51. Soren
SOREN
Guilt eats me alive as I watch her close the bathroom door.
I know Lex isn’t lying, but some part of me refuses to believe he’s telling me the truth.
Why the hell would Arabella go this far?
Things between us have been coming to an end even before Sable showed up.
If she succeeded in killing her, what did she expect my reaction to be?
Pleased and ready to propose? I shake my head, wondering if this isn’t all a bad dream.
Is anyone really that mad about Liliana’s nose?
“How the hell did that happen?” Orion interrupts my thoughts. My brother’s serious tone is such a stark difference from his usual demeanor.
“I caught Arabella Aragona and a few others on the cheerleading squad trying to drown Sable in a bucket up on the top floor near my workshop.”
My eyes fall closed, and somehow it’s even worse than I thought it was going to be. When Sable mentioned holding her head in a bucket, I didn’t expect this to be so literal. I’m stupid and reckless, and I never should have screwed around with that bitch.
Orion explodes in loud curses, his voice drowning out everything the others say.
Hadrian is a statue in the corner, his face green as if he’s about to spill his guts over her bed.
Parker vibrates in anger beside me, his hands already in fists, and if he starts swinging on me, I won’t fight back. “You don’t mean an actual bucket.”
“It was at least a five gallon,” Lex adds.
“Drowning someone in a bucket is a lot nastier than I assumed they were capable of,” Orion says, and I have to agree that it is a remarkably hands-on way to kill someone, though the car at the big game proved to me just how nasty Arabella is.
“She’s scared of water,” Parker says. “Her father tried to kill her at the bottom of a river. They tried to kill her in the way that would scare her most. They’re going to pay for this!”
“Are we sure they were trying to kill her?” I ask. “Maybe it was just a stupid prank gone wrong.”
“She was fucking limp and blue by the time I got there!” Lex shouts.
Guilt and shame grow inside me. My throat is dry, and my mouth forms no words.
What can I say when I fucked everything up?
There’s no excuse for this. Not only did Arabella almost kill Sable but she did it in the cruelest way possible.
She survived, but how much worse will this trauma make things for her? She will likely never feel safe again.
“There were five of them ganging up on her!” Lex shakes his head. “How it happened doesn’t matter.”
“Names.” Park cracks his neck. “I want names, Lex.”
He doesn’t give them to him. “Not yet.”
“The cheerleaders were warned!” Parker bursts out, “I told them if they ever pulled that shit again, I would make them regret it. Too bad for them, they didn’t believe the warning.”
“I’m pissed too, Parker, but right now, I want to make sure it never happens again.” Lex’s eyes cut to me, and my jaw ticks. “Running off half cocked won’t accomplish that.”
“She’s no one’s prisoner,” I remind them.
“You can’t just lock her up.” Her words from weeks ago still ring in my head.
I didn’t know . No one has ever listened to me anyway, and I know my efforts are worthless.
If they feel justified in locking her in here, that’s what they’ll do.
I don’t need to participate. She should have the right to walk around Bellthorn. Sable is not the problem.
“Oh, brother.” Orion shakes his head. “You’re so far up your own ass trying to be the good guy that it never occurred to you what could happen. I bet Arabella wants her neck because you dumped her.”
“You dumped Arabella?” Parker asks, his eyes narrowed.
“We were never dating.” My answer comes automatically. How many times will I have to explain that fucking a few times is not dating?
“It doesn’t matter why it happened,” Lex interrupts my thought. “How do we fix this?” The question hangs in the air for just a second before Lex starts answering himself. “I can’t take her another day. I have labs she can’t attend.”
Parker follows with a shake of his head. “Same. I can’t watch her in the athletic department where they all hang out.”
Silence stretches when finally Orion speaks out, “It doesn’t work for any of us. There’s only one solution.”
My brother looks at me, and I already know I won’t like what he has to say. “What’s that?”
“You need to take your day. It’s not a right and a reward anymore. It’s now become your responsibility.”
I laugh darkly, shaking my head. “You wanted my day. What changed?”
Orion clicks his tongue, shrugging. “Maybe I want to teach you responsibility.”
“You teach me responsibility? Fuck you, Orion!”
Orion laughs, but Lex interrupts. “Orion is right. This is your mess, and now you clean it up.”
“God-fucking-dammit,” I curse. Turning, I swing my fist and smash Sable’s bedside table.
“That’s not dramatic or anything.” Her voice takes everyone’s eyes from me to her.
She’s at the bathroom door, staring at me in a towel.
“Soren feels guilty,” Lex says, pinning me with a judgmental glare.
Sable nods, barely looking at anyone but her waiting bed. Her eyes are heavy, and her steps are unsure. She drops the towel at the side of the bed and climbs in completely naked.
Tense silence stretches when her perfect round ass bends. She crawls under the covers and gets settled, spoiling our view. No one in this room would have had a problem removing those covers and fucking her raw a month ago, but a month ago feels like a very long time ago.
“Whoever controls the lights, please turn them off,” she says with her back to us.
Lex nods but says nothing, and then one by one, they turn their backs and go into their own rooms. The lights dim, but the bright green of the symbols is enough to cast the room in low light.
None of us knows how to turn those off or what happened with that final door.
Sable is asleep within minutes, her slow and deep breaths giving her away.
I’ve been running from her for so long now, but my time is up.