“S-sh-shower,” I say through chattering teeth.
“No shit.” Emma takes hold of my elbow, guiding me into the bathroom.
I’m shaking too much to properly peel off my wet clothes, but I try, anyway. Emma turns on the bathtub faucet then helps me undress, her deft fingers taking over where I fail.
“Arms up,” she murmurs without meeting my eye.
I nod, but even that much movement causes a searing pain into my brain, and I wince.
“Almost there,” Emma says, then unbuttons my jeans and peels them off.
I lose my balance when I try to lift my foot, jarring my hip against the sink and my palms slamming down, but Emma does most of the heavy lifting, pulling my feet through the leg-holes as I wobble above her.
A heavy, metal clunk sounds out against the floor’s tiles when Emma tosses my pants aside. She picks up the ornate key, turning it around a few times in her hands.
“They had a new opening, huh?” she asks, her voice hollow.
“N-n-not anym-more,” is all I can manage to say.
Emma’s fingers clench over the Virtues’ key before setting it on the counter. She ducks under my arm and helps me into the bathtub.
When my toe hits the water, I wail.
Emma nudges me forward. “It feels like fire because you’re getting hypothermic. But the water is barely room temp. I promise. Try to slide in.”
I grip her shoulders, whimpering, but do as she asks. This isn’t the first time Emma’s saved me from my own stupid injuries, and it probably won’t be the last.
After a few minutes of coaxing and gentle, gentle easing into the bathwater, I’m immersed almost to the shoulders, my shivering limbs and joints turning into soft tremors. I breathe deep, closing my eyes, while Emma lays a warm cloth on my forehead.
“When you start to get cold again,” she says, “tell me. I’ll add warmer water.”
I swallow. “They—they—”
“Don’t try to talk. Relax. Deep breaths.”
I crack my eyes open instead, my jaw too clenched and my teeth ramming together too hard for my voice to be much use. So, I attempt to communicate my wishes with my stare.
Emma avoids my eye, dipping a washcloth in the water and squeezing out the excess with both hands before draping it on the exposed skin of my chest. I wait it out, because she has to look at me sometime.
When she does, I flare my eyes, pleading with her to give me answers. “A-Addiysn.”
After reading my expression, Emma sits back on her haunches and sighs. “I’m sorry for cornering you in her room and making you think we betrayed you. We needed Addisyn to believe we were on her side.”
I jut out my chin for her to elaborate, the bathwater rippling with my shudders.
“We had to be believable,” Emma says. “Otherwise, the Virtues weren’t going to buy it.”
“The—the—diary,” I rattle out.
“Yeah, you found Piper’s missing pages in Addisyn’s room. But proving she killed her sister wasn’t enough.”
“But Addisyn was arrested.”
Emma cocks her head. “Were you planning on stopping your snooping into the societies once she was arrested? If so, then great, good job. But I thought you wanted more. I thought you wanted the Virtues.”
“I do.”
Emma nods. When she moves forward to rearrange the cloth on my chest, the planes of her face are cast in the bathroom’s light, the burn down one side of her neck mottled and red. “If the Virtues found out that you knew where Piper’s lost pages were and that you were planning on breaking into Addisyn’s room and retrieving them, they would’ve protected Addy first chance they got. Eden and I had to serve as a distraction and make them think we would intervene and bring them the pages instead.”
My fingers curl under the cooling water. Emma takes that as a sign to drain the tub a little and add a warmer temperature. When she turns the tap and the stream hits my tingling toes, I sigh in relief.
I say, with my head leaning back, “You’ve been meeting with the Virtues? Are those what your late nights were all about?”
Emma studies me carefully. “Sort of. They’re so up their own asses, it wasn’t difficult for them to believe Eden still wanted a chance with them.”
My chin comes down. “Eden’s been meeting with them?”
