The Truths we Burn (The Hollow Boys Book 2)

Rook

“We need to talk.”

The door that I shoved open bounces off the wall.

I look at Thatcher, who is perched on top of his bed, legs crossed and quiet as he lifts an eyebrow over the top of his book.

“No need to slam doors,” Alistair says as he leans back in his chair, turning from the desk he’d been hunched over before we made our loud entrance. “Why is she here?”

I look to my side, seeing Sage standing with her arms crossed, a look of frustration and confusion on her face.

“I’d like to know myself,” she mutters.

After I’d threatened to slash all four of her tires and drag her here against her will, she agreed to come with me.

She knows I don’t bluff, and I wasn’t taking no for an answer.

I need this.

I need to see if I’m just immune to her dishonesty or if she was actually telling the truth. I can’t take another risk with her. I wouldn’t survive another betrayal at her hands, not again, and neither would she.

“Are you alright?” Silas mutters, scanning her face before looking up and down her body. It’s not sexual; he’s just checking to see if she has any injuries, but it irritates me. He takes deliberate steps in her direction, and as if on instinct, I step in front of his path.

He stops, his shoes touching the tips of my own. Our eyes connect, and there is an unspoken challenge that occurs between the two of us. I wouldn’t fight him, not over something like this, because I know it didn’t come from a place of desire but from longing.

However, I’m still not going to let him cradle Sage because she reminds him of Rose.

“She is fine,” I grunt. “Are you taking your meds?” I’m not able to stop myself. I couldn’t ask him at the graveyard—the emotions were too raw, too fresh.

But this isn’t him.

He holds my stare, unmoving. “I don’t need a babysitter, Rook.”

“I’m not going to ask again. Are you taking—”

“Yes.”

This is not over. I know it isn’t, and I plan on resisting this as soon as what I came here for is done.

I look over my shoulder at Sage. “I want you to tell them exactly what you told me about Cain. All of it.”

“Why should—”

“Sage,” I whisper her name like some deadly, beautiful hex. A dark and lonely curse. “For once, just do what I say.”

I know she wants to fight me; it’s what she does best. But she always wants to prove herself, prove to me she’s finally telling the truth. It takes a moment, but she does as I ask.

I step to the side, and I watch the way her mouth moves. How her tongue flicks when she says words with the letter L in them. Trying to catch a change in her eye color—anything that will show me what I may have missed the first time around.

I’ve never felt so calm. So calculated. This is not a decision I could act explosively towards. Even though I want to. Even though all I want to do is believe her so I can rip Cain McKay’s heart right from the inside of his chest and eat it raw.

This is the theory I wanted to test.

I wanted to see if Alistair would be able to detect treachery in her tone or if Thatcher could see right through the walls she’d built around herself to see her true motive. Even Silas—maybe he would notice a genetic habit in Sage that Rose also did when she told a little white lie.

I need to see if it’s only me that had missed the signs. If I’d been so fucking blinded by the cinnamon-dusted freckles on her cheeks or her curved cupid’s bow, so distracted by our connection that I never even had a chance to sense her lies.

They have an unbiased vision of her.

They don’t share the bond I did with her, and maybe that will be enough for them to tell if she is really telling the truth or if she’s playing us.

Playing me.

She tells them everything about Cain. About her father. And when she gets to the part of her childhood, that pain comes back.

“Sad story, truly.” Thatcher is the first to speak, readjusting his glasses as he sits up on the edge of the white bed. “But sad doesn’t mean I have to believe you. This could be one big web you’re spinning so we trust you, and while my friends, much to their disagreement, have hearts…” He pauses. “I don’t.”

Sage stands tall. Strong. Unwavering even as Thatcher tries to question her.

“I’m not telling you for pity or because it’s sad. I don’t need that from any of you.” She makes sure to look at me last after she says that. “I’m telling you so I can help. So we all can get what we want at the end of this. Justice for my sister.”

“Why would you help us? Why wouldn’t you have just taken the deal, turned us in, and tucked tail?”

It’s the question on all of our minds. What I’ve been thinking about since she told me. We weren’t exactly friends in high school, and she had always expressed her distaste for us and our anarchy.

