Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Most of the guests have already left.
The music has faded to something softer now, and the first floor is scattered with the remains of the party: half-finished drinks, abandoned shoes, glittering strands of ribbon caught under chairs.
Paris and Berlin are staying over. The rest of us are still here under the excuse of helping clean up, though it’s mostly just lingering.
I’m gathering stray glasses from the sideboard when Lilia steps up beside me, her voice low.
“What do you think that’s about?”
I follow her gaze.
At first, I don’t see them. And then I do.
Kai and Gabriel. Just beyond the corridor, half-shielded by shadow, caught in some kind of conversation that doesn’t look remotely civil.
Kai’s jacket is gone, his tie long forgotten. Instead, he wears just a white shirt now, sleeves rolled to the elbows, collar undone. It should make him look relaxed. It doesn’t.
His whole body is tense. Shoulders tight, hands clenched so hard at his sides his knuckles have turned stark white.
And he’s shaking.
He looks like he’s trying not to explode.
Gabriel is leaning in, one hand lifted, fingers pointing too close to his face. And Kai doesn’t even say anything back. He just stares at Gabriel like he’s burning a hole through him. Not with confusion. Not even with anger.
With pure, unfiltered hatred.
I feel it like a punch to the gut. And I’m not even the one being looked at.
And then, he moves.
Turns like he’s about to walk away, probably to stop himself from saying or doing something he’ll regret. But Gabriel reaches for him. Grabs him by the back of the shirt.
I hear the tear from here.
My stomach drops.
Beside me, Lilia sucks in a breath. “Oh my god—”
But Gabriel has suddenly gone very, very still.
His hand is frozen, clutching a torn strip of white fabric. And his face—his face changes. The anger drains in a second, and what’s left behind looks like… shock.
No. Not just shock.
Horror.
He’s staring at Kai’s back like it’s something he can’t make sense of. Like it’s something that shouldn’t exist. And Kai just stands there, his shoulders stiff, like he’s waiting for something.
Waiting for Gabriel to speak, maybe.
But Gabriel doesn’t speak. He lifts a hand instead. Two fingers. Three bodyguards appear like ghosts from the hallway.
“Hold him,” Gabriel says.
Kai turns, sharp. Confused. “What?”
And then he sees them coming.
His eyes go wide. Not afraid. Just… betrayed. Like he can’t believe it. Like he doesn’t want to.
“Don’t you f—” he starts, but the guards are already on him.
Lilia gasps beside me.
Two of them grab his arms. The third shoves his shoulder down until Kai is on his knees, his back facing all of us. He thrashes once, violently, but he can’t get free. He’s strong. But they’re stronger.
And then Gabriel walks up to him slowly, like he’s afraid of what he’s about to do. Of what he already knows.
And then he rips the shirt the rest of the way.
There’s a moment of total silence.
Because there, inked into the skin of Kai’s back, is a tattoo.
A beautiful tattoo.
It’s intricate, and not at all what I expect. It’s composed of patterns, and elegant lines that curl and fold into each other like smoke. Like music. Like a dream. Like—
Christian makes a choking noise from somewhere across the room, and vomits into a bin.
Across the room, Will’s face twists into something I can only describe as disgust. Liam stumbles back and doubles over, gagging.
I hear Berlin cry out, too. And Paris tries to run forward, but Berlin throws an arm out, stopping her.
And suddenly, the room is filled with gasps. With stifled cries. With horror.
But all I feel is confusion.
Because I still don’t understand.
It’s art.
What the hell am I missing?
Lilia grabs my shoulder, gasping. “Addie it’s—” but she doesn’t get a chance to finish, because she’s vomiting all over the marble floor.
I blink. Stare harder.
It takes a second. Two.
Then it begins to change.
The ink. The lines. The beauty I thought I saw unravels before my eyes. Because those aren’t tattoos, I realize.
They’re burns.
Scars, carved deep into his flesh and seared until they healed and turned into… that.
And the patterns? They aren’t patterns at all.
They’re faces.
Some contorted. Some expressionless. Some… hauntingly familiar. One of them—I think I know one of them. I think—
I drop to my knees before I even realize I’m moving.
My stomach lurches. My breath catches and won’t come loose.
It’s vile.
It’s vile in a way I can’t name. A complete violation of a body.
Of a child.
This was done to him.
This was done to him.
I can’t look away. But I can’t keep looking either.
Not when I realize there’s more.
