Chapter 22 #3
“Let me see. There was a full column attached. I printed both pages, but the text is on this side.” She flips the paper over.
“Ah. Here. The photograph itself was printed as part of an investigative feature on unsolved disappearances on the islands. Rebecca was one of several. The reporter, I don’t remember her name, noted that, according to her sources, the three men in the photograph were believed to be a group known in certain law enforcement circles as the Gravesend Brothers. ”
My throat dries, as this is sounding worse by the second.
Malia taps the text. “The reporter writes that they were mercenaries but no one has ever seen their faces. That there were no photographs of them except this supposed one.” She stares closer.
“I mean, I swear that looks just like Rebecca. Anyway, she writes that they hadn’t been heard from in over a few months at the time of publication, which would put their last known activity at around a year and a half ago.
Some of her sources believed they had retired.
Some believed they might have been killed. ”
My ears are ringing.
I stare at Clio, and the room tilts.
Clio’s face has gone very still.
They all mentioned having dark pasts they aren’t proud of, ones they don’t want to talk about.
They preempted me, and I thought nothing of it.
I’m suddenly running to the restroom—I see the sign above the doorway—and drop to my knees in front of the toilet, where I get sick, emptying my stomach, my whole body shuddering with it.
I grip the edge of the porcelain with both hands and retch again, but nothing comes up because there is nothing left, and I stay there with my forehead resting on my wrist, tears running down my face and dripping off my jaw onto the tile.
Someone’s in the doorway.
“Adelaide.” Her voice is soft, worried. “I’m here.”
“I can’t breathe.”
She kneels behind me and puts a hand on the middle of my back and another in my hair, gathering it away from my face. She doesn’t say anything else for a long time. She just stays there with me while I shake.
Finally, I sit back on my heels and wipe my face with the paper towels she hands me. I flush the toilet, then stand up on legs that don’t feel like mine. She gets up with me, still holding my hair back like I’m seventeen and drunk behind a bleacher.
I splash water on my face at the sink and rinse my mouth. I don’t look at the mirror. I don’t want to see what my face looks like right now.
“You can’t go back there tonight,” she tells me.
I nod, but it feels jerky, wrong, like my body is moving a second behind everything else because my head is still back in that room, staring at the photo. A cold possibility curls through me so hard that I can barely breathe around it.
Is this real? Am I losing my mind?
Are my scent matches the men standing in that picture with a missing woman?
Just thinking it makes nausea roll through me all over again.
I need to ask them, to hear the truth from their mouths and know for sure, because right now, my thoughts are tearing at each other, and none of them are good.
But I know if I stand in front of them while falling apart, I won’t be paying attention to know if they’re not telling me the truth.
“We have to talk to them. I know we do. But I can’t do it tonight,” I whisper.
“Tomorrow, then. And I’ll come with you.”
“Ace is outside,” I whisper, and my voice cracks completely.
Clio puts both her hands on my shoulders and turns me to face her. “Just text him and say you’re staying at my place tonight. Last-minute decision and he can head home.”
“Okay, but maybe once we leave, because he will come in and want to speak with me. I know it.”
“Then good thing my car is parked in the back and there’s a rear exit.” She hands me more paper towels.
And I wipe my eyes and throw them away, then push my hair out of my face. “I can do this. I mean, they’ve been nothing but gentle with me so far.”
She wraps me in a hug, and I let her hold me up because my knees are seriously considering quitting. I bury my face in her shoulder. I can’t stop picturing the photo or Ace’s mouth on mine twenty minutes ago, and I don’t know how both of those things can be true in the same world.
She takes my hand and draws me out of the bathroom. “Come, grab your bag, and I need to get my keys.”
We emerge from the bathroom, and Malia is right there, a folded tissue in her outstretched hand.
“Oh, sweetie.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
I accept the tissue because refusing it would require energy I don’t have. She’s watching me closely, the bridge between her eyes furrowed.
“Is it the masks that frightened you?” she asks softly.
“It’s okay,” I say, not wanting to discuss it with anyone else.
“Don’t be cross with Clio, please,” Malia goes on. “She told me earlier, when she was so worried about you, that you’d come across some masks at the house where you’re staying with some Alphas.”
Clio appears with her keys and bag, sighing. “Adelaide, hope you don’t mind. I just thought she might know something about the masks since she runs some cultural events on this side of the island, and figured she might have seen them somewhere else to explain why they had them. I didn’t know—”
“Do they look like these?” Malia asks, showing me the photo again.
I can’t look away. The masks are there, on three men, a possibility that they could be my Alphas.
The room turns again, and I set a hand against the wall to stay upright. The tissue crumples in my fist.
“Adelaide.” Malia’s voice is soft and relentless. “Darling. Do they?”
My mouth is dry. “I don’t—” I start.
Clio steps between us and wraps her arms around me. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers into my shoulder. “Babe. I am so sorry.”
“Adelaide,” Malia presses. “This could be crucial to the case. A young woman is missing, and her mother has not slept through a night since she vanished. If there is anything you know—”
“I have to go, Clio, please.” I don’t want to be rude to Malia, but she’s pushing all the wrong buttons right now.
Malia steps closer.
“Please, enough.” Clio’s voice cuts sharp between us. “Not right now. She needs air. She’ll talk when she’s ready and not before.”
Malia’s lips purse, but she lowers her head and pulls back. “I’m sorry,” she says to me, and seems to mean it.
Clio squeezes my hand, and Aura is there, hugging herself.
“I’ll see you back home.” Clio is already moving, pulling me by the hand toward the stockroom, toward the staff exit at the back of the building.
I let her pull me because my legs are not really in charge of themselves. I glance back once over my shoulder.
Malia is still standing in the hallway with the photograph in her hand, watching me leave, the bright curiosity back in her eyes now.
I turn my face to the door and can’t stop wondering if I’ve been wrong about these Alphas.