Truth (Scandals of Banner-Hill Book 1)

by Cassie James

  “Shut the fuck up,” Logan barks at him. He keeps his eyes on mine. “I said I dare you to spend the night in Dash’s room. Dare or punishment?” He tilts his head with a smirk like he already knows the answer.

  I’ve realized since arriving that no one stays in that room anymore. The one Dash died in. As far as I’m concerned, that room is the center of everything bad in my life. Without that moment, I would have been free of Adams Ever After the moment I turned eighteen. I wouldn’t have mistakenly thought I owed my father something. He would never have gotten to play the hero, making me feel indebted to him up until this year.

  Going back into that room would mean stepping into my own personal hell.

  But it would also mean going back to the beginning.

  The emotions threatening to rise to the surface go still within me. There’s a strange sort of peacefulness that comes from knowing I’m about to throw myself into the chaos. Maybe because chaos is what I’ve always known best.

  I feel the most control in chaos. It’s where I’ve made my home.

  I skirt around the bush separating us, walking right up to Logan until we’re standing chest to chest. His eyes burn with anticipation. My chest burns with a dull ache. He tilts his face down, putting his mouth easily within my reach.

  “Do you really think,” I whisper, “that anything could be worse than kissing you?”

  He opens his mouth, working his jaw to either side, and stares at me in disbelief.

  “I’ll take the dare.”

  Killian grabs my arm and yanks me away from Logan. “You don’t have to do that,” he says, ignoring Logan’s scoff of disapproval.

  “I chose to play the game; I’m playing by the rules.”

  I step out of reach, letting myself get swallowed up in the trees. It feels like the woods are holding their breath, and so am I.

  Something in my gut tells me this doesn’t end well. But I know somehow, it is going to end.

  Killian waits in the hall, refusing to step over the threshold into the room. Logan follows me in because apparently he doesn’t have the same qualms about disturbing what should be sacred ground. We lost someone we loved here. It’s fucked up that Logan can stroll in so casually while I walk to the middle of the room with my arms crossed so tight over my body I think I might be at risk of cracking one of my own ribs.

  “Home sweet home for the night,” Logan taunts me. “Unless you’d like to go ahead and take the fuck instead. There’s a bed right there, after all.”

  I feel the blood drain from my face as he gestures to the bed. I’m sure the mattress has been replaced, but the bed frame is still exactly the same. It’s very much the bed I once fucked my boyfriend in. And the bed he died in.

  I curl my lip at him in disgust and jerk my head toward the door.

  “Get the fuck out, Logan. I don’t need or want your company.” I’m pretty sure I’m one ill-willed comment away from breaking into hysterics.

  He leans close to speak directly into my face. “I’ll know if you don’t stay until daylight. If you bitch out like I think you will, I’m not giving you a free pass. Just go ahead and come on to my room when you decide you’ve had enough.”

  Instead of giving me a chance to respond, he leaves, slamming the door behind him.

  There’s a painful silence in the room that surrounds me, squeezing at my chest like a vice. I can’t help but wonder who was the last person to be in this room. It’s clean, so I guess the cleaners still service it even though no one stays in it.

  It’s weird, leaving the room vacant. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to stay in here knowing its history, but I don’t love that this room—an empty bedroom—is like a monument to Dash’s death. A room stuck in the worst period of my life.

  I walk a circle, restless energy keeping me on my feet as I take it all in. Physically, it doesn’t look so different from any other room in the place. It’s the feeling that’s different. The walls might as well be closing in on me from the way I struggle to get enough air into my lungs.

  “It’s fucked up, isn’t it?” I ask into the empty room. “You resented me being with your friends, but now I’m back here with them, and they’re driving me right toward you. How’s that for shitty irony?”

  I laugh under my breath at myself, no humor in the sound at all.

  I’m talking to a fucking ghost.

