“Well, there you have it,” Addisyn says, her voice growing thick. “It’s not his, so it has to be yours.”
Chase rubs a hand down his face. “This isn’t the place. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“We’d better.” Addisyn lowers her chin, shadows creating deeper indents in the purple crescents under her eyes. “Because you have a lot to atone for. You know you do.”
“Yes.” Chase doesn’t hesitate in his agreement.
It’s not yours, I want to blurt. I have the impulsive, desperate urge to smooth the bulging tendons in his neck, to take his face in my hands and whisper the truth, lightening his shoulders and his mind.
I peel off the yearning, but its sour onion peels stick to my skin. No matter what I say, Chase will always have darkness inside him. By refusing to tell me about the Cloaks, he protects them, and if Rose Briar’s secret letter is anything to go by—a letter Piper was the first to find—these people don’t deserve protection.
Addisyn flicks her attention to me, but only long enough to ensure I note how much she despises my presence, then turns on her heel, the sounds of her shoes hitting the stairs fading as she ascends.
I’m so focused on the empty doorway, gnawing my lip at the thought that Ahmar provided me with information the police hadn’t even released to the family yet, that I don’t sense Chase’s whirl until he’s inches away, burying his fist in the row of books by my head.
“Goddamnit!” he shouts, then pounds again.
I flinch, but don’t retreat.
“Fuck fuck fuck!” He beats the shelving again and again, turning to ripping the books from the shelves and scattering them across the floor.
One flies against the fish tank, and I yelp, terrified that those angry things will flow out from shattering glass and search for one last sting before they die.
“Chase.” I grab his arm, so hot, hardened, and rough, I have to convince myself I’m clasping skin and not the scales of a dragon. “Chase, stop.”
He spins on me with a roar, his teeth bared. “She had my baby inside her, Callie.”
“You don’t—”
“She was at Lover’s Leap that night, drinking, smoking, snorting. Did I tell you that? She was at our party and didn’t give a fuck if she was pregnant.”
“There’s still so much unanswered,” I say, aiming for calm. “She wasn’t that far along. At ten weeks, she might not have known she was pregnant.”
Chase lunges for the wall, heaving books, punching wood, and I dance back but can’t avoid everything. The corner of one hits my thigh, and I cry out.
Chase’s arms drop to his sides. “Shit. Callie.” He comes up beside me, leading me to the office chair.
“It’s fine,” I grit out. “I’ve never been Charlie-horsed by a law book before, but turns out, those fuckers hurt.”
He lowers enough for his hands to grip the chair’s arms as he watches me massage my thigh. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m so s…” He looks down at the floor. “Wait. Ten weeks?”
Shit.
I bite my lip, but don’t meet his eyes, instead focusing on rubbing the pain out of my leg.
“Callie.”
My name, used as a warning many times before by many different voices, has never sounded so ominous.
“Ahmar got back to you, didn’t he?”
“Kind of,” I admit, but barely. “I spoke to him maybe an hour ago. They’ve narrowed down the weeks she was pregnant, yes.”
Chase does the math, then bows his head, his silky strands brushing the tip of my nose. “Then it really is mine.”
My hand comes up to cup his cheek, the stubble clinging to my palm. “No.”
The word is out before I want it to be. I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried. He’s suffering, and I can’t, in good conscience, use the DNA as a weapon for more information about the Cloaks.
It’s too cold a maneuver. Too calculating. And the deeper I get into this mess, the more I’m certain that I’m not like these people.
I can expose their games, but I can’t play them.
His hand covers mine, squeezing before he lifts his head and meets my eye. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
I swallow. “It belongs to someone named Joaquín del Pozo.”
Chase’s eyes harden into opaque marbles. He says, with the roughest edge to his voice, “Who. The fuck. Is that.”
“I have no idea.”
“And why didn’t you tell me as soon as you saw me?” His composure cracks, and I don’t know whether to embrace him or run. “Callie, do you know what this has done to me?”