Emma nods. “She told them your plans—with my okay. I’ve been giving her advice behind the scenes and helping her infiltrate the society. She said she would intervene and get the pages from you. Addisyn was in the room when Eden told the queen our plans, and Addisyn demanded to be present when you were steam-rolled.”
I frown. “You let me trust you, then you went behind my back.”
Same as Chase. Same as Ivy.
The utter recognition that no one I’ve surrounded myself with has worn their true face has me pushing against the sides of the tub and rising from the water.
Emma catches the movement and stands with me, holding my arm, but I shake her off.
“Callie,” she pleads.
“No. Thank you for—for this, but I need to be alone.”
“Don’t you see it was worth it? We took the pages from you,” Emma admits, “but Eden and I, we gave them to the police, not the Virtues.”
“No, you blew up your spot with the Virtues by going to the police. Now they’ll be pissed. You could’ve just let me do it the way I was supposed to, and your covert operation—or whatever it is you and Eden have going—could’ve gone on.” My voice gets stronger as I reach for a towel, though my thighs are gelatinous and weak.
“Callie,” Emma says quietly. She motions up and down my body. “Our plans are still in full effect.”
I pause wrapping the towel around my torso.
Emma continues, “You’re the newest initiate of the Virtues. Do you believe that was an accident?”
Holding the towel with crooked, thawing fingers, I whisper, “I’m so fucking tired.”
“I know you are. But stealth is so important when it comes to them. We’ve been moving the pieces quietly. We had to get Addisyn out of the way and you into the society, but on our terms, without tipping off the Virtues. If we told you outright what we were trying to do—”
“What are you trying to do?”
“They are aware of every step you take. They knew you weren’t about to stop looking for Piper’s killer, or the origins of the Virtues.”
“Thanks to Chase,” I spit. “And Ivy.”
Emma’s nose wrinkles in confusion. “Ivy?”
“Yes,” I hiss. “All of you, working together without letting me in, watching me stumble around and—”
“Risk your life,” Emma counters, her voice more controlled than mine. “That’s what you were doing. The closer you got to exposing the Virtues, the harder they would retaliate.”
“And so, you, what, think you can bribe my silence by making me a member, the way they tried with Addisyn?”
“You have no idea. None … of what they’re capable of.” Emma points to her face. Not to the burn, but to the scar on her lip. The one eyelid that’s lower than the other. “I was beaten because of what they forced me to do. What the queen forces all her favorite girls to do in order to graduate as a Virtue.”
The exposed skin of my back presses against the cold tiled walls. Wincing, I move away. “Are you threatening me?”
“No.” Emma’s breath billows out in an exhale.
“You said it. I’m an initiate because you wanted me to be. Am I the next girl to suffer at their hands?”
“Not if we play this right.” Emma steps forward. “Listen to me. They won’t hurt you so long as you abide by their rules. They think they can control you now. It’s why, once Addisyn was arrested, they had to let you in. Eden was never going to be their next member. But you? You’ve given them so many reasons to get you on their side.”
“They could just kill me.”
Emma gives a single blink. “Contrary to what you believe, the Virtues d
on’t go around murdering on the reg. They work too hard on their girls to put them in their graves so early.”
I ask through stiffened lips, “What will I really be doing, then?”
“Getting what we need.”
I rub one eye with the palm of my hand. “I can’t be your—”
“It’s not just Eden and me working together to expose the Virtues.”
My hand drops to my side. My subconscious predicts the name about to leave her lips, but hearing his name out in the open, having Chase echo against the bathroom walls, makes it so much more powerful.
And foreboding.
Until she says the name I’m not expecting.
Emma takes a breath. “It was Piper, too.”
4
Piper.
The girl I lived with for a week, who bullied me relentlessly until the minute she died, still possesses enough of a foothold in this reality to haunt me.
My legs have turned into brittle matchsticks—I barely possess enough energy to balance on my feet, and my eyes are heavy and begging for sleep. But I pop them open to say, “Piper was helping you?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.” My knees buckle. I plop down on the side of the tub, clutching my towel.
