by Monty Jay
“Maybe you’re right,” he says, sobering up a bit. “However, I’ve got some business that needs attending to on the East Coast in the next few weeks. I’ve asked your father to join Easton and me. I think you should really think about coming along. It might be a nice little vacation, and maybe you and Easton could rekindle.”
My brain goes to high alert. It’s no longer a game of who can outwit who.
What is he doing with my father?
I cross my arms in front of me suspiciously. “Business?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light as I look between the two of them. “What business? You’re the dean of a college. I thought your business would consist of budgeting tuition and meal planning school lunches.”
He looks at me carefully. “I wasn’t aware you were so interested in the inner workings of what I do, Sage. Plan on taking my job one day?”
“Just keeping my options open.”
I’m onto you, I want to say.
And by the way his body language shifts, just a little, I can tell he knows it.
So help me God, if I find out he was involved in what happened to Rosie, there would be no waiting like we’re doing with my father.
I’ll kill him in front of the police department and handcuff myself.
“If you must know,” he exhales, “it’s a funding opportunity. We’re looking into more scholarship donations so that bright, young students from underprivileged homes can attend without worrying about the financial burden. Like your friend Briar.”
I slit my eyes when he says her name. He is so full of shit it’s starting to leak out of his ears. The Sinclair men are a handful of generational assholes.
“How very humanitarian of you, Stephen,” I say. “This has been nice, catching up, but I’ve got to run to the little girls’ room.” I tip my champagne glass up at both of them before turning on the ball of my foot and heading in the opposite direction.
I walk away from him and towards the French doors, where all the waitstaff are filtering through.
They all look miserable walking around in their white waistcoats and silver trays. I recognize one of them as one of the guys that had trapped me, Briar, and Lyra at the Gauntlet.
It’s not a rare occurrence for people from West Trinity Falls to work for the people in Ponderosa Springs. To them, they’re just our servants, the people who pick up after our messes. It’s strange that I had never noticed that before, just how many of them worked for the rich, trying to provide a life for themselves.
I can only imagine what they think of us. I bet they sit around and talk about how lucky we are, how easy we have it, and to some degree, they’re probably right.
But tragedy does not discriminate against the poor and the rich. It comes for everyone, and it does not care if you live in a mansion or a roach-filled apartment. It eats at us all.
With no rush to return to the party, I wander around the halls. I know this house like it’s my own, having spent more time here growing up than I would have liked.
I walk into the study, my fingers gliding across the dusty books before I walk onto the terrace. I stand still, looking down from my place on the second floor at all the guests mingling around on the back lawn. A clear representation of everything I despised about my upbringing.
I can smell the fresh floral arrangements in the breeze, bouquets of hydrangeas, violets, and orchids. All of them are placed elegantly around the spacious, green lawn, the setting sun reflecting the color on their petals.
Large white canopies are strategically set up to shield guests while they eat. The circular dining tables were decorated flawlessly by some designer that would never actually get the credit for it. All the women in their oversized hats and men in their suit jackets add to the aesthetic like perfectly arranged ornaments.
Everything is in order. There are no children running around gleefully soaking in the sun or laughter that rings too loud.
It’s all orchestrated to sound and look like wealth.
All of these familiar faces that I grew up around yet had never had one single genuine conversation with any of them. I see Lizzy standing next to her mother and father and wonder if the night before he’d stumbled in drunk and smelling of another woman’s perfume. I’m curious if she’s still hiding who she really is beneath that tailored white dress.
Every influential name in Ponderosa Springs is in attendance today, all here to celebrate my father’s re-election.
One that he’d secured with pity and blood-soaked money.
As I stare at them with their jewelry and designer clothes, it feels like the first time I’m seeing them for what they all are. One big mirage of success and happiness. From a distance, you might see a life people would dream of, but in reality, when you get close, the picture becomes clearer.
It’s all an act.
A show they put on while they’re busy digging holes six feet deep to bury their secrets inside of. Shoving all of their skeletons, crooked ways, and nasty scandals into the grave, leaving the ground to soak up all that wickedness.
I don’t believe in ghosts or hauntings.
But if any town is cursed by the wrongdoings of its civilians, it’s Ponderosa Springs. It forces the soil to absorb their evil, enriching the ground with sinister fertilizer. It’s now so apparent to me that I can feel it as I walk around.
“I kissed you for the first time right there.”
Repulsion hits me like a bus.
“You threatened to cut my hair with scissors if I didn’t,” I say as I turn around to look at Easton. He’s wearing a starched button-down and navy slacks, his blond hair combed back neatly, achieving an effortless kind of handsome, one that I would be able to acknowledge if I didn’t already know how awful of a human he was.
“We remember things differently, it seems,” he quips, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.
“We remember a lot of things differently.”
