Chapter 20 #3
A shaky breath slipped out of me as I stared at the ceiling. I was honestly losing my mind when it came to this man. One minute I liked him. Trusted him. Slept with him. Let myself feel something I hadn’t planned on feeling at all out here.
And the next—
Suspicion. Doubt. Running through every possibility where he was the one behind it all.
The shift was so fast it made my head spin. Like something in me kept flipping a switch back and forth.
God, what the hell was wrong with me?
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to breathe, slow and steady. This was what fear did. It twisted things. Made you turn on people. Even people you really—
I cut the thought off before it could finish, because that part only made it worse.
Despite my best efforts to squash everything down, more unwanted thoughts began to creep in.
What if I was actually right in the end? What if I kept my suspicions to myself out of sheer guilt and confusion over my feelings toward Rhys… but then it really was him all along? How could I ever forgive myself for staying quiet?
I cleared my throat and turned back to Jasmine. “Are you still awake?” I whispered.
“Yeah. How come?”
“I need to pee. Could you come with me?”
“Sure.” She wearily pushed herself onto her elbows and yawned. Then she slowly rose to her feet alongside me.
In the tiny staff toilet, I leaned back against the sink, gripping the edge a little tighter than necessary. Then I filled Jasmine in on my new suspicions, stumbling over the words as I tried to piece it all together out loud. It had sounded so much clearer in my head.
When I was done, Jasmine stared at me for a beat. Then she let out a slow breath through her nose.
“Alissa,” she said flatly. “This is the second time in two days that you’ve gone from trusting Rhys to deciding he’s the killer.”
“I’m not deciding anything,” I said quickly. “I’m just saying, it suddenly makes sense in a way I didn’t even think of before.” I paused, rubbing a hand over my face. “Believe me… I know how crazy it sounds.”
Jasmine sighed. “Look,” she said, voice quieter now. “I get it. What you’re saying is all technically possible. But it could also be nothing. Just a bunch of coincidences. Right?”
I hesitated. “Right.”
“So, based on that… I really don’t think it’s a good idea to bring this to the group yet.”
“Why?”
“Well, first of all, we’d have to tell everyone he’s still alive,” she said. “And that immediately puts suspicion on us.”
I blinked. “How?”
She crossed her arms. “Think about it. We’ve known about this fake death thing for over a day now, and we didn’t tell anyone.
Instead, we helped him hide it. We’ve been sneaking around, bringing him food, spending time with him.
” She raised a brow. “So if we suddenly drop this on the group, they might end up turning on us. Because it looks like we’re part of what he’s doing. And I guess we are, in a way.”
My stomach tightened. She had a good point.
“Also, here’s another thing to consider,” she went on, tilting her head. “You’ve been alone with him multiple times since all of this started. If he is actually doing this, why hasn’t he hurt you?”
“Because only Legacies are being targeted.”
“Which brings me to my next point,” she said. “All the people who’ve died so far are Legacies, and he’s one of them. Why would he kill his own friends?”
I slowly shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” she said. “And that’s the problem. There’s just way too much we don’t know. So if we go to everyone with this now and we turn out to be wrong, it’s going to blow up in our faces. And even if we’re right, it could still blow up in our faces.”
I looked down at the floor as I mulled it over. “So what do you think we should do?” I finally asked, looking back up. “Just… nothing?”
Jasmine shook her head. “Not nothing. Just nothing yet,” she said. “For now, we keep it quiet and look for something real. Something that actually proves it’s him. And if we find that, then we can tell everyone.”
I stood there for a moment, my thoughts still churning. Finally, I nodded, even though my mind was still spinning with unease.
We slipped back into the hall, and I lowered myself onto my makeshift bed, pulled the blanket up, and turned onto my side. Then I closed my eyes and tried to make my brain go quiet.
It didn't. Instead, a new idea crept in from the darkest corner of my mind, and cold horror seeped through me all over again.
What if I wasn't actually afraid that Rhys was the killer?
What if some sick, twisted part of me—the same part that had always been drawn to danger—actually wanted him to be the killer?
It would explain the dark pull. The way my brain kept circling back to accusing him no matter how hard I tried to believe in him.
I squeezed my eyes shut. No. That wasn't it. I was just scared and sleep-deprived and running on fumes, and my brain was eating itself for entertainment.
But it was too late. The terrible thought had already rooted itself in my mind, refusing to let go.
I pressed my face into the crook of my arm and forced myself to breathe, slow and even.
Please, I thought, at nothing and no one in particular. Please let me be wrong about all of this…