Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
As I rushed through the party, eyes peeled for the guys, Brutus barked off in the distance. I still had doubts about asking Morty and getting a truthful answer, but I went with my gut. I couldn’t be led by Max’s distrust of his brother, even if I understood his feelings.
Morty had been protecting me.
I found him in a corner, leaning against a tent pole.
He straightened as I approached. “What’s up, Buttercup?”
“I need to use one of my secret questions.”
Morty stared at me, face illuminated by the moonlight, and didn’t look away. I didn’t appreciate the scrutiny, but if it got him talking, I’d deal with it.
I blinked at him, communicating my lack of ruffled feathers despite his best attempts to rile me up.
When he’d looked his fill, he stood up straight and crossed his arms over his chest. “You first, little princess. You claim he’s yours, but if that’s true, where’d all your fight go?
” He shrugged, and I snapped my gaze to his, knowing damn well what he was about to say. “Sort of looks like you gave up.”
My words cracked through the quiet, echoing around us. “I’ll never give up on him.”
His eyebrows jumped, and I crossed the space between to get right in his face. Staring up at him, I lowered my voice, but I made sure he heard me loud and clear. “You act like this is all a game to you, but you know the stakes better than anyone. Better than I did, that’s for damn sure.”
I pointed a finger at the dance floor, where the rich bastards who’d killed Desi drank, laughed, and danced as they hadn’t a care in the world. Then I listed what I’d figured out, adding one finger with each moment of proof I gave him.
“It’s why you turned me away at the gate. Why you let Brutus—your dog, not Max’s—come after me. And why the scent of citrus, filling the air right now, has been everywhere.”
Every moment I’d pieced together, I threw it in his face. Each time Morty had secretly impacted my journey.
“I thought it was Kingston or Merle, but Kingston wasn’t there the night I drank the drugged wine, was he? And he didn’t have a connection to Le Redoute Vin like you did.”
Morty’s jaw tightened, his spine straightening as he stood at full height.
But I didn’t back down.
“Just like Merle, the father you hate and the man Kingston needed out of Pendragon, didn’t know I’d been attacked at the lake until I showed up at his door. Because he wasn’t there making sure I breathed in chloroform, was he?”
He opened his mouth to speak but I kept going.
“Not enough to knock me out, but enough to make me weak, right?” I hurled the truth at him like stones, vicious jabs of a knife right into his gut.
“Merle wasn’t there to make sure they let me go before any lasting damage was done.
So, he wouldn’t have been able to tell Kingston how it was Elaine, the bitch who came up to me filled with bullshit remorse, that egged the girls on, escalating the attack so your presence was necessary.
” I scoffed. “I bet neither of them poisoned the food, hoping I’d be stuck in bed when Ben planned to lure me away. ”
His eyes narrowed, but something shone in his dark brown depths that I’d never found in his father’s identical shade. Something I’d only seen in his brother’s eyes. Every time he looked at me as I spoke the truth.
Pride.
“You’ve been behind every attempt to scare me away from here.
Trying to save me. That’s what you said.
And you laugh like it’s all some big joke because you know exactly how real the threat is, and sometimes that’s the only thing you can do—deflect with a laugh—once you’ve seen how far they’ll go to win a game none of you ever asked to play. ”
I leaned closer, raising my voice loud enough to make my next point crystal clear.
“But I’m not like the rest of you. Not because I’m poor. Not because I’m an outsider. Or didn’t come from a well-bred, psychotic family. I’m different for one reason and one reason only.”
“And what’s that?”
I punctuated each word by jabbing my finger in his chest. “I. Signed. Up.”
When his eyes flashed dangerously, I pressed harder.
“I asked for this. I chose it. Chose him. So, yeah. Max Dread? He’s mine.
They are mine. And I won’t rest until this place burns to the ground.
Until they’re free from the insanity your parents have been getting away with for centuries.
” Sinking back on my heels, I lifted my chin.
“You think Kingston picked me because I’m clever? ”
Tilting his head, his lips twitched in challenge.
“He picked me because life has thrown me nothing but fucking lemons. The ones this place plants as a symbol. Because he knew I’d roll with the punches as the hits kept on coming.
And that I’d adapt and understand when the man I love needs me to fight a quiet battle beside him, while he does what he thinks he has to do to protect what’s his. ”
Morty traced a path down the side of my face, his eyes glinting in the moonlight as he saw me in a new one.