Not when I see—god, I can’t even say it. I can’t find the words. There are no words. Just shapes burned into skin that should never hold such things.
I press a hand to my mouth. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
My body is trembling, and suddenly I feel like I’m freezing from the inside out.
And Kai is shaking. Not just his hands, his entire body is thrashing like he’s trying to claw his way out of his own skin. His shoulders jerk, his spine bows, his legs kick out once, twice. But the guards hold him well, their grips locked around his arms.
I think—
I think he’s crying.
But it doesn’t look like crying. It looks like breaking.
And still, nothing he does gets him free.
Across from him, Gabriel slowly lowers himself to his knees with the staggered, sickly movement. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t yell again.
He just… reaches out.
And with an honest hand I’ve only ever seen curled into a fist, he traces one of the lines, one of the burns, with the edge of his finger. Slowly. Reverently.
Kai flinches so hard he nearly throws the guards off him.
But Gabriel doesn’t pull away. He just stares. Eyes wide. Face drained of all colours.
And for the first time all night, I see something in Gabriel’s expression that looks like fear.
Not fear of Kai.
Fear for him.
But it’s too late.
Because Kai is still thrashing.
Still trembling like he’s on fire and no one can put it out.
Gabriel’s hand finally lands on his shoulder. “My boy…” Gabriel breathes, and the words are so soft I think for a moment that I might have imagined them.
“What did they do to you?” he whispers, his expression tormented.
Shattered.
And Kai doesn’t answer. He just laughs.
A single, hollow sound. The kind of laugh that makes your blood run cold because it doesn’t sound like a laugh at all.
Gabriel’s eyes squeeze shut. His hand drops from Kai’s shoulder, hovering midair like he doesn’t know where to put it now. “Kai,” he says again. “You should’ve told me. I would’ve—I could’ve—”
Gabriel’s voice breaks apart mid-sentence, and his hand falls uselessly back to his side.
I want to move.
I want to say something.
But I don’t.
Because how do you speak into a silence like this?
My gaze drifts to the tall windows lining the far wall. The glass reflects the soft gold of the chandelier, the glitter of dresses, the pale faces still frozen in stunned silence.
Something shifts in the darkness just beyond the garden fence.
I squint, leaning slightly toward the window. At first, I think it’s a shadow. Or maybe a trick of the lights.
But then the shadow moves again.
And I realize it’s not a shadow at all.
It’s a man.
He’s standing just beyond the glow of the porch lights, right at the edge of the garden, and a black hood obscures his face.
I freeze.
The world around me dulls into white noise. Lilia says something beside me, I think. But I don’t catch it. Because I can’t look away from that figure.
My phone buzzes, the sharp sound cutting through the static in my ears. I tear my gaze away from the window and glance down, breath catching in my throat.
Unknown Number.
1 New Message.
I hesitate.
My fingers don’t want to move, but they do. Slowly.
Shakily.
I unlock the screen.
I hear you’ve still been playing detective, Adeline? Let’s see how brave you are without your friends.
Back garden. Now. Don’t speak. Don’t stall. Or you’ll be the reason someone else ends up dead.
The room spins. My heart goes cold.
I read the message again. And again.
But it doesn’t matter how much I do, the message stays.
My hands are trembling so badly I almost drop the phone. I look up, back at the window, and see the man is still there. Unmoving.
Waiting.
I don’t know how I start moving.
I just know I have to.
So, while Lilia is watching the scene in front of us, wide-eyed, I slip out the side door near the back hallway as quiet as I can manage, my feet barely making a sound on the polished floor.
The cries, and screams follow me as I do, but I don’t look back.
Not once.
***
The garden is almost completely dark now, save for the soft golden spill of the string lights strung up along the hedges and the faint spill of light from the house behind me. But it’s not enough to chase the shadows away. Not enough to make me feel anything close to safe.
I step out slowly, cautiously, my phone still clutched in one hand, the message glowing faintly on the screen. My breath puffs out in little clouds. The cold bites, but I barely feel it.
And then I see him.
A figure detaches itself from the trees. Steps out, slow and steady, boots crunching over frost.
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
“Who are you?” I ask, my voice thin in the air.
The figure takes another step forward, and I take one back.
“Why are you doing this?”
And that’s when he lifts his hands to the edge of the hood.
And pulls it down.
I freeze.
Because it’s Anderson.
My lungs seize. My mouth opens, but no sound comes.