There’s so much history between the two of us, matched for a relationship before we even knew what that meant. When we were young, he was different. We got along as friends. He was funny and smart, always coming up with something to do. Climbing trees, riding bikes, getting ice cream.
We grew up together.
And I’m not sure when he changed, when he became what he is now.
We’d gone from friends since birth to standing here as enemies.
Maybe things would have gone differently had I been able to love him. Maybe I wouldn’t have fought this life as hard as I did. Maybe I would have given in and become what he needed, but even as a young teenager, I knew I didn’t want that for myself.
I take a sip of my bubbly drink. “What happened to your face?”
A gaudy bandage is attached to the left side of his face, protecting some type of wound from infection.
He grinds his teeth, reaching up to touch the gauze and sucking his teeth. “I thought you were done playing dumb, Sage?”
I furrow my eyebrows, not having a clue what he is talking about.
“You really don’t know?” he asks, scoffing a little. “Rook, your psychotic fuck buddy, burnt half my face off. It took two skin grafts to fix, and even still, I’ll be walking around like a freak.”
“Why do I get the feeling you did something to deserve it?”
I start to walk away when I feel Easton’s hand grab my forearm, hauling me in close into his space. My balance is thrown slightly, making me lean onto his chest.
There are flashes of our past relationship that hit me like whiplash, and on instinct, I want to break his fingers for touching me.
He has no right.
He never did, and I’m ashamed that at one point I thought he did.
His mouth dips close to my ear, making me sick to my stomach. “We used to be good together. We were happy. You can still have that, Sage. The lifestyle you’ve always wanted, the attention, the notoriety. You can still have all of that. All you have to do is come back to me.”
There’s nothing to come bac
k to because there was never anything I’d left. Everything I was with Easton was a fake. A fraud. A person I had to be in order to get through the pressure of living in this town.
“Let go of me, Easton.” I grind out.
For a second, there is a brief moment where I see the boy I used to know. The one I used to be friends with. Before he woke up one day a different person, a man who thought I was property, one who only cared for how he was perceived.
“There was a time when you begged me to touch you, Sage Donahue. A time before Rook, before all of this. You know me, you grew up with me. I know that we could be happy, if you’d just let me in. Let me show you.”
Panic hits me as he moves closer, my arm trying to jerk away from his hold, but his grip only tightens.
“You better take your hands off her, Sinclair.” I know that voice. “Before you get the other side of your face melted off.”
Rook.
His presence is a dark cloud on this warm day, and I’m surprised how badly I missed the shade. The way he leans against the entryway, arms crossed, defying my expectations of just how far he is willing to go in order to cause chaos.
While Rook’s father is in attendance as he is for most of these gatherings, his son had never once shown his face amongst this kind of crowd. He doesn’t conform to this society they all live in. The one I had lived in.
I jerk my arm away from Easton, stepping away from him.
“Heard about your accident, Toasty. Gotta learn to be more careful around bikes—they get hot.” Rook smirks, only pouring fuel on the already roaring flames.
My heart jumps a little as I look at him.
His silver chain necklace catches the sunlight, my attention directed to his exposed chest, where a few buttons of his shirt are undone. The ink adorning his skin is partially visible, enough to make me lick my lips, enough to make me want more.
He arches one dark eyebrow, letting me know he is very aware I’m eye fucking him.
The dark purple dress shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, the black slacks to match straining against the toned muscles in his thighs—it’s not something I’m accustomed to him wearing. But it’s starting to become something I could get used to.
“Aw,” Easton pouts. “Still jealous I fucked her first, or are you still upset that she’s here where she belongs instead of playing pretend with you?”
Rook pushes himself off the doorframe, moving into the space, filling up the room with his presence. I don’t miss the way Easton backs up as he does.
“That’s where you’re misunderstanding, Sinclair,” he says. “She’s never had to pretend to enjoy anything with me.”
His rebellion makes me ache.
He’d gone his entire life being told he was the devil. It was a role he’d accepted, one that could shield him from his pain and the rest of the world. He would always be that; that would never change.
And I had learned to accept the demons inside of him.
However, it doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of more.
Easton turns to me. “Is that the life you want? Slumming it? Being an outcast? I know you don’t want that for yourself, Sage. Pick me, you know I’m right. You choose me and all your problems disappear, but if you go with him, I can’t guarantee you won’t be caught in the crossfire.”
I’ve been told since I came back about how I’d fallen from grace. How I’d become someone completely different than who I used to be. But I think that’s because I’m becoming the person I was always meant to be.
And I want to do that, standing next to the person I was always meant to be with.
This moment is my eternal damnation origin story. Instead of hiding it, I acknowledge for the first time publicly what it is I want. I show him exactly what it is I want for myself.
I walk quietly past Easton, knowing my actions will be enough to give him his answer. I feel his judgmental eyes smite me as I’m cast out of their self-righteous heaven once again.
But they could not throw me from a place I descended from willingly. Not this time.
