Chapter 55
ELLE
Sutton stays wrapped around me the entire night.
I know because I wake every half hour to check.
Each time I shoot up, panic shredding my chest wide open, he presses the weight of his arm against my head and curls into me. It’s a little overwhelming how close he tries to get with each surge of fear, but even though my body is sore all over, I find his suffocation comforting.
I don’t realize I’m crying until Sutton stirs, making my cheek shift against the wetness on his bare chest. He cups my jaw, so softly as to not cause further harm, and I can feel his inspection.
“Are you in pain?” he asks. He’s already given me the allotted dose of medicine for the next couple of hours, but the pills haven’t done all that much.
I’m numb mostly. His cool hands are a relief, and I lean into his touch, aching to put the memories from tonight behind me.
“How did you make yourself forget?” I reply quietly, staring at the base of his throat. “What they did to you… You really don’t remember any of it?”
“Well, I was drugged, so I have the advantage of unconsciousness. If you want to call it an advantage. But to be honest, Elle, I don’t know if it really mattered.
Not addressing the things that haunt you is no way to live.
The memories were sporadic, fractured, but they affected me nonetheless.
Especially when it comes to intimacy. I forced myself to sit through their ceremonies, trying to feel something other than disgust even though I couldn’t fucking place why exactly I felt that way.
I knew, deep down, but I never let myself think about it too much. ”
I exhale, closing my eyes. Every time I do, I see it all—Percy. Bellamy. Pythia. Her laughter reaches deep, gripping my heart in its claws and puncturing slowly.
Not thinking about it doesn’t feel like an option.
“Until you, that is,” Sutton continues, his voice barely above a whisper. “You weren’t some magical cure, but suddenly when I was around you, I…wanted to be better.”
Opening my eyes, I blink at him as he moves, tracing back and forth across my forehead with his lips.
“But your sister—”
“Doesn’t matter. Well, that’s an oversimplification, but right now you’re the only thing I want to think about.”
“How can you stand to look at me?”
“That night at the Stop N Go and then Lethe’s…
I remember being so confused about why I was instantly enamored with you.
I hadn’t let anyone approach me in nearly a decade, and even then, touching outside the organization was out of the question.
But I never hesitated when it came to you.
All the resistance was merely a front. I wanted to touch and be touched by you more than I’d ever wanted anything. I’ve been looking at you ever since.”
That, despite everything, makes my chest feel warm. “Maybe you recognized me, subconsciously, from our first meeting.”
He pulls back, considering. “The body does remember what the mind won’t. Perhaps I knew all along you were destined to save me.”
The despair in my soul grows like a black mold, but I let him surround me again anyway, burying my face in his neck. It’s easier than admitting that the only person I’ve ever actually saved is myself.
When I wake in the morning, Sutton’s gone. I grope along the cold sheets, terror claiming my esophagus. Blood coats the cotton fabric, and a blush crawls up my face as I realize it’s mine.
Maybe I should’ve taken him up on the offer to get checked out at the hospital last night, but all I’d wanted at that moment was to sleep and try to forget. Exhaustion and misery blotted out everything else, making me think somehow I’d come out of those caves unscathed.
Now my entire body hurts, but I ignore the agony slicing through me as I climb out of bed and pad into the hall in search of him.
I feel like a lost puppy seeking her owner, which would be totally embarrassing if the pain wasn’t so severe.
Bracing against the doorframe, I cast a nervous glance around the living room and kitchen, noting Sutton’s absence.
Fear twists in my gut, immobilizing me. My feet feel rooted to the spot, even as a breeze from the foyer carries over, like the front door is open.
That thought does little to comfort me.
But I force myself to keep going, peeking around the dividing wall, and stop dead in my tracks.
Sutton stands in front of the open door, unmoving, hands stuffed deep inside the pockets of his sleep pants. I frown, stepping forward, confused as to why he’s letting the cold air in.
My foot lands on a creaky floorboard, and I swallow when his green eyes cut to mine. They’re angry, and it only takes a second to learn why.
The mouth of a pistol presses flush against his forehead, gripped by a large hand. I can’t see who from this vantage point, but the hint of a familiar red tattoo peeking out from beneath the assailant’s jacket lures me in.
“Elle,” Sutton warns, his voice laced with an edge I’ve never heard before. Not even when he found me in the caves last night. “Go back to the bedroom. Now.”
Despite the pain I’m in and the panic freezing my limbs, I find his authoritarian persona appealing in a way that’s probably inappropriate for the moment, but oh well.
“Noelle,” the assailant chimes in, his cold tone indicating his displeasure with the entire situation. “Care to explain why a stranger is answering the door and ordering you around?” He leans in to glance at me, his brown eyes darkening immensely. “And why you look like that?”