“Because of Rosie.” She sighs. “She saw something in each of you, even if you tried to bury it deep. Even if I can’t see it myself. She was good at that, seeing things beneath the rubble. She did it with me, and it was no surprise that she did it with you. On multiple occasions, she asked for me to see those things for myself, and I ignored her. I listened to what the town and its shitty people said, instead of seeing things for myself. I am not here to be your friend or make bonds. I’m here because it’s what she would have wanted, and I’m obligated to do this. I owe her the amends she deserves, and I owe it to her to protect the ones she cared about, and that is you. All of you.”

The sting of remembrance is sharp.

It vibrates in the air, slicing each of us differently. Rosemary’s memory is alive and breathing in the room. Her energy, her presence, it’s the reason we are doing all of this. Because it’s a fucking crime for that energy to have been taken from this planet.

One of the last good things in this sick, twisted world, gone in the blink of an eye.

I look at her sister, her glassy eyes and straight spine, standing so strong even though I can see just how badly she wants to fall apart. And my hands shake because they want to catch her. I want to deny it, but I can’t.

I’m desperate to see the girl behind the mask again. To peel back those hardened layers and soak myself in her.

But I can’t.

Not right now.

“Cain has to go,” I say. “I want him dead.”

“And you need to stay protected until then,” Silas adds, staring a hole into Sage’s face.

My jaw tightens. Silas doesn’t need to protect her. She is not his to protect.

“I don’t need anyone to protect me. I can handle Cain. Involving him will only put more heat on you than necessary.”

Thatcher stands up. “If there is blood, count me in.”

My blood starts to pump hot. The calm that had once embraced me is diluting. My rage is starting to surface, my need to punish. All the ways I could break him start to filter through my mind.

“We are not doing anything irrational right now.” Alistair steps in, doing what he does—controlling. “I’m not saying it doesn’t need to happen. We just need to make sure we’re going at it with a clear head and not fueled by our emotions.”

His dark eyes flicker towards me.

It’s in that moment that I realize how deep in my own shit I am. Because even though Alistair is making sense, I don’t want to listen. Even if I have to go after that scum on my own, I’ll do it. Even if I don’t want to, even if I need them.

I will torture that sorry excuse of man until he’s crying for his mother and begging me to give him the mercy of death.

Even if it means taking the fall on my own. I would do it.

Because no one, not even me, deserves the kind of pain Sage harbors on her soul from what he did to her.

“We are going to do it,” Silas persists, “and I want you to stay at my parents’ house until it’s done.”

The room goes still, and my blood pressure skyrockets.

“Not fucking happening,” I growl. “She is not staying with you.”

His head snaps towards me, so quick I can almost hear it crack.

“Don’t forget, Rook. It’s my girlfriend that died, my girlfriend we are avenging.”

I walk towards him, trying hard to remind myself that he is grieving. That he is going through something unbelievably unfortunate, but it’s not working.

“Don’t forget, Silas,” I hiss, “your girlfriend is not Sage, and she doesn’t need you to protect her.”

“Yeah? Are you going to do it?”

I draw back from him. What the fuck is he saying right now?ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

I know he lost Rose and he’s trying to grab at the pieces of her that are still left. But this, this is crossing a line I didn’t realize I had.

There is a fierceness sizzling in his gaze, one I can’t remember seeing before, and it’s making him feel like more of a threat than a brother.

Sage may not be a friend—we may hate one another—but it’s ours.

And she is mine.

“You fucking—”

“Stop,” Sage says loudly, looking at the both of us. “Let me make this clear for everyone. I am not a damsel in distress, and I won’t let you put yourself at risk for something that I can handle. I can slay my own demons, and I don’t need you or anyone else to hand me a knife to do it.”

The phoenix.

There she is, glowing, bright, destructive.

They tried to make her into dust, and look at her now.

A goddamn force.

“Everyone just fucking calm down. We can talk about this when everyone has a chance to process,” Alistair says, “I do think you staying with Silas is a good idea. It’s the best way to keep an eye on you.”

“I don’t need—”

“It’s not about protecting you,” he snaps, eyes dark. I know it’s because he isn’t over what happened to Briar. “That’s at the bottom of my fucking priorities. I don’t know if we should fully trust you yet. This is an insurance policy. We can watch your every move, so if you even think about working with that fed, we will know about it.”

