Chapter 5
ORION
TWO WEEKS WITHOUT SABLE
Parker sits on my bed, elbows to his knees as he searches for anything related to Sable on his phone.
That’s what he does every day and night.
It never ends. Apparently, anything she ever touched deserves investigating, and nothing is small enough to be overlooked.
Everyone is looking for her, but none of them feels the need to include me.
Parker doesn’t even ask for my help. He’s just humoring me.
“Did you find anything in her scrapbook?” I ask.
He shakes his head but doesn’t look away from whatever he’s reading. “I gave it to Hadrian. He said he had an idea.”
I can’t imagine what the musician is going to do with an old collection of pictures, but good for him.
Parker’s eyes are still blackened, but he won’t explain how or why that happened.
A part of me hopes and fears that he got into a fight with my brother.
It would be hugely satisfying to know Soren got a little something back for what he’s done, but a part of me fears that answer too.
I want to ask Parker again, but I don’t for the sake of keeping whatever’s left of the peace.
Soren’s room sits empty on the other side of the wall.
His absence is its own presence in my chest, a festering wound making everything worse.
Missing him doesn’t make me hate him any less, though.
I imagine him at Bellthorn with his fucking whore to stop the feeling.
He’s been there all break, so they could have fucked all over the castle by now.
Anger and pain rip through me, a potent cocktail I can’t control any longer.
My heart and guts scream. They have been since she left, and our trip surely didn’t help.
“Fuck Hadrian,” I say, old habits dying hard.
“Yeah, fuck Hadrian,” he agrees, and his presence really does make me feel a little bit better. Plus, if anyone can find her, it should be her stalker, right? I would have believed that a few weeks ago.
“How did you get her to be our Offering? I know you set it up, but how?” This question has been gnawing at me, and it now seems like as good a time as any to get answers.
He doesn’t seem to hear me, so I call his name and repeat the question when he finally looks up from his phone.
“Why does it matter now? That’s not why she’s gone.” From the set of his jaw, I can tell he’s certain about that.
Guilt. That’s a look I can recognize. We’re all dying slowly from it.
“Have you already checked?”
“Obviously.” Things are only growing tenser, not because we can’t get along, that part is actually working surprisingly well, but because being without Sable isn’t for either of us. The pressure of the promise he made me weighs down the air, and we both know this is a matter of life and death.
“So what was it, Parker? How did you do it?”
He looks at me with a devilish smile. “I’m not really sure I want to tell you. A man’s got to have his secrets.”
Now that he was outed as a stalker, he likes to remind us that he had that whole thing going on the side and none of us knew. I roll my eyes. He wants to believe he’s more skilled than me, and he is. But fuck the secrets, we don’t have time for that.
“What if you know something that could help us find her and you don’t realize it because you’ve been looking at the problem from the same angle all along?”
It’s therapy shit I’m using here, and he gives me a serious look of consideration marred with surprise.
I have good ideas occasionally, and it pisses me off that everyone acts like it’s such a revelation when I do.
Don’t they remember the wardrobe I designed for Sable? That’s talent. Sable saw it in me.
“My brother owed me a favor,” he says, taking me back to the present.
“Which one?” I shoot.
“Calen.” He turns his eyes back to the phone, as if it’s all he’s going to say on the matter.
“He hates you,” I answer automatically.
“Even more so now.” Parker smiles, as if that somehow made his plan all the more clever. Just before I’m about to blow, he continues, “That’s why when he suggested Sable to my father, Dad liked the idea.”
“So your father and brother thought they were punishing you?” I ask, trying to make sure I understand.
“Just my father. He was pissed off about my averages last season. Calen, I happen to have by the balls.”
That all sounds well and good, but threatening members of the founding families never works out well for anyone. His father is the head of the family now, but soon it will be Calen. Parker is playing a dangerous game. I shake my head and look at him, hoping he’s smarter than he’s showing right now.
“And he wouldn’t do something to her to get your grip off his balls?” It feels obvious to me. He gave the person who hates his guts the name of the woman he cares for most.
“He would love to if he could, but killing me wouldn’t even fix the problem, Orion. I’ve covered my bases. They don’t have Sable.”
“No one is talking about you dying. But having her in their hands would be an advantage.”
“For whom? They already have us all tightly leashed,” he asks, finally looking at me.
“I thought it was obvious?”
He sighs as if I’m exhausting him, brushing his hair out of his face. “I looked into them. I told you I covered my bases. They don’t have her.”
“And what about the rest of the founding families?”
And then it clicks. Fucking Soren was always saying that the families wanted us by the balls. That he didn’t want to play with the Offering because of the debt he would owe after.
“I doubt that they did anything when they were the ones who gave—”
Parker’s words are lost on me. I’m done listening. The idea is already forming, and I get to my feet, noting my father’s gone for the day. This is my chance to be as useful and clever as the rest of them.
“My family is the reason Sable’s gone.”
Parker shakes his head. “Soren fucked Arabella, and she left. We might not know where she is right now, but she left on her own accord.”
“So we believe,” I say, crossing the room.
“Where are you going?”
I turn back to him, my hand already on the knob. “You’re sure your family doesn’t have Sable, but they’re not the only Founders, are they? Three more sets of assholes could be responsible, and I’m not sure about mine.”
He groans dramatically, throwing his hands up. “I came here to hang out with you and keep you in line, not to piss off your parents.”
Sure, I can’t deny I’ve been getting crazier and crazier, but each minute without Sable is pain. Parker knows it too. He’s looking like shit and won’t tell anyone why. He calls my name as I leave.
“I cannot let you go do some stupid shit.” He jogs to my side.
“I don’t have stalker skills like you, Parker. I have to do what I have to do to make sure they don’t have her.”
The truth rings inside me, and it pushes me to keep going.
If I learned anything from my piece-of-shit brother, it’s that the founding families are the first and last ones who want to screw us over.
My hands ball into fists, restless energy bursting through me searching for an outlet.
I hate being in this house, but even more so when I should be out there looking for her.
I should have known that the five of us wouldn’t be able to keep someone like her, but I truly never expected my own brother to be the one to ruin everything.
He didn’t even want her and he rejected her in a way that made me lose her. While it all seems so obvious in hindsight, it still burns. I saw who and what she was the first day she arrived at Bellthorn. Defiant. Resilient. And I let Soren, of all people, chase her away.
“What if he asked them to get rid of her?”
“Soren? He wouldn’t dare.”
His conviction and faith in my brother is too much, and a thundering bellow leaves my mouth raw in its fury, scraping my throat. “I’m taking care of this myself. I’m finding her right now.”
“You’re throwing a tantrum,” he says behind me, but it’s too late.