Emma takes pity on me and throws another towel over my shoulders to keep me warm. “She was the only one with access to the temple and the Virtues’ documents. When she died, we thought we’d never get back in. None of us had any idea she’d left clues in her diary.”
“The library reference code,” I murmur.
Emma takes a moment to assess my hunched over form, then scoots to my side. “This is a lot for you to take in. We can reconvene in the morning. You need to sleep.”
I don’t argue when she lifts under my arm and helps me to a stand. Yet, it’s not only lethargy that hangs off my bones. “What happened to you?”
Emma angles her head to glance at me, but instead of answering, speeds us up.
I refuse to be sidelined, so I attempt to ask it in a less personal way. “What do they make all their girls do before graduating?”
“You’ve had a brutal couple of hours. Can’t we leave it for a while?”
“Have you? Left it? After all they’ve done?”
“Fair enough, but I’m tired, too. I promise. Tomorrow morning, I’ll explain more. Until then…” Emma ushers me into my room.
My hand flies to the doorframe. “Wait. My clothes. The key.”
“I’ll get them.”
I let her go, and on my way to my bed, I drag an old t-shirt hanging off my chair back. The towels puddle to the floor as I slip it on, my footsteps heavy, then crawl under my covers, forcing myself to stay awake until Emma returns.
Her shadow flits against my blurred vision. “Here,” she says, and something cold presses into my palm. The key to the Virtues’ temple. “You earned it.”
“Mm.” I palm it close to my chest, then bury half my face in my pillow and close my eyes. “What did you have to do? To get yours?”
A few beats pass, then she says, “An abandoned lake house under construction. I had to sleep there overnight and find the key.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.” I manage to ask, before surrendering to slumber, “Were you afraid of the dark? Is that why they put you there?”
“No.” I hear Emma’s footsteps pad over to my door. She flicks the light off. “I was afraid of monsters.”
Muffled sounds of an argument drift through the black, and I roll over, rubbing my eyes.
“She needs to sleep—Chase. Chase!”
I jolt in bed as my door bursts open and scramble up to my forearms, wincing when my sore muscles protest the movement.
“Callie?” he asks as he strides forward.
“I’m—” I clear my throat. “I’d like to be left alone.”
He doesn’t listen. He sits on the bed, close to my side, light from the doorway illuminating the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the stiff line of his shoulders. Worst of all, it puts a halo around his blond, tousled head.
“I may not be at my best,” I say, “but don’t think I won’t push you off this mattress.”
“I came to explain.”
“I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”
“Hate me. Go ahead.” His tone turns sharp. “But don’t let it be because you listened to Falyn over me.”
“I can think for myself.” I sit up, wrapping my arms around my legs.
He sets his jaw. “After meeting you…” he sighs. “It’s become so fucking complicated.”
While my heart and my mind war with each other, my hands clench into fists. I’m hurt, hollowed out, and confused, but Chase is here. And he wants to talk.
Falyn’s words scythe inside my head, their sharpened blades cutting into my skull with such terrible precision.
Tell your latest soulmate how she’s inherited that title…
Chase was ordered to fuck you as a distraction…
Oh, honey. You’ve already fucked him, haven’t you?
I meet his eyes in the gloom with a colorless stare. “So tell me.”
“I was told to keep an eye on you. That much is true.”
My heart picks up its beats. “By the Nobles?”
His chin jerks down in a single nod. “Piper died, and hell broke loose in our ranks. You were so adamant the society was responsible for her death that my father took me aside and asked me how much you knew.”
I frown. “But at that point, I knew nothing.”
Chase knuckles his jawline. “You told me you and Piper were working on Rose Briar as your history paper.”
“Yeah … and? The founders are a common topic in senior history.”
“You made a connection with the date of Rose’s death and Piper’s. After that, you started throwing around our society name, then the Virtues’.” Chase angles his head to look at me. “Were you expecting them to let you keep tripping over their secrets until you managed to reveal one?”