Anderson, the teacher. Anderson my teacher. My polite, kind teacher who had been worried about me.
It was all fake.
Every moment. Every word. A performance.
Because the man standing in front of me now is not the man I knew. No, this one is real. And he looks nothing like the mask he wore.
He smiles.
“Hello, Adeline,” he says. “We meet again, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”
My heart punches against my ribs.
I take another step back. My hands are shaking. “No,” I whisper. “No, no, it’s not—”
But it is.
“You were… you were—”
“Your teacher? Someone you trusted? The harmless man in the corner of the room?” he finishes for me, voice lilting with amusement. “Yes. All of those things. And not one of them, really. Why do you think recommended you to the school?”
My breath shortens. My knees want to give out.
“Why?” I ask, barely audible. “Why would you do this?”
He just watches me, head tilted slightly, almost thoughtfully. “You really don’t remember me, do you?” he asks, and there’s something almost playful in his voice. Teasing. Like this is some kind of game to him.
“I—what?” My voice breaks, and he laughs.
It’s not a loud laugh. It’s not even cruel.
Worse.
It’s pleased.
“I knew your father. In fact, I was his friend,” he says, but the way he says “friend” sends a shiver down my spine. “I remember the first time you walked into our shop. Fresh from school, still all softness and starlight. I was… intrigued.”
He steps closer, and I can’t move. I can’t breathe.
“You were beautiful in your grief,” he says, his voice low. “You still are. Watching you squirm, watching you run… it was art.”
My stomach turns.
“Your father got a call a few weeks later,” he continues, unfazed, almost conversational. “From you. An emergency. School-related, wasn’t it? Naturally, I followed. And I saw what happened.”
My pulse drums in my ears, as I watch him slowly exhale…
casually. Like he’s remembering it fondly.
Like he’s remembering something that isn’t the day of two people’s deaths.
“Wren Angelina Steele died that night. It’s awfully tragic, isn’t it?
Your father being the cause of the death of someone so young.
And all she wanted to do was help her mother. ”
My breath catches.
What?
Does that mean…
Wren wasn’t buying drugs for herself that day. She was buying them for her mother.
All this time. All this time, I thought—
Oh god.
Hot, traitorous tears spill over before I can stop them. They burn down my cheeks, faster than I can wipe them away.
I shake my head slowly. “You’re lying.”
He smiles, and it’s almost pitying. “I have no reason to lie. Besides… the truth has always been there. You’ve just been too afraid to open your eyes.”
He steps closer. His voice drops to a near whisper.
“I was enjoying our little game, you know,” he continues, tone almost mournful. “But then you had to go and ruin it. Sterling. Really? After everything we built together?”
He reaches into his coat pocket. Something shifts beneath the fabric. Metal, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t want to know.
“Unfortunately,” he says, voice suddenly sharp, “our interests no longer align.”
I inch sideways, eyes locked on his hand.
But Anderson just smiles again. A different kind of smile now. A colder, emptier smile.
He watches me. Eyes gleaming, breath steady. And for one harrowing second, I’m sure this is it.
His fingers curl tighter around whatever’s in his pocket—a gun, I’m sure of it now. I can hear it scrape against the inside of his coat as he begins to draw it out.
I don’t breathe.
I don’t move.
But then, suddenly, he stops. Freezes, mid-motion.
His head tilts, just slightly, like a fox catching scent in the dark, and his eyes drift past me, beyond the garden wall, into the shadows.
And then, casually, almost like it’s a joke between old friends, he says, “Finally decided to join us? It’s about time.”
My stomach drops.
Anderson glances back at me, catching the look on my face. The confusion, the terror, the thousands of thoughts colliding. And he laughs. A low, delighted sound that crawls under my skin.
“I must say,” he murmurs, “I’m quite flattered.”
I can’t speak. I don’t dare.
“You didn’t think I managed all of this alone, did you?” His voice is soft now, clearly amused.
My breath rattles in my chest, and I take half a step back.
He doesn’t stop me.
“Go on,” he says smoothly, gesturing with his chin. “Look.”
And somehow, I do. Slowly, against every instinct screaming in my bones, I turn my head. Just enough.
Just enough to see the figure walking toward us from the edge of the garden path.
Calm.
Unhurried.
Not hiding at all.
I gasp.
Loud and sharp and guttural, like I’ve been punched in the lungs.
Because walking toward us, under the soft halo of the garden lights, is Paris Brooks.