My chest heaved with ragged breaths as I let out everything I’d been turning over in my mind, quietly sorting out for days without seeing it, until last night.
“Fine.” Flicking his gaze across the dance floor, he jerked a nod. “Go for it. Ask your questions.”
I took a deep, steadying breath, realizing the last time I asked him this—demanded the answer, more accurately—he couldn’t tell me. But now, as the one who answered the Secret Questions, he could.
“From the moment she solved her last clue to the moment it happened, how exactly did Desi die?”
Lifting my chin, I stared at him as emotions played over his features. His jaw tightened and nostrils flared like the memories had suddenly returned.
“So clever, little princess.” His anger quickened my pulse, but I stood firm. “A loophole to get all the answers, huh?”
“No, not all of them. But I need that one. I need to know everything you can tell me with the way I phrased it.” I stepped closer to him. “And I think you want to tell me.”
Blowing out a frustrated breath, he spun on his heel and marched away from the crowd. I followed him, wary about leaving the crowd but going with my gut.
“They told me the answer. And I nudged, gently, until she solved the final clue and went to Merle. Asked him about the path she wanted to take when she went into the tunnels.” He glowered at the lake while I ran through the letters I’d solved, unsure exactly what words led to TUNNEL but aligning what he said with what I’d discovered so far.
“She was also clever. Desi, she—When he told her she was right, she took the clue he’d given her and followed the path.
But it was wrong. The information I’d been given.
And she wasn’t so careful with her phrasing. She hadn’t known she needed to be.”
“She asked how to find the path. Not which of the two paths was safest.”
“Not quite.”
My forehead creased in confusion, but I thought about what Paul had shared with me about the paths, and why it might have been more obvious after a girl died.
Or why it may have stood out to me, because of everything I’d been going through with Max.
“She didn’t realize there were two paths.”
“Ding. Ding. Ding!” He spat out, his voice lacking the zeal it once held. “Tell her what she’s won, ladies and gentlemen!”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Morty, I’m sorry I have to bring all this up. But I need to win. It’s the only way to stop them for good. And I think I’ve figured out how to get into the tunnels, so I need you to keep going.”
He sharpened his gaze on my face, all false humor draining out of him. “Even if you win, there’s no stopping them. You’ll die for nothing.”
“That’s my choice to make.” I swallowed. “To me, it’s still worth it to try. For them.”
Swallowing deeply, he glared darkly into the distance.
“She didn’t know she needed to ask which path was safest. So, she asked him if the path she found led to the end, and when he said yes, she didn’t use her last Secret Question.
” Morty shook his head before pinning his dark gaze on mine.
“And if you take the wrong path in, it triggers a failsafe mechanism. Dozmary Cavern returns to its original state. He sent her in here, knowing how it would end. Knowing she’d drown. ”
“That’s what Max overheard.” My mind raced, thinking of my Knights. “What he told Landon, and Landon tried but—”
“Landon couldn’t save her. Neither of them could’ve. It was too late.” Realizing he’d given his brother grace, he deflected. “Between you and me, they fight because of all the unbearable tension between them, and they should really just give into it.”
“Or they don’t know there was nothing they could do.”
“Your White Knight knows. He’s tried to tell Max.
You heard him on the lawn.” He glanced toward the lemon tree off in the distance, and I followed his gaze, unable to make anything out.
“But he’s so tortured and anguished, you know?
It’s just part of his aesthetic. So, it doesn’t come out in a way my baby bro will hear it, I guess. ”
The flippant wave of his hand irritated me.
“Do you have to be so cavalier?”
“Yes.” He narrowed his eyes on my face. “People act like it’s so easy. Putting pride aside. Admitting mistakes. Forgiving.”
“It can be.”
He shook his head. “Not when you’ve watched someone take everything you knew you deserved. Not when you’ve watched them fuck that up and hate you for it at the same time.”
“Morty—”
“I answered the question. That’s all I have to say about it.”
I growled, clenching my fists in frustration. “Okay, well then, if that’s the full answer, just let me ask my second, and I can get the hell away from you.”
He tilted his head, his eyes piercing as he arched a brow. “You just did, little princess.”
“What?”
Throwing his hands up like he didn’t know what to tell me, he shrugged and walked away from me.
I tore after him, grabbing his arm and pulling him back around to face me. “That doesn’t count as my question!”