I nod, lifting from the chair. Chase falls back to give me space, a surprising move on his part. “I’m telling you now, Chase. I’ve only found out myself. It wasn’t like I was hiding it from you—”
“But you wanted to know about your Cloaks, first,” he sneers. “Asking me some bullshit about recruitment in high school, and hidden rooms, because they’re more important than me knocking up a girl who’s now dead, right?”
His tone strikes like a whip, its spiked tail searing my chest. “Don’t do that—don’t say I’m trying to toy with you, because I gave you the name knowing that I can’t play your games. I could’ve held onto the name, tried to see if I could get more information from you—”
“So, you thought about it.” Chase’s mouth twists. “Using my fear as some kind of weapon to make me do as you please.”
“That’s precisely what I didn’t do.”
“What would you have done if Addy hadn’t come in here? Would you have kept that powerful little nugget to yourself? Become one of my family’s many enemies and exploit me?” Chase corners me, backing me up against the emptied-out bookcase, a few missed texts lying flat against the shelves. They tremble when my back slams into the wood.
Chase exhales, brushing his nose against mine, coaxing my chin up. Invisible strings of lust tilt my head, my lips automatically angling to meet his.
Energy, both pissed-off and hot, sparks between us, blanketing my mind from the dangerous consequences and urging me toward satisfaction. Passion blinds me, just as rage blackens him to soot. We can do what we’re known for—screw our angst out of our systems and fuck our worries away.
Oh, how I want to.
“You look so fucking hot in that dress.”
He dips his hand between my thighs, my legs spreading of their own accord. My breaths turn heavy, his tongue playing along the center of my lower lip, but when I dart to catch him, he jerks away, yet his fingers circle closer.
Chase nudges the tip of my nose, his lips brushing against my skin when he says, “You’re right, sweet possum. I’m better than you at getting what I want.”
Cold air blasts over my front when Chase retreats on a snarl, and I’m treated to a terrible apathy that crosses his expression as he backs away.
“How does it feel to be played?” he asks me.
I pull my lips in and clamp down hard in an attempt not to cry.
I’m not cut out for this. For him.
Digging my fingers in my hair at the base of my neck, hot and damp from adrenaline and desire, I say, “You’re hurt, Chase. And I’m sorry. But can’t you, for one second, believe that my digging into the Cloaks is for you and Piper?”
Chase growls and strikes. I dodge to the side, terrified of the cold mask he’s slipped on his face, but his movement isn’t to charge or trap me. He bends down, pulling the raven engraved book from its spot and tossing it at me.
I fumble to catch it against my chest, blurting out—
“You want more on your fucking Nobles? There,” Chase snarls, but he’s not done.
He pulls a handful of hardcovers from the middle shelf and throws them over his shoulder, the tombs thumping against the desk and carpeted floor with a heavy, accelerated charge. Delicate spines crack. Hardbound leather dents.
I look from the mess back to Chase in time to see his palm slam against a button that was hidden behind the books, and the wall of shelvi
ng sinks in before sliding back.
I gasp, the leather-bound book held in my clutches, as a heavy, metal door is revealed, a security panel at its center.
Chase pushes past me, enters a code, and that door beeps and slides open, too.
A single room, cold and sterile, comes into view, a simple couch, a metal kitchenette, and a row of small TVs of cameras lighting up under the automatic floodlights in the ceiling.
“There,” Chase spits so close to my ear, I flinch. “A panic room. In case my family is robbed and some of us are inside the home. This is where we’re supposed to go.” He gestures toward it sharply. “By all means, look around, Callie. Search for ancient textbooks or cloaks in the closet, or hell, fucking underwear Piper left behind. Do all the detective work you want. I’m done.”
“But I … I heard voices,” I say.
“This house is brimming with people.” Chase scoffs. “You heard nothing but your own paranoia.”
The hurt, when it comes, hits my heart with a splat. Only Chase is aware of my wrongful accusation and what my misguided convictions did to my stepdad’s and my relationship. How I questioned my own sanity afterward.