Rain trickled down from the sky hard, pouring from the pitch-black sky. I watched it fall from my place on Thatcher’s covered courtyard space. Lightning strikes illuminated the clouds for a singular second, broadcasting the immersive sculpture garden just beyond the in-ground pool before darkness took over once again.

I closed my eyes just as the thunder shook the earth, allowing myself to succumb to the soft pitter-patter.

“Come on, sweet boy. Let’s dance.”

I looked out at the heavy pour of rain, then up at my mother. Her eyes did that crinkling thing at the corners like it always does when she smiled. Dark waves of brown hair fell way past her shoulders, brushing her lower back.

I didn’t want to dance today.

I was sad, and all I wanted to do was stay inside, away from the rest of the world.

“But Momma, it’s raining,” I mutter.

She squatted down, lowering herself to my height. Tucking a piece of my growing hair behind my ear, she rubbed her palm against my cheek. It made me sleepy when she did that because that was what she did just before bedtime every night.

“You had a hard day today, yeah?”

I nodded.

Kids at church had been extra mean today. They’d all stood around me, shouting nasty things about my birthmark, picking on me because I was different than them. If I would have known they would have been so cruel, I wouldn’t have shared anything in Sunday school.

I would have just stayed quiet.

“The rain will wash all of that away. All the sadness and pain will slip right off your shoulders, cleaning you right up. The best time to dance is in the rain.”

“Dad says I just need to toughen up.”

She laughed. “Your father must have forgotten what it was like to be picked on because I’ll tell you a secret, sweet boy. Your dad was not always so tough. He used to be a boy, just like you, and he wore these glasses that kids used to make fun of. Just because he was different. But that’s what I liked about him, what I love about you. Being different will mean you will feel alone at times. But when you find the people who accept those differences, they will be with you for a lifetime.”

And then we danced in the rain.

We let the rain pour down our skin, and I remember feeling like was I swimming rather than in a rain shower. I didn’t come inside until I was soaked to the bone.

I felt a lot of things when my mother died.

But alone wasn’t one of them.

Because I had them, and from the moment we all met, I felt like I was understood. I never had to explain myself to fit in; they just got me. They accepted me. Scars, trauma, and all. And just like my mother said, they would be with me for a lifetime.

“How long?” Alistair asks as he walks onto the patio, with Thatcher and Silas close behind.

“Nine inches.” I pull the cigarette from my lips. “That’s hard. Do you need to know soft measurements too or?”

He rolls his eyes, yanking the smoke from my hand and taking a long draw before talking again.

“How long have you been fucking with Sage.”

I drop my head against the wall, knowing this conversation needed to happen. Knowing it’s time to tell them, but I just don’t know where to start.

Keeping her from them was never with malicious intent or because I didn’t want them to know. I think it was because I was afraid to say it out loud. If I spoke on our history, on her, then it made it real.

And that makes the loss of her even more real.

“We wanted to wait for you to tell us on your own time, but we need to know what this is to you before we kill someone over her. I’m not adding another body to my list because of a quick fuck.”

I’m not surprised they already knew.

When you know each other on the level we do, you don’t miss much.

We know each other’s body language, the tells, our emotions. It’s all connected—we feel each other. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

“We aren’t killing someone for her. As Silas said, this is for Rose too.”

“But not for you it isn’t,” Thatcher says, “This is for Sage, and please, don’t try to deny it. I’m tired of pretending I don’t know.”

I look over at Silas, his subdued demeanor settled into his shoulders. That unhinged look in his eyes from earlier is gone, but the feeling in my gut isn’t.

I watched him take them on Rosie’s anniversary and every morning before that in the dorms. He was on schedule with them, but something’s still wrong, and convincing him to go to the doctor for a new medication is not going to be easy.

But nothing with him had even been.

“How long,” Alistair says again, but this time it’s not a question.

I take a breath, scratching the back of my head, knowing what I need to say but not knowing how to explain it.

“Start of senior year. It wasn’t supposed to be anything serious, I just wanted to twist the princess into a little knot of chaos. Show her that she wasn’t any better than me, than us. But then she started to change, it started to change. She was different than what I expected. Better.”

Trying to consolidate what we were is hard. How do you explain that someone was everything and nothing at the same time?