I cringe, glancing down at Sutton’s T-shirt, its hem hitting me mid-thigh. Most of the bruising is hidden beneath, but there’s a decent amount still on my arms, plus all the cuts and dried blood.
My fingers hastily tug at the material as I make my way to the door, slipping between them.
“Noelle Rose,” Dad spits through clenched teeth, unmoving. “What the hell is going on here? You have thirty seconds to explain before I put a bullet between this man’s teeth.”
Sutton tenses. I feel him reach for me, even in the midst of danger. “Elle, you can’t—”
“He has nothing to do with why I’m in this shape, Daddy.”
A long, uncomfortable silence settles in the air.
“Daddy?” Sutton curses behind me. “This is your father?”
Dad’s finger twitches on the trigger. The gray hair around his ears has spread more along his hairline, threading intricately through the inky-black locks Quincy and Asher got from him. “Is there a problem with that?”
“Well, it’s not every day a student’s parent holds me at gunpoint,” Sutton replies glibly.
“Do you often find these students parading around you in nothing but a T-shirt? If that’s the case, I’m more than happy to take action on the other parents’ behalf.”
Groaning, I shove Sutton backward and motion for Dad to step inside. “Can we please not make a scene in front of the entire campus?”
Dad glances over his shoulder at the empty, early-morning landscape, but he comes in anyway. He doesn’t lower the gun, though, even as he puts a finger under my chin and turns my face, inspecting the damage.
“Fucking hell, sweetheart. What happened to you?”
I pull away, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Nothing Sutton had anything to do with, so can you please stop pointing the gun at him?”
His jaw shifts. “Sutton. What kind of name is that?”
“Okay, Kallum, maybe relax a little.”
Growling under his breath, Dad lets his arm fall, tucking the gun inside his black trench coat. He gives me a long look, his expression unreadable, and pushes past me to the living room.
“Come. Sit. Explain.”
Tension threads through my stomach, drawing awareness to the amount of pain I’m in. I pause, swallowing hard, and watch as he settles on the couch, waiting for us to join.
Sutton sighs, shaking his head. I grab on to his shirtsleeve as he heads toward Dad, stopping him.
“Did you call my parents?” I ask softly, unable to look at him.
He doesn’t respond for several rash beats of my heart. “I called your sister.”
“They don’t know,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. “About anything, not really. Not LA, not Death’s Teeth. I’ve been lying about how things were since I left home.”
His brows arch. “Well… Maybe it’s time to let them in on your secrets?”
Glaring at him sends a sharp pang across my face. I wince, grunting against it, and shake my head. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“Pretty sure I just got a glimpse.”
“No, that was only the tip of the iceberg. If I tell him I’ve been lying this whole time…” Tears well up in my eyes as I imagine the concern that will etch into my father’s gaze—and the disappointment.
It’s the fear of that which haunts me most.
The acknowledgment of failure.
Dad’s foot taps against the floor. His impatience grows the longer I make him wait, and the less patient he is, the more he’ll press for information. I’m not sure what all Quincy’s told him so far, but the fact that he showed up without Mom doesn’t exactly bode well for me.
Or this town.
Sighing, I try to roll my shoulders, but the movement causes me to double over in agony. My ribs are sore, my chest tight and inflamed.
“Elle,” Sutton says, brushing his fingertips across my cheek. They come away wet with my tears. “If you’re in trouble—”
“He’s not going to hurt me,” I say, the thought almost enough to pull out a laugh.
“I might hurt him though,” Dad says from the living room. “Depending on how long it takes you to get in here.”
Shoulders slumped, I withdraw from Sutton’s touch and cross the room, perching on the edge of the coffee table. Dad doesn’t say a word, his six-foot-five frame too large for the leather couch, even as he tries to make himself smaller for me.
My fingers tremble violently as I twist my thumbs together, staring at them between my knees.
I wait for some kind of lecture or words of wisdom but then remember that’s Mom’s MO.
Dad waits in silence for a confession, content to sit as long as necessary—especially when it’s something he already knows.
And Kallum Anderson knows everything.
A part of me wonders if that’s how I’ve gotten away with the lies for so long. Has he been waiting all this time for me to come clean?
When I look up, heart in my throat, he’s staring back. His eyes aren’t harsh or soft but a neutral emotion that feels somehow worse.
I fucked up.
Percy’s gaze flickers in my mind, and an ache spreads from my rib cage upward. Painful reminders of what I’ve done—what I didn’t do.
Choking on a sob, I lean forward and rest my forehead on my father’s knee. Every emotion I’ve been covering up over the last decade resurfaces like an activated geyser, blurring my vision.
His hand comes to the back of my head, large and sturdy. My sob escapes, puffing past my lips, unable to be contained. Relief I haven’t let myself feel in ages floods my system, and I buckle.
I cave.
For the first time since I was a little girl, I cry in my father’s lap and spill every single secret I’ve been keeping.