  The problem is, I didn’t consider the fact that I should have grabbed something to do while I was breezing up here pretending to be unbothered by Logan’s dare. Now I’m stuck in an empty room— surrounded by sour memories—with nothing to distract myself.

  And since there’s no way in hell I’m climbing into that bed, I can’t even get comfortable either. Not that I would sleep either way. My insomnia is nearly unbearable on a good day. I’m sure if I tried sleeping in here, I’d spiral into a whole new depth of sleepless hell.

  I eye the chair in the corner with some skepticism. Where there used to be a dark brown chair there’s now a navy one in its place. The style is similar, but at least it’s not the exact same piece of furniture.

  Not that I have any intention of sitting in it anyway.

  I push the chair across the room and shove it under the door handle. My dare is spending the night here. I’m not going to leave myself vulnerable to anything else. If I can’t get out, then I want to know that no one else is coming in.

  Even after I’m pretty sure the chair isn’t going anywhere, I brace my hands on the armrests and shove one final time to be sure.

  There’s a sharp shooting pain through my head the second my fingers curl around the armrests.

  A memory long blocked forces its way to the surface.

  Dash finishes cycling through his Ketamine high and passes out cold on the bed. I cry myself out, watching from the chair to make sure he keeps breathing until my eyes grow too heavy to stay open any longer. I fall asleep sitting up in the chair.

  Sometime later, I wake up to voices at the door.

  “You assured me nothing like this would ever happen.” My father’s voice sounds angry, and I’m not even sure how he’s here. Maybe I’m so tired I’m imagining it. I keep my eyes shut because they still hurt from crying. I don’t cry enough to be used to the feeling. I’m always too scared it will be caught on camera.

  “I had no idea this would happen, Ken. Your daughter doesn’t know how to mind her own business.”

  “Don’t act like I didn’t warn you of that.” My father makes the same noise of disgust he likes to use with my mother when she’s being senseless. “Do you have any idea how much money that girl makes me? She can’t become a casualty of your stupidity. If it comes down to it, those tapes of yours are going to come out, and I’m not going to cover your ass.”

  “I would lose my stake in the company to Sascha if that happened. That damned moral clause is airtight.” Banner sounds like a whiney little bitch.

  “If you didn’t want that risk then I guess you shouldn’t have been making those tapes, huh? One man’s word against another is a much easier mess to clean up, you idiot.” Sounds like my father knows from experience.

  I have a feeling I can already guess what kind of tapes my father meant. I jerk my hands back from the chair as if it’s burned me and tangle my hands in my hair to rub at my scalp. The memories assaulting me leave behind one hell of a headache.

  Why was my father here that night?

  I rack my brain for the last thing I remembered about Banner-Hill from four years ago, but all I can remember now are stories my father told me. About the staff finding me wrapped around Dash’s lifeless body after he’d killed himself. About how he rushed out of a meeting in the city to be by my side as soon as he heard.

  But if he didn’t come until morning, how would I have woken up to him talking to Banner in the middle of the night?

  None of it adds up.

  I barely hesitate this time before crawling into the chair and wrapping my arms around my legs. My head still pounds, but somet
hing just happened here, and I need to spark those memories again.

  I want answers. Answers that haven’t been carefully crafted by my father to make himself look good.

  With a deep breath, I shut my eyes and clear my mind of everything else.

  “What do you want me to do?” Banner asks my father, deferring to him.

  “Get rid of the kid without setting my daughter off on a temper tantrum. She hasn’t figured out the way the world really works yet. Good luck sorting that the hell out now.”

  There’s a long hesitation like Banner is trying to come up with something.

  I stay motionless in my seat so I can eavesdrop without giving away that I’m awake. I don’t like the sound of any of this. I’ve never heard my father speak like this before either—at least not about me.

  “There’s one option.” The hesitation in Banner’s voice makes me think it’s not an option I’m going to like.

  “Well spit it out,” my father tells him.

