Chapter 59
VINNY
Despite it being midnight, there’s an envelope sitting on my doorstep when we get back to my house. This one’s bigger than the first, and I grab it as we go inside, stomach clenching with nerves.
“Open it,” Kaiden orders the second the front door closes, and I rip the top of the envelope off in a hurry.
The only thing inside the envelope is a photograph. In it, Sage is walking through the cemetery, her blonde hair hanging loose down her back in waves. My entire world seems to tilt at seeing her, and everything vibrates at the edges.
“That’s Sage,” Becks breathes. “That’s on Christmas. That’s the dress she wore to dinner with her grandmother.”
“Really?” Kai asks, snapping his gaze to him.
Becks nods, swallowing roughly. “Yeah, I remember it.”
“So, she went to the cemetery on Christmas at some point, and someone was following her?” I say, less of a question and more of an observation. “Who? The person who killed her?”
Out of nowhere, Kai slams his fist into the wall, making me and Becks jump. “God!” Kai shouts. “I am so sick of getting more questions before we get fucking answers for the ones we already have!”
Understanding his frustration, I nod. “I know.”
“Flip the picture over.” Becks points to my hand. “It looks like something’s written on the back.”
I flip the picture, revealing thick, bold, red letters written on the back in marker. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT HER.
“We were supposed to protect her?!” Becks spits. “We didn’t even know someone was after her!”
“Maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s why we’re being taunted. Because we didn’t pay close enough fucking attention and didn’t notice she was being fucking followed!” Kai screams the last few words, and I flinch when he punches the wall again.
We don’t stop him, though, even as he smashes his knuckles into the wall so hard that a picture falls down the hall and shatters, because afterwards, he collapses to the ground and heaves for breath, his bloody hand against his chest and tears sliding down his cheeks.
“We should’ve paid closer fucking attention,” Kaiden cries, and my entire body goes cold. “This is our fucking fault.”
Becks gives me a worried look, and I know he’s thinking exactly what I am.
Kai has finally broken.
In all the years I’ve known Kaiden Thorne—which is my whole life—I’ve never seen him cry, and that’s how I know I need to drop to my knees as well. Becks follows me to the ground, and we both put a hand on Kaiden. Mine on his shoulder and Becks’s on his back, and we sit that way and let him cry.
Kai cries silently, but his tears never slow, streaming down his cheeks like he’s turned on a faucet, and it splits me in two. If the strongest one of us is breaking, what’s left? Who’s going to hold us up when more shit hits the fan?
After about five minutes, Kai wipes his hands across his cheeks and looks at me.
There’s an unspoken respect between me and Kai—there always has been. Like any Alpha and his Beta, we understand each other better than him and Becks. Becks is rebellious, emotional, but me? I can fall into line when I need to, and the glimmer of control in Kaiden’s eyes makes my spine straighten.
“It’s time to find this motherfucker,” Kai growls, his gaze hardening as his tears dry up. “And it’s time to fucking end this.”
The next morning, we wake up at the crack of dawn, just as the sun is kissing the horizon, and head for the cemetery.
Even though Sage isn’t buried here, I say a silent hello to the Blackmore grave I’ve named hers as we pass by, and a small smile pulls up the edges of my lips.
It’s been a while since I’ve smiled a real smile, but feeling closer to Sage makes me feel better.
Maybe we should be coming out to the cemetery more often.
No one from school comes out here right now, since they’re afraid they’re going to get murdered, so at least we would have privacy.
I follow behind Becks and Kai, wanting to have some sense of space while I’m thinking about Sage. It’s intimate and personal, and even though my friends are closer than anyone else, I still want this time to talk to Sage in my mind without interruptions.
We get farther out into the cemetery, the headstones old and brittle, and the leaves turning dry from the shade of the trees, making them crunch loudly under our feet.
I close my eyes, savoring the memory of this place—the smells, the sounds. It’s familiar and foreign all at once, and part of me misses it. Part of me misses the nights in this dark, empty, echoing place.
My eyes open when Becks hisses under his breath, and I get an eyeful of his handiwork for the first time.
Half of the first crypt is still standing, only the front half caved in and burnt, like maybe the other half was too strong to come down even with fire.
Unless the fire department got here before the whole thing went down, but that seems unlikely since the second crypt, the one we used for the Games, is completely gone, only rubble and unrecognizable pieces left.
“Jesus Christ, Becks.” Kai laughs, and it triggers my own laughter, even though it isn’t funny.
Beckham, however, doesn’t laugh. He just walks over to Hallows Crypt and stands at the edge.
“Be careful, Beckham,” I say, my eyes flaring. “That thing could come down at any minute.”
“I’m fine,” he says as he steps into the broken pieces and debris. “I won’t touch the walls.”
Kai and I silently watch as Becks moves through the rubble with caution, his eyes directed down at the dirty ground. After a minute, Kai speaks.
“What are you looking for?”
“Anything,” Becks answers mindlessly, his gaze still wandering.
If he finds anything the police may have missed, it’d be a miracle, but I don’t want to rain on his parade, and it seems neither does Kai, because we both just stand and watch.
It’s a few more minutes before Becks shouts, making us both jump.
“Here!”
“What?!” I move toward the crypt in an instant, Kai hot on my heels.
Beckham shakes his head, pointing to the back wall. “It isn’t about what’s here, it’s about what’s not.”
My eyebrows pull down, and I look at an equally confused Kai for a moment before we both look at Becks again. “Okay?”
Becks laughs. “Maybe it’s because I was always the one to get this crypt ready for the Games… You guys don’t notice what’s missing?”
We’re silent for a minute, then Kai clicks his tongue. “The notebooks… They’re gone."
My eyes trail to the bookshelf, which is still intact at the edge of the crypt, and even though it’s covered in dust and dirt and mildew from the rain, there’s something else that’s different about it.
It’s empty.
“Who would’ve taken them?” I ask, bewildered. “The only people who’d know they existed were former Hallows Boys.”
“Yeah,” Kai says, a small twitch to his lips. “That makes the suspect pool a hell of a lot smaller.”
“There’s only one generation that has incriminating shit in theirs.” Becks smiles, huffing a laugh that holds no amusement. “And only one person I can think of who would want to hide all the evidence of the Games.”
“Aaron,” I breathe, feeling sick as I look at the dirty wall, still intact with names carved into it—names of all the Hallows Boys, all except the first three which have been scratched out.
I look around the room, putting it all together.
All evidence of the founders is just…gone.
Kai and Becks follow my gaze, noticing the same thing I do, and all the pieces start to move into place as we stare at the wall. All except one.
“But why kill Sage when he was trying to get her here all this time?” Kai asks the question on my tongue, and we all look at each other, the sun hitting our faces from the holes in the ceiling. “It doesn’t add up.”
“We don’t know what happened that night before she ended up in the crypt. None of us were with her,” Becks says, and I can hear the regret in his tone.
“I want to get out of here,” I tell them, walking backwards toward the gaping hole in the side of the crypt, my skin crawling with the thought of this place. “We aren’t going to find anything else; we might as well go home.”
“C’mon,” Kai says to Becks as he follows me back out onto the grass. “Let’s go.”
Becks eyes scan the messy, half-shattered remains of the Hallows Crypt one last time, maybe looking for something else that might help us, or saying goodbye to that chapter of our lives, then he looks up at me and presses his lips together.
This is where we really found each other—the first place we touched, kissed, loved—and it’s almost bittersweet that it’s gone. I smile at Becks softly, hoping he can read the words behind the gesture.
Losing this place doesn’t mean the loss of us.