Chapter 63 Lex
LEX
“I’m done playing games. I need to speak to Cillian,” I say, answering part of her question, but not enough of it.
There have been too many revelations today and not nearly enough of the bottom line.
The idea that Sable’s father had a love child neither surprises nor titillates me, but the idea that he actually is innocent can’t be ignored.
Especially because if that’s true, it means all the things he was accused of are still happening, and the perpetrators are going unpunished.
“Umm,” Sable says, suddenly looking as guilty as Hadrian and Soren.
“Umm?” I ask, turning around to make her face me. She’s so fucking beautiful, and I missed her so much that there’s very little she could actually do or say to make me mad.
“Cillian is the TA in one of my classes, and he was…”
My teeth snap together, and my fists clench. The anger I egotistically assumed I could avoid rages through me. “He was what?” I ask. “Did he touch you?” Cillian is quickly putting himself on the kill list, but if he touched her, he’ll have an express trip there.
“No, but he was pissed about what you guys did to his room, and he said some weird things about my family. Nina was right about him. Whatever he knows is serious.”
I take a few deep breaths, trying to process my feelings without taking them out on her.
A lot has happened to her, and barely any time has passed for her to calm down or to come to grips with all of it.
She just told me about him leading her to Soren’s rape when we were leaving the cafeteria, and now this.
She was in his class after we found her picture on the wall, and we didn’t tell her.
The secrets need to end. The guys have warned me repeatedly that I’ve been careless with him and underestimate him, but I didn’t realize until today just how right they were. He’s a fucking snake.
“He had your picture on the wall, along with all the other Offerings. That’s why we trashed his damn room.” I’m angry now just saying it.
“So why didn’t you tell me that?” she demands.
“A lot has happened,” I admit, and I think we all agree to take the secrets easier.
“Okay, so the way for us to survive this is—first, fuck up Cillian, and then have a meeting where we tell each other all of our secrets so this doesn’t keep happening,” Orion says.
“Deal,” Sable agrees. “But I don’t think that plan is enough to keep us alive.”
I lead us through the castle and over to the dorms. Sable holds Soren’s hand, knowing this is all traumatic for him.
I’m jealous that I’m missing out on her touch, but I admire her ability to see what we all need and respond to it.
Soren doesn’t say much, but he takes her support.
I make a list of all the things I want Cillian to answer for, some things spanning back a few years.
Things I chose to overlook, but seem more sinister now.
Maybe I’ll grab a page out of Arabella’s book and drown him in a bucket.
When we arrive at his room, the door is still broken from our last visit.
The hodgepodge attempt at a repair barely keeps it closed, and I open it with a rough shove.
But even worse than the last time when we found the pictures on the wall, the entire room is empty, and there’s no trace of Cillian to be found.
I open and close my hands, infuriated that he’s gotten the drop on me again.
How many times did I ignore my friend’s warnings and let him get closer?
Now he’s gone, and I still don’t know what his goal was.
My hands move on their own, and my fist connects with an old picture on the wall that likely never belonged to him in the first place.
“Lex, calm down,” she says as she takes my hand and wipes away broken bits of glass. “There’s nothing for us to find here. We need to look into what Nina said about the journalism department.”
The mention of fucking Liliana as Nina doesn’t really help right now, and if it wasn’t for her hands on me, I might break something else.
“Absolutely not!” I say. I need to find him and put an end to this once and for all. This is one too many times to be made a fool of.
“Sable is right,” Hadrian says. “If even the cockroaches are fleeing Bellthorn, this place is about to go nuclear. We need to find out what she wanted to tell Sable that was important enough for her to make a detour before she left.”
“Is she a cockroach or my half sister?” Sable asks with a wondering tone, and he gives her an apologetic smirk.
“If the four families are watching us, they already know what we are up to, so leaving won’t help the way we hope it will.” Her confidence usually makes her irresistible to me, but right now I could throttle her for it.
I shake my head, trying to impress a point to them that I’ve been making since Arabella’s body disappeared. “I still don’t think it is them. It doesn’t match with everything they’ve done so far. I have a lifetime under their thumb, Sable, and they don’t need cameras to control.”
“But someone is watching us,” she says. “And who it is matters less than how we protect ourselves.”
“Whoever is responsible for this got Cillian packing his bags, and now we can’t even ask what he knows,” Hadrian says, raising a rather good point. Cillian has been playing a dangerous game with me for years. He has to have solid nerves, but whatever this is has sent him packing.
“Cillian is a jealous fucker.” Orion shrugs. “The chances are he did what he did because he hated us and our power. Now he doesn’t have anything left to protect himself, so he’s running scared.”
“He’s more than that,” I disagree. “He led Sable to Arabella assaulting Soren. He knew it was going to happen and brought her there so she could see. He did that for a reason.”
Sable flinches as if the mention of it hurts her, and I wish I didn’t have to bring it up, but after what she told me, the truth cannot be denied.
“I think he’s a jealous asshole, and if Arabella told him to bring you around to fuck with us, he would. That doesn’t make him a criminal mastermind,” Parker argues.
“Someone is watching,” Soren starts, his eyes far away.
“Someone who took Arabella, someone who might have tipped Cillian off to leave. Someone who filmed while she…” He shakes his head, as if trying to sort his thoughts.
“I don’t think it’s the four families either, but I’m not going to pretend they are innocent. ”
“Let’s go to the journalism department, like Nina said then!” Sable oozes exasperation. “Why are we waiting here?”
“Because someone is watching who wants to keep us in the dark, someone who wants to hurt you,” I say, hoping she’ll see my side of things. “And you’re not going to risk yourself by investigating anything right now.”
“What?” she demands, crossing the room until she’s standing in front of me, her mouth pressed in a thin line. My gaze is soft, begging for her understanding, but I’m not getting any.
“I swam up that river, Lex. Me. And I killed that fucker. I’m not going to be kept in a bubble. I’m not a damsel in distress.”
I know she’s not, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll ever feel okay risking her. Life without her was not for me, and I’ll do anything I can to avoid that pain.
My palms raise, and when she stays still, I lay them over her shoulders. “We can go do that for you and bring everything back. I promise.”
“I want to do it myself,” she says, but I feel her body shaking beneath me. She’s inches from a meltdown, and I can’t blame her. She went from being the last Briarwick to having a half sister awfully quick.
“I can do it,” Soren says suddenly.
My eyes shoot to him, and I’m not sure what to say. It’s hard to reconcile everything I’ve feared with the truth he told us. I want to be softer to him, but that’s not our relationship, and I just don’t know how.
“I’ll go too,” Orion offers.
I look at Sable waiting to see what she’ll decide. She seems torn, stubbornly insistent on going herself, but she has to see how badly these brothers need to spend time with one another again.
“Will you bring everything you find directly to me?” she asks, defeat lining her brow.
“Of course,” Soren doesn’t leave room for argument, and I actually believe him.
Finally, she nods, and we all breathe a sigh of relief. Soren and Orion leave right away.
“I need to see if anyone in the medical department knows more about Cillian,” I say, knowing there’s no use in all of us sitting around and waiting.
“We’ll take her,” Parker says. “I already have a plan for her anyway.”