I stand next to Rook, unsure of what my place beside him means but knowing I want to be there either way.
I look over at him, hellfire eyes blazing, knowing that if he were to tumble from the heavens again, falling like lightning from the sky, I would be the thunder that chased after him. I would stay there with him, in eternal flames as long as it was his fire that licked my body.
He is my Lucifer, and it’s time for me to show him I could be his Lilith.
Rook
I’ve never been afraid of anything.
I told myself that if fear ever arose, I would face it head-on with a smile and a match.
But as soon as an ounce of trepidation came for me, I did the complete opposite. I turned in the other direction, and I ran.
I’ve never been afraid of anything.
Until her.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
The billiard room door shuts behind her loudly, trapping us inside the teakwood-smelling space. I hear the fireplace crack, needing to be stoked, but I ignored it.
“What kind of man am I if I let you show up to your father’s celebration party without a date?” I ask jokingly.
“Rook,” she scolds, arms crossed in front of her in defense.
I hadn’t planned on showing up.
But that fear had started to fester. It’s such a rare emotion that I knew it almost immediately.
I thought about her father being here, Easton, all the people that she once surrounded herself with like a shield who had turned their backs, and I wasn’t afraid of what they would do to her. They are weak. Cowards.
I was nervous about what she might do to them.
What would happen if her father pushed her a bit too far, if Easton had continued what I know he wanted to do in that room. I know the tidal waves of emotions that are coursing through her, how much of her patience is being tested by being here. All it would take is one tiny flint, and she would become an unstoppable wildfire.
Scorching anything and everyone in her path.
I can feel it.
Her anger. Her cracked self-restraint. Her despair.
So I thought, what better way to feed the animosity inside of her than give her exactly what it was she’s craving.
“There is something I need to tell you. A few things.”
I walk in her direction, taking my time, making her wonder what it is I’m up to. She watches me with skeptical eyes, which doesn’t surprise me. I’m known for my unpredictability.
“And it couldn’t wait until later?”
A smirk breaks onto my face, my feet stopping once they’re touching the tips of her heels. The smell of her perfume hits me straight in the face, making my groin ache.
“That’s all we’ve been doing, TG,” I say in a hushed tone, pulling the match from my mouth. “Waiting to make our move, waiting out the feds, waiting to kill your father.”
I dip the red tip of the match towards her skin, dragging the rough end across her collarbone just where her scar sits. The same one I wear on my own.
The one I gave myself so that fate would know we were in this life together.
She’s nervous.
I can feel it rolling off her in waves as she stands there wondering what I could possibly be up to this time. Am I going to hurt her? Am I going to end this once and for all? And my personal favorite, am I going to touch her?
“I’m done waiting.”
“What about the police? What about Cain?” Her eyebrows furrow in worry, but her eyes are burning with excitement.
“That’s been handled,” I breathe, drawing a line from her scar towards the center of her chest. “Nothing is stopping us now.”
“Is that what you came to tell me?”
“That’s one of the things.”
“And the other?”
I enjoy the times I could catch her like this.
Cheeks flushed and unsure of herself. It’s on
ly me who can make her this anxious. I want the world to see her as the strong woman she is. As a fucking force to be dealt with.
It makes me hard watching the way people cower around her. Even if she doesn’t see it for herself, I do. Regardless of the power she thinks she lost, people still fear her, and I fucking love that about her.
I love that I’m the only one who can break her. The only one that’s able to crawl beneath her skin and bury myself inside of it.
My hands descend onto her body, slipping beneath the globes of her ass and picking her up smoothly, hauling her up to my waist.
Her mouth parts barely, a gasp falling from her lips.
“Wh-hat are you doing?”
I walk her towards the pool table, resting her on the edge of the soft green felt material.
“Apologizing,” I mutter, putting an inch of space between us, staring at her hard.
“Rook, there is nothing you need to apologize for.”
Taking my time, I drop one knee to the floor with a thud, the other one following suit, preparing for what it is I need to do. I pull my hands down her legs, cradling her calves in my palm and using my thumb to massage her gently.
“There is,” I say, looking up at her from my place on the ground.
My altar.
My salvation.
“For not believing in you, for not believing in us. For not seeing through the lie and fighting to keep you, as I should have.” I open the buttons on my shirt, pulling it down my shoulders and letting it fall to the ground.
“Make it hurt. Make me pay.”
I had been so consumed with my own fear of being betrayed, of being hurt, of losing her, that I let myself hate her. I didn’t go with what my heart had been trying to tell me all along—that she was different.
That she was mine.
I let myself hate her, and she went through hell alone because of it.
This is the only way I know how to make amends with that.
I wait for a second before I feel the tip of her heel beneath my chin, lifting my head up. I look up at her, quirking an eyebrow, my eyes on hers.
She oozes control, her shoulders tall as she stares down at me.
My phoenix.
