that he’s not only my bio dad, but …” I sigh, lift my chin, and then make myself say it, accept it, understand that this is real and that it isn’t going away. “He’s also the Seattle fucking Slayer.”
As soon as I open my eyes the next morning, I realize that I’ve missed something so obvious that it may as well be plastered across a billboard outside my window, one covered with neon signs and blasting air horns.
If Mr. Volli—does the dude even have a first name?—were the real Justin Prior, Tess would know just by looking at him. There’s an easy way to confirm this part of the story.
I fling myself out of bed, scrambling to get to my Tess-phone where it’s seated on the mini-tripod atop my dresser. A quick glance at the footage shows nothing unusual other than me thrashing around like a crazy person in my sleep.
I’m still yawning and blinking sleep from my eyes as I head down the stairs, searching for Tess. I find her sitting at the kitchen table, staring at her phone screen. There’s no easy or natural way to go about this, so I just dive in.
“Good morning,” I say softly, doing my best to pretend that she didn’t have a drunken meltdown on me and Chasm last night.
Tess lifts her head up from the screen, but you’d never know by looking at her that she lost her shit just twelve hours prior to this moment. Her makeup is flawless, hair coiffed, red power suit in place. She is completely and utterly terrifying.
“Can I show you something?” I ask, making sure the Whitehall Preparatory Academy webpage is still open on my phone. Mr. Volli’s staff photo is pulled up, just this adorable image of him smiling and wearing a gold and burgundy bowtie with his thick-rimmed glasses and easy demeanor. Apparently, his first name is Amin.
What a load of shit.
He shot a rapist to death the other day and then forced two of his students to blow holes in the guy’s corpse. He is far from the innocent bookworm that he looks, even if he is refined and well-spoken and likes to quote poetry.
I flip the p
hone around before Tess can answer. She looks at the photo with absolutely zero recognition in her face before lifting her dark eyes to me.
“Dakota, I’m tired, and I’m upset with you. Would you care to explain why you’re flashing your phone in my face this early in the morning?”
Whelp.
There goes that.
Despite my revelation last night, and Tess’ breakdown, it’s clear that her self-defense mechanisms are still locked firmly in place. She isn’t going to give in that easily, now is she?
Oh, and also.
I was right. I was fucking right.
Amin Volli … is not Justin Prior.
“Just … never mind,” I murmur, turning the phone off as Tess goes back to whatever it is that she’s working on. So much for thinking we’d broken through some sort of emotional wall last night. She either doesn’t remember what happened last night or doesn’t put as much stock in it as I did.
Also, Tess hasn’t mentioned any arson charges which means that Danyella hasn’t told anyone about the fire. Yet. She hasn’t told anyone yet. But she could.
I head upstairs, letting myself mull that over.
Somehow, I get the idea that she isn’t going to. Whether it’s because she cares about me or some other reason, I don’t know. Getting me locked up wouldn’t exactly suit the Slayer’s plans, now would it? Maybe he knows something that I don’t about Danyella Schaeffer and Lumen Hearst.
“Good morning,” Maxx says, catching me in the upstairs hallway. It’s weird, seeing him standing in the doorway to Parrish’s bedroom. I pause beside him, thankful that he wears a shirt at least some of the time, unlike Chasm and most especially Parrish. The guy is like, allergic to wearing clothes.
“Good morning,” I reply, trying not to let this be weird. But it is. It’s weird. Now Maxx knows and there are three of us in this terrifying loop. “Are you going back to Oregon then?”
He lifts a dark a brow at me.
“Why would I go back to Oregon?” he asks, a small thorn of hurt in his voice.
“I guess I just thought since you know the search parties are bullshit …” I trail off and Maxx sighs, resting a forearm against the doorjamb.
Payback Princess (Lost Daughter of a Serial Killer Book 2) Page 8