And it’s only Chase who would use it to effectively shut me up.
But pain claws through his composure. It’s in the stiffness of his pose and way he curls his fingers at his sides. It builds against the tension in his clenched jaw. Most of all, his eyes shine with barely contained injustice, and he pins it on me before turning away.
I spring forward and try to catch him before he leaves. “Chase, wait.”
He pauses at the door, his profile still in shadow. “You can have all the conspiracy theories you want. But this is my life being dicked around with. That baby was mine until you told me it wasn’t.”
I wince.
He adds, with the softness of a snake moving through the grass, “Piper’s manipulations beyond the grave are enough of a mess to clean up. I don’t need you taking her place.”
“Chase—”
But he’s gone, and I’m left in the rubble of my own creation.
11
I collect myself enough to exit the office. Music reaches in and pulses inside my skull the higher I ascend, the party more raucous and disjointed than when I left.
Limbs fly in drunken dance interpretations, some choosing smaller crowds along the edges to laugh and chug with. I pass by a keg stand, where someone is being held upside down and told to drink, drink, drink! and I wish, so much, to take part in the senior life, to get drunk and do drugs and have sex in an unfamiliar bedroom … acts the old Callie would’ve been happy to oblige in.
I’m not her anymore. I’m a broken semblance of myself who seeks out mystery as a healing savior, when all it really does is chip more pieces off, adding to the crumble of ashes on the floor.
A flash of sequined purple draws my attention, and I cross the designated dance floor and find Ivy leaning against the fireplace, laughing as Riordan whispers something in her ear.
“Ivy!” I call over the music. “Hey.”
She giggles while she trails her hand up Riordan’s bare forearm, and I think: Well, this is new.
Ivy catches sight of me when I’m practically on top of her. “Callie! You came!”
“Yeah, I came with you, remember?”
My reasoning is pointless, because Ivy, the sweet girl, is drunk off her ass.
She fixes her eyes on mine for a millisecond before they drift off. “This is so fun, isn’t it? Why don’t I come to more of these?”
I laugh, shifting the black leathered book to one arm while reaching for her with the other. “Because you can’t handle your liquor.”
Riordan’s expression grows mischievous as he chucks under her chin. “She’s handling it just fine.”
Riordan is the one friend of Chase’s I can’t get a proper read on. James is easy. He’s the guy with all the jokes, using the comedic relief to probably hide a lonely childhood as the sole kid of two power-hungry parents who are more loyal to their international obligations than what they’ve left behind in their blood.
Tempest is as his name defines—a gray, brooding storm bearing down on those who dare to show joy around him. He’s quiet, assessing, and when he speaks, it’s with cruel purpose. And Chase is … Chase. Mysterious. Hardened. Experienced and, when pushed, brimming with embers of anger he works hard to temper.
I’m guessing Riordan falls somewhere in the middle. Not funny, not sociopathic, but likely the weakest of the four, because I’ve never seen him participate in the follies of his friends that cement their rule over Briarcliff. Only film them.
Riordan tucks Ivy under his arm, laughing at something she’s said and staring at her with a strange sincerity that’s missing from the rest of these boys.
Am I confusing weakness with kindness? Is that what I’ve come to?
I reach for Ivy. “C’mon, let’s go home.”
Riordan angles himself to block my view as he tightens his arm around Ivy’s waist. “I’ll watch over her.”
“Uh, thanks, but there’s something called girl code.”
“Callie, it’s cool. Rio and I, we’re … hanging out,” Ivy says, working hard to blink me into focus.
“That’s great, but I don’t trust him for shit,” I say.
Rather than be insulted, Riordan’s dark eyes dart to what I have in my hands. He asks, with a buttery purr and hardened eyes, “What’s that?”
I hold the book snug to my chest. “I’m borrowing it from Chase.”
His stare narrows. “With his permission?”
Too late, I realize my fingers haven’t properly covered the insignia.