  “I’ve had some luck before introducing trauma to help trigger memory loss. It’s not a foolproof plan. The memories could come back and—”

  My father interrupts him. “Do I look like I’m interested in your psycho babble? Give me the laymen's terms.”

  “We hurt him in front of her and hope it freaks her out enough that her brain pretends it didn’t happen.” The words rush out of Banner so fast it takes me a moment to process them.

  I leap to my feet with wild eyes. I already saw Banner at his worst once tonight, but I’ve never seen this man before who’s supposed to be my father. His expression is completely blank as I launch myself at him.

  “What are you talking about?” I cry out, beating my fists against his chest. “He hurt Dash. He gave him drugs and he raped him. Dash didn’t do anything! You have to believe me.”

  “I know, Natalie. Jesus, enough with the dramatics.”

  My father pushes me away from him, holding me at arms length so I can’t continue to hit him. He looks over with me with apathy, a look I’ve never seen before. If anything, my father’s default is to treat me like I’m made of glass.

  None of this makes sense. There’s a misunderstanding. Banner must have lied.

  I whip my head around wildly as I realize Banner’s no longer in my line of sight. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him approaching the bed. I struggle against my father’s hold, but he clamps his hand around my wrist and drags me to the chair I just vacated.

  “Sit down, Natalie.”

  He shoves me into the chair himself when I don’t immediately obey. I’ve spent my whole life feeling helpless—every decision seemingly made for me—but nothing tops this moment. I try to stand again, but my father only knocks me back down.

  I’m struggling to make sense of any of this.

  Banner stares down at Dash from the edge of the bed. A sob forces its way from my throat. I can’t watch him rape Dash. He’s already taken advantage of him once tonight.

  My father leans close to my ear to tell me, “You don’t want to see what happens if you move out of this chair. Do you understand me?”

  I nod helplessly.

  I feel fucking powerless.

  Apparently, Banner standing frozen at Dash’s bedside doesn’t impress my father. He rolls his eyes at the man as he steps up to him, chest puffed out as if this isn’t the same man who refuses to make public appearances without a full team of security in place.

  If my father lays a hand on my boyfriend, I’m going to throw up fucking everywhere.

  “Move,” my father growls when Banner continues to stand frozen. To me he says, “If you look away, I’ll go find one of those other boys and do him next, do you understand me?”

  Stupidly, I nod. I still think he’s threatening to rape them. I haven’t braced myself properly for the reality.

  My father produces a knife as Banner disappears. He shows it to me, letting me see it glint under the overhead light. Only then does he lower it to Dash’s arm. There’s no warning before the first cut.

  I cry out and then slap a hand over my mouth, terrified of drawing anyone’s attention and making this worse. I plead for my father to stop, but there’s no emotion on his face. He makes another cut, the second one deeper than the first.

  The next time he looks up at me, it’s with a sick grin.

  “Just remember this is your fault, Natalie. You made me do this.”

  My eyes snap open, searching the room wildly for my father as I struggle to come back to the present. My body is shaking, and I’ve somehow managed to find my way to the corner of the room, my shoulders wedged against the two walls.

  No one in their right mind would consider this the right way of dealing with repressed trauma, but now that I’m here I can’t afford to stop. I finally get to own the truth.

  Instead of cowering, I force my feet to carry me toward the bed. What I’m about to do is seriously disturbing, but I know it’s what I need. I have to see this through no matter how badly it hurts.

  And it fucking hurts.

  I crawl onto the bed on my knees and position myself the last way I remember Dash. Diagonal across the bed. Eyes toward the ceiling even though they were so glazed over I don’t think he was seeing anything.

  I don’t think he even felt the cuts.

  I shut my eyes and make myself remember.

  “Stop,” I sob, launching myself at the bed.

  My father gets another deep gash in before I cover Dash’s body with my own. He’s already limp from the drugs, so it’s impossible to tell how bad the cuts really are. But the blood—there is so much blood. I cradle Dash to me until I’m covered in it. Painting myself red with his life.

