CHAPTER 1 FAE
FAE
Iam running out of time.
I think I have always known that I was on a clock, but the last three years gave me a false sense of security. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the taste of freedom. Maybe it was being around Robyn for so long. Maybe it was plain ignorance. Either way, I am running out of time.
And Robyn already has.
God, thinking about her sends a sharp pain through my chest. Nothing is the same anymore. Our whole friendship group was destroyed the day she disappeared. Felix, my twin brother, is permanently angry. I don’t know how to help him when I’m drowning too so instead, I isolated myself.
She was my best friend. No, she was more than that. She was my soulmate. Not in a romantic way, but in that kind of connection you only get once in a lifetime. I mean, who wants a man to be a soulmate anyway? Not me.
No. I refuse to believe one of those monsters from The Company is meant to be mine. Five-foot-one Essex girls with blonde hair and the attitude of a drunken sailor are far more my vibe.
God, I hate her.
I hate that she made me see what was going on in my home. I hate that she made me feel safe. I hate that she made me feel loved. But what I hate most is that she left me when she promised she wouldn’t.
I didn’t know how it would work. I knew my duties to my family and I knew she wasn’t part of that world, but I would have done anything for her. We could have made it work…right? I mean the more I think about it, the more I realise Felix probably would have too.
I keep racking my brain, trying to process what has happened in the last few weeks. Was it us? Was it her friendship with Felix and me, or the other recruits, that made her vanish? Did she run? Did something spook her? Was she… God forbid… taken?
None of it makes sense. One day she was here. The next she was gone without a trace.
I am paralysed by what to do. On one hand, I am not connected enough to try and find her on my own.
On the other, can I trust that anyone I bring in won’t take it straight back to The Company?
Would the guys genuinely help? I mean, yes.
I can say that with certainty. I trust them completely, but just because they could help, would they risk everything for me?
A tear slips down my face as the reality of the situation settles in.
I cannot fucking breathe without her. For so long it was just Felix and me.
Sure, Felix had other friends and they always tried to include me, but I never liked feeling like a charity case and my Father was too strict to let me form proper relationships.
That was, until I was no longer useful to him and was shipped off to Earl’s Court University.
Life started for me there. Actually, no. Life really started when a girl from care came stumbling into my dorm room on a free scholarship and demanded that I become her best friend.
‘Dancing With Your Ghost by Sasha Sloan’ starts playing through the surround sound of the flat Robyn and I have called home for the last two years as I slump down against the wall of her room.
I haven’t been in here until today. The pain was too raw. Every corner of this place holds memories of happier times. Now it just feels like the crypt.
Forgotten.
Haunted.
Broken.
The pink blanket I knitted for her is still on her king-size bed in the same place she left it the morning she never returned. It is, of course, unmade.
“I’ll never understand why people make their bed just to get into it again the same night,” she said to me once. “Work smarter, girly pop, not harder.”
My breath catches. If I close my eyes, I can almost hear her voice.
How long will it be before I stop hearing it?
How long will it take to forget her scent?
How long will her laugh echo in my head?
I look up at the wall where Felix threw Thomas after he made her cry.
The sage-green paint is chipped in places and each mark tells a story of our time together.
A loud knock comes from the front door and I groan. I should get it, but I won’t. Whoever it is clearly hasn’t grieved the loss of a friend, or they would leave me the fuck alone.
I stand up and make my way to her bed. Pulling back the pink and sage bedding, I climb in and drag it up over my head, cocooning myself in her scent. Her cherry-and-almond perfume is so strong here that it almost makes me feel safe.
Out there, my time is running out.
Robyn’s already has.
Another bang makes me scream into her pillow.
I’ve stopped responding to people. I’ve stopped talking to anyone, really. Unless someone wants to tell me where the fuck my best friend has gone, I’m not interested.
She went missing a week after we started third year.
For a week, I was hopeful that every time I opened that door, she would be standing there saying, “surprise, motherfucker, I’m back.
” But the longer she’s been gone, the more I realise she isn’t coming home, and the less I want to deal with my reality.
Fuck The Company. Fuck the world. Fuck this twisted society and its twisted rules.