“Yes, not that I need yours on top of it,” I reply.
Riordan’s hand drops from Ivy’s waist. She mewls in protest, stroking his chest to retain his attention, but he shakes her off, his attention never straying from the book.
“Hey.” I bristle on behalf of my friend. He steps closer. “Back off.”
The sharp stones of the fireplace dig into my back, but instead of serving as a warning, it pisses me off. This is the second time I’ve been backed into a corner tonight, and I’m not here for it anymore.
I grit out, as Riordan’s shadow passes over my body, “Unless you want a knee to the balls, step back.”
“Rio, come on.” Ivy giggles in an attempt to lighten the growing storm cloud above us. “It’s just a stupid old book.” She hooks his elbow and pulls, but Riordan doesn’t so much as twitch. “What’s the big deal?”
Riordan’s glare won’t stray from mine. “I think you know how important that is, and how much you shouldn’t have it.”
“Chase gave it to me.” I notch my chin up. He may have thrown it at me in a rage after tearing up his dad’s office to prove his point that my meddling is fucking up his life, but Chase did give it to me. “I’m not lying.”
Riordan cocks his head. “Give. It. To. Me.”
Why did I ever think this guy was the weakest of the bunch? He’s stronger than I am.
Gripping the book, I move to step around him, but Riordan’s hand flashes out, tearing the hardback from my grip before I can so much as gasp out, “Hey—!”
He tosses it into the fireplace, red and gold sparks spiraling up the chute as hungry flames eat away the dried, leathery flesh.
“No!” I cry at the same time Ivy yells out something to Riordan.
My answers are in there!
The key to the secret societies that Chase literally lobbed at my head as a finality to our deal is burning to ash.
I’ll never know.
I’ll never understand.
I’ll never discover what the raven means.
In the span of a second, such dreaded certainty shrouds my shoulders that my stomach clenches with the sudden rush of acidic bile.
If I don’t do something, any connection to Piper’s uncovering of secret Briarcliff writings and her death will turn to unreadable ash.
I’ll be labeled unrel
iable again. A liar. A fool. Chase’s last expression before he stormed out of his father’s office will forever be etched on his face whenever he looks in my direction.
Don’t let it be for nothing.
I leap toward the hissing flames.
In my periphery, I register Ivy grappling with Riordan, her lips peeled back as she tries to get to me first, to stop—
But my hand has already plunged into the fire.
12
A lightning bolt sears up my arm, fraying nerves and singeing skin, but I bat the book out of the flames, a crumbling skeleton of its former self skidding across the parquet floor and leaving streaks of black soot in its wake.
Someone cuts the music.
“Are you fucking insane?” Riordan roars, but I rush over to the book, holding its delicate pages to my chest and pushing into the crowd rather than respond.
The growing half-circle of witnesses eagerly step aside, unsure what to make of a chick who dives into fire as a party trick.
Falyn separates herself from the crowd. “Was it worth it?” she hisses in my ear as I shove forward.
Willow steps out to block my path, palming my shoulders and sending me stumbling back.
“To look so mentally disturbed in front of the entire school?” Falyn continues. She searches the crowd with overdramatic flair. “Uh-oh. Looks like your knight in shining armor is nowhere around to save you this time. What was so important you had to rake yourself over coals to get to it? I would’ve happily lit your ass on fire for you.”
I twist in a protective maneuver. The movement makes the tightening, blistering skin on my hand burn to an almost unbearable level. “It’s not like there was a fire poker lying around.” I take a moment to look her up and down. “Chase must’ve thought to put all safety hazards away before allowing his dumb bitches off the leash.”
Falyn’s mouth falls open in an O of shocked fury.
Well. If I wanted to leave unobstructed, I’ve pretty much screwed up that goal. But ugh, Falyn gets to me in ways Piper never did.
Piper at least had reason to hate me, petty as it was. I took her room and unknowingly prevented her from meeting Dr. Luke without any prying eyes.
Virtue (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 2) Page 8