That she had been the first person since the guys and Rose I’d wanted to see me. To see all of me, know everything. Because I’d thought she’d accept it.

I thought—

“Wasn’t she engaged to Easton during senior year?”

I grind my teeth. “Yes, but I didn’t know about that until the end. I knew she was still dating him, and I let it go because she needed to wait until graduation to break things off. Her parents would have lost their shit, I just didn’t know why. I thought it was because of me. I don’t exactly have Easton’s reputation.”

“So that’s why the stick up his ass has been extra annoying.” Alistair scoffs. “So what happened?”

Everything.

Nothing.

“I found out about the engagement, and she—” Fucking destroyed me. “She ended things with me. Spitting some shit about me just being a phase, that she never planned on leaving Easton.”

“That’s why you showed up at my door? I’ve been slicing you up over her?” Thatcher says, in a tone that’s close to anger, but with him, I never know.

“Yes.” I drag my hands down my face in frustration. “I tried to cut her out. I wanted to punish myself for being so fucking stupid, for trusting her. But she’s like venom, a goddamn tumor, man. She just keeps growing back.” I let out a heavy sigh. “Now I don’t know what to believe or think. She came clean about Cain and told me that she was forced into the engagement. Apparently, her father was getting money from Stephen, and in exchange for that, he wanted a wife for his son. Then Easton found out about us and threatened to take Rose instead. So she made a choice, and we’ve been hating each other since.”

And there it is.

My truth to burn going up in smoke.

My pretty poison all out in the open.

Saying it out loud does exactly what I thought it would.

Makes me feel like even more of an idiot.

The fool who’d fallen for a girl who didn’t give a shit about him, and the worst part is I knew. I knew Sage was a dangerous creature. That she was wrapped in caution tape.

Seamlessly made.

Designed for deception.

The exquisitely colored frog with neon patterns, stunning jellyfish with a bioluminescent glow, the exotic caterpillar. All designed to bring attention and ward off danger.

I know what she is, and yet I chase it anyway with no idea of how much damage it would wreak on me.

“What was the point of keeping it from us?” Alistair asks.

I take the cigarette back from Alistair, filling my lungs with the tar.

“What’s the point of you lying about Dorian?”

They aren’t the only ones who could see through lies.

“What are you going to do when he gets out of rehab for a drug problem he never had? Your parents can’t keep him locked away forever. What are you going to tell Briar when she finds out the truth? We all have our secrets, and they come out when they are ready to, but don’t stand there and act like you don’t have any either.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” he says. “I’m not pissed about you and Sage. I’m pissed that you felt you needed to hide it.”

“I just didn’t think you’d understand.”

“We don’t need to, Rook. We’ve never needed to.”

The rain falls faster, buckets of water pouring down from the sky. This storm had been brewing all day, and it’s finally here with cracks of lightning and thunder.

“If I say no, you’re still going to kill Cain, aren’t you?”

I look at them, all of them.

Each of them represents a part of my life that I wouldn’t know what to do without.

It is dysfunctional, and we don’t always see eye to eye. We fight probably more than we do anything else. But they are my home. A dark, bloody, haunted house, but still my home.

Stopping at Alistair, I stare at him hard. The older brother I never got.

“If it were Briar?”

“He’d already be dead.”

I nod, knowing that would be his reaction, knowing his response before he said it.

“This means it’ll be my problem. I would take the fall if shit went south. I’ll protect you all from the blowback if there is any.”

“You’re not killing anyone alone,” Thatcher says. “Sharing is caring, but just so we are clear, I’m not fond of Sage, and I don’t trust her.”

“Is there anyone you are fond of?” I raise an eyebrow, amused.

“No. The human species disgusts me.”

I laugh for a short moment before looking at Silas, who hasn’t stopped staring at me since he walked out.

“Si, I know—”

“Do you love her?” he asks bluntly.

I know what love is. I felt it for my mother and at one point for my father—sometimes I still do. I feel it towards the guys even though I’ve never spoken those words out loud to any of them. I’m aware of what it feels like.

But nothing feels like Sage does. I’ve never experienced anything like her in my life, and it makes this question difficult.

“I don’t know what it is I feel towards Sage.” Lightning strikes hard, shaking the ground. “But whatever it is, it’s mine.”