  I cling to Dash, murmuring apologies. Promising to never touch his friends again, not even if he asks. I’m bargaining for his life, but it’s already too late.

  The cuts are bad.

  Someone else enters the room, another man.

  “Oh, hell. You could’ve warned a guy, Ken.” I don’t recognize the man’s voice, but I recognize the lack of horror, and I know he’s not here to help me.

  I cling tighter to Dash as my father tries to pull me away. The blood smears, and as I try to fight against him, I end up with blood on my face. It drips down past my eyes. For a moment, the room looks like it’s raining blood.

  “Can you clean it up?” my father asks as he pulls me away hard enough that I lose my grasp.

  I’m wailing now so he puts a hand over my mouth, muffling heaving sobs as I desperately try to get away from him and get back to Dash.

  My father is a monster.

  “I’ll get it taken care of, but what are you going to do about her?”

  “Hopefully I’ve already done it.” My father’s voice is light, almost proud even. He tucks me under his arm and ushers me from the room. I fight him every step of the way until my body finally succumbs to shock.

  My father is a monster.

  I blink up at the ceiling.

  I can feel my hate for my father magnify tenfold. He didn’t just take my freedom; he took a life. Nothing I had planned for him seems like enough. I want to hear him cry out the way Dash couldn’t. Let him see his own blood leaving his body. There was some mercy in Dash being so far gone he didn’t feel any of it.

  I won’t afford my father the same privilege.

  14

  Sunlight starts to peek in through the open curtains. I’ve been sitting motionless for hours in the same spot. I feel numb as I stand, the sound of my own footsteps making me flinch as I move toward the door.

  The door creaks when I pull it open. I freeze when my eyes meet blue ones. Killian is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, facing the door as if waiting for me. Guess he got put on duty to make sure I stayed all night.

  “I tried to tell Logan this was too much—“

  I put a hand up to stop him, too tired to make him feel better after the night I’ve had. I’m not prepared to face the emotion in his voice.

  “I h
ave nothing to say to you,” I tell him, the words barely a whisper.

  He stops so abruptly I might as well have screamed them in his face. He doesn’t follow me as I move blindly through Banner-Hill. Down the stairs to the first floor, past the unmanned front desk, out the front door.

  If there wasn’t twenty-four hour security at the gates, I would probably walk right out. Instead, I hesitate as a car pulls in and stops on the short access road leading to staff parking.

  The blue SUV pauses for a moment, dark tint hiding the occupant until the window lowers.

  “Natalie?” Nick looks at me with concern written all over his face.

  I really try to find the kind of words to reassure him so he’ll continue on his way, but my mouth opens and just hangs there.

  He looks around nervously before nodding his head toward the passenger seat. “C’mon, get in.”

  I blindly follow his instructions. I don’t know where Siobhan or Sadie are right now, and Nick’s the next closest thing I have to an ally right now. I drop into his passenger seat and bend to put my head between my knees. I struggle to breathe. It feels like someone dumped a whole set of weights on my chest.

  “Shhh.” He reaches out and puts a surprisingly gentle hand on my back.

  If I didn’t feel so absolutely wrecked right now, I’d probably pull out a snide comment to remind him our only connection is a shared secret. But hell, it’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to turn right now.

  At least here, with Nick, there’s mutually assured destruction. I could ruin him as easily as he could ruin me. That’s the kind of equal footing that lets me marginally relax with him.

  Nick drives the rest of the way to the staff parking lot and pulls into a spot. After he turns the ignition off, he continues to sit in silence for a few minutes. He leaves his hand on my back the whole time. It doesn’t turn into anything suggestive—just a light reminder that someone else is there. It surprises me how much I need that.

  Finally, he says, “I’ve got extra mats in the back. Come with me.”

  My skin feels cold the second his hand isn’t on me anymore. I don’t sit up until I hear his car door open and shut. I get out of the car like a zombie, my body feeling completely limp as if I’m not in control of it at all.