“I didn’t have an inkling of who they were until I read Rose’s letter that Piper hid in the public library. Then I saw your ritual room and what you do to naked women—”
“If I could explain to you the hundreds of years the society’s been given to hone their sexist, masochist ways, I would. But that’s not what you want me for. Is it?”
He’s right, damn him. I’m not allowing Chase to sit here so I can yell at him about Noble traditions. I’m letting him stay, because… “You were ordered to seduce me.”
Chase doesn’t bother to deny it. “Yes.”
I hug myself tighter. “Then Falyn was right.”
“Falyn dilutes the truth to meet her needs, every time.”
“Does she? I want to believe that.” I’m desperate to cling to his words, to him, and forget there was ever a confrontation at the boathouse.
But that would require altering my memories to suit a reality more palatable, more meaningful, for my soul to handle. And I just can’t do that to myself.
I force my next sentence to be stronger than the soft edges of my heart. “Then tell me about the first time we slept together.”
Chase’s back goes rigid.
“Did you sleep with me because you had to? Was that all I was? A task to complete?”
Chase presses his hand against my entwined ones. “It’s not that simple.”
“Yes or no.” My lower lip quivers, but I’m praying for its concealment in the dark.
Chase exhales. “Yes.”
I turn my face away so he won’t catch the midnight glimmer of my tears. “You can go now.”
He doesn’t move. He stares at me.
“The first time, yes,” Chase says. “But the second? Third? Fourth? Fuck, how many times have we slept together? Add them up, because those weren’t instructed or ordered. They were mine. I kept coming back to you, because, hell, Callie. Because you shook me loose. You’re the first girl who’s made me feel like there isn’t a collar around my throat, attached to cha
ins against my father’s wall.”
I hear what he’s saying, but he’s cloaked in lies. Raised on vehemence and stubborn pride. Chase could form his lips around those sweet vowels for as long as they suit his needs.
“Don’t let Falyn come between us. Or allow the Virtues to win.” Chase grabs my hands with both of his, holding on tight. “We’re us, Callie. We don’t have to be what they—”
“But do we have trust?”
Chase raises his head. “What?”
“Say I believe you. That we’ve fallen for each other. That we’re attracted and can’t resist the need to give in to mutual pleasure. But can you trust me?”
Chase leans back. “I…”
I give a slow, aching nod. “I’m not angry with you for not being able to answer that. I can’t answer it, either.” I meet his eyes. “And I think that’s the problem.”
“We can fix it.”
“Not right now, we can’t. Not with the Virtues and the Nobles trying to direct our every move. We’ve seen what they can do. You’ve seen more than I ever will. Can you honestly say that whatever information we feed each other, accidental or on purpose, won’t reach their ears?”
“That’s not fair. It’s different now. I’m not their puppet.”
“No. You’re their prince.”
Chase breathes out. “Callie.”
“You plan to go against them, remake their values, and that’s wonderful. I don’t want to be the reason you can’t. And they’ll use me against you, just like they used you against me.”
The shadows caressing Chase’s face turn into sharp points on the planes of his cheeks. “I won’t let that happen. I’m not under my father’s control anymore. I’ve sided with my sister. I’ve sided with you.”
I lift my hand, caressing the dark hollows near his mouth. “You and I, we can’t let each other in. Not yet.”
And, my heart cries out, maybe we’ll never be able to.
Chase takes hold of my wrist, pausing my strokes. “If you can’t trust me completely, have faith that I’ve been doing everything in my power to protect you. Tonight, at the docks…” His billowing breath comes close to a death rattle. “I wrote that letter asking you to come to the boathouse. I wanted to meet you, alone, just you and I, so I could finally be honest with you. If I’d known they were going to use my meeting with you to catch you by surprise … fuck.” He casts his gaze to the ceiling. “Maybe you’re right. We’re putting each other at risk.”
Fiend (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 3) Page 3