“That’s where you are,” a deep voice says from the bedroom doorway. I don’t even need to look to know who it is.
He sounds more like Father every year. Our posh English accents always made Robyn laugh. Every now and then, when we said champagne or mentioned caviar, she would get this amused look on her face and say, “Ooh, la-di-da.”
“Fuck off, Felix. I’m not in the mood,” I mutter back.
To be honest, I’m surprised I even have a voice to begin with. I can’t remember the last time I spoke out loud. The music cuts off as I take a deep breath. I do not want to deal with him today.
“You are not doing this, Fae. You are not wasting your life away. No one has heard from you in over a week,” Felix says in his calm voice.
He is always the mediator with me, talking to me as if I’m a skittish chicken ready to run off in a different direction.
“They wouldn’t have heard from me for longer if you had just stayed away,” I sigh.
“I cannot do that, Fae. You know I can’t.”
Groaning, I sit up, pull the quilt down and look at my brother.
I know his face better than my own, yet seeing him today still catches me off guard.
Those light green eyes that usually look too soft for him are hardened and broken.
They have always been his tell. Usually, no matter how cold he tries to pretend he is to the world, they give him away.
Not today.
Today they look exactly how he thinks they are meant to.
His chestnut-brown hair sits thick and unruly, curling in a way that tells me he hasn’t had it cut in weeks.
His curls never behave on the best of days, but today they fall into his eyes in loose waves.
His beard has grown in too, it suits him.
It’s a darker brown than his hair, thicker today and rougher, accentuating his sharp features.
It makes him look older, dangerous even.
I have always been jealous of his sun-kissed skin.
He is the type of person who can step out in the sun for five minutes and turn golden.
Today, though, he looks like a paler version of me.
Felix’s high cheekbones, well-defined straight nose, and strong jawline usually have girls going crazy, but now his face looks gaunt and withdrawn.
Even his clothes don’t seem to fit him the way they usually do.
Has he been eating or drinking?
“You look like shit, big brother,” the words tumble out of me without thought.
“Well, none of us are handling her being gone very well,” he gives me a pointed look.
“She was my best fucking friend, Felix. I am not going to apologise for grieving the best damn thing that ever happened to me. You know as well as I do what is in store for us at graduation. She was the only good thing I had in my life.” I swallow a sob threatening to bubble up.
“You think I don’t know that? You think I want this, Fae?” He snaps back.
“You know nothing, Felix. You have no idea what this is like. She was taken from me!” I cry out.
“SHE WAS TAKEN FROM US!” he screams, pointing at his chest and shocking me with his anger. “Jesus Christ, Fae, you think I am not suffering the same? You think I do not stay awake every night wondering where she is? If she is alive?”
His chest heaves as we stare at each other in silence.
My throat feels tight as tears prick my eyes; I bite my lip to keep the emotion at bay.
It’s not that I can’t cry in front of him.
It’s that I don’t want to. Too many times Felix has had to pick up the pieces of my life and I refuse to allow him to do it now.
Soon I’ll be on my own, it’s about time he learns that as well.
Felix cracks his neck and opens his mouth before closing it again.
“What is it?” I question impatiently.
“I love her,” he says and his voice cracks slightly.
“I know you do,” I sigh, the guilt hitting me like a tidal wave.
“No, I don’t think you do …I’m in love with her, Fae.”
“Wait… what?” I stutter; a frown pulls at my eyebrows as I try to process his words.
“I’ve been in love with Robyn for a long time…” He repeats slowly.
I take in his features again and run through how unhinged he has been since she has been gone and my stomach drops.
No.
Fuck no.
He doesn’t mean…
I grit my teeth; I shouldn’t even be surprised. Felix is and always has been the better twin. He is funnier and kinder and a whole lot less traumatised. Besides, after graduation, as a man he can do what he wants. Me on the other hand? My soul was sold to The Company by my Father years ago.
Robyn deserves someone like Felix anyway, I’m hard to love and easy to forget. Still, it would have been nice for them to tell me.
“My best friend and my fucking twin brother went behind my back to fuck and didn’t tell me?” I finally mutter as he continues to stare at me.