Chapter 62 Adela
"No," I say.
Cody takes a step forward.
"No." My voice is harder this time. "Whatever this is— no. You don't get to do this. I told all of you to leave me alone. You walked out, and none of you don't get to just—"
Theo takes another step.
I grab the first thing my hand finds on the desk — a book — and I throw it at him. It hits his chest and falls to the floor. He doesn't even flinch, and that sends a shiver through my body. He looks at it and then looks back at me. They all step forward.
"Don't." I back up until the wall finds me. "Don't you dare. I will scream. I will scream this entire building down, and I swear to God—"
Beckett moves to my left.
Cody to my right.
I look between all three of them. I’m outnumbered, and I know I can’t fight them off. It’s clear they’ve made up in their sick minds that this is how they want to handle things.
"Are you guys out of your fucking minds?" I say with a tremble. I’m not scared — I’m fucking angry. They’re here like I’m something to be collected, like I don’t get a say in any of this. "You can't just walk in here—"
Theo reaches me.
I shove him. Both hands flat against his chest, everything I have in me. He absorbs it completely and doesn't move an inch. The eyeless mask stares back, so I shove him again. He catches my wrists.
"Let go of me!" I pull against his grip. "Let go — Theo, I swear to God, let go of me right fucking now—"
He turns me, and Cody steps forward.
I look at his mask and say, “I hate you, Cody.” My voice breaks.
He doesn’t say anything.
I get one wrist free and hit him. “I fucking hate you!” I turn back to Theo. “Let go of me!”
Beckett has my bag, and he’s shoving my laptop and books in it. Then he grabs some of my clothes.
“Why are you––”
Theo puts a finger to his lips to hush me while Cody puts a hand over my mouth. He slowly removes his hand, and then Beckett opens the door.
"You think you can just—" I'm still pulling against Theo's hands. "After everything — after what you did, after what I found out in that hospital room — you think you can just walk in here and take me? Like, I'm something you own? Like I don't get a say in my own—"
Theo pulls me into the hallway.
I dig my heels in.
He adjusts his grip without a word and lifts me — actually lifts me, off the ground, one arm across my waist from behind — and I make a sound that is pure outrage. I fight him the entire length of the hallway with everything I have.
It doesn't matter.
He's immovable.
I am fighting with everything — the six weeks of grief and anger and the hollow in my chest, and every night I lie awake thinking about the library and the park and the hospital room — I am putting all of it into fighting him, and he carries me down the hallway like it costs him nothing.
Like he's been waiting for this.
Like he planned for exactly this much resistance and is not surprised by any of it.
We take the stairs.
I grab the railing.
Beckett gently uncurls my fingers.
"Beck." His name is in my mouth like a wound. "Beck, please. Please don't do this. You told me he was a ticking time bomb, you told me not to be there when he exploded, you said—"
He looks at me.
Something moves in his face.
He keeps walking.
Outside, the cold hits me immediately. I’m not prepared for this, and that thought makes me even more livid.
"Where are you taking me?" I ask.
Nobody answers.
None of them has said a single word.
"Tell me where you're taking me." My voice climbing. "You owe me that much. After everything, you owe me at least that—"
The back door of a black car opens.
I look at it.
I look at all three of them.
I look at the door.
"I will never forgive you for this," I say. "I need you to know that. Whatever you think this is going to accomplish — it won't. You cannot force someone to—"
Theo guides me into the car.
I sit because the alternative is falling, and I have too much dignity left for that.
Cody gets in the other side.
Beckett drives.
Theo reaches into the pocket of his jacket, and I look at what he's pulled out.
A black fabric hood.
I stare at it.
"Are you serious?" I say. "Are you actually—"
"It's a surprise," he murmurs.
Finally, some words. But it’s those specific words that make my teeth grind.
I knock it out of his hand.
He picks it up off the car floor without comment.
And then he puts it over my head. And I let him.
The world goes dark.
I sit in it with my jaw tight and my hands in fists in my lap. My heart is loud and complicated, and it has nothing to do with fear.
The car moves.
Nobody speaks. No music plays. They just drive.
When the car finally stops, my heart starts to race.
I’ve lost track of time, but the time I’ve spent living out each scenario in my head feels like a lifetime.
The engine cuts. And doors open.
Someone's gloved hand grabs my elbow, guiding me out of the car and onto the gravel.
I walk into a warm room, and the hood comes.
I blink, adjusting my eyes.
I’m at Cody’s lake house again. I stare at the bed with disgust, wondering how many girls Cody has brought here for his little online business.
The sight makes me sick.
Then I look at all three of them.
Theo moves first.
He guides me toward the bed.
I plant my feet. "Don't."
He guides me anyway and sits me on the edge of the bed.
I stand back up immediately.
He sits me back down.
I stand up again.
After a long minute, I sit down on my own terms and cross my arms. I feel the ignition in my chest climb into something that needs to come out, or it's going to consume me from the inside.
All three of them stand in front of me.
Nobody speaks.
"Are you guys serious?"
Nothing.
"You're still not going to say anything?" I look between all three of them. "Why did you even bring me here if it’s not to talk?”
Nothing.
The silence is the most infuriating thing.
I grab the blanket off the bed, and I throw it at them. It hits Beckett in the chest and falls to the floor. None of them moves. I grab the pillow. I throw that too. It hits Cody's shoulder. He doesn't move.
"Say something!" My voice bounces off the walls and comes back to me.
I stand up.
I get right in front of Theo because Theo is the one I'm most furious at. I'm done pretending otherwise. I get close enough that I have to look up at him, and I feel the heat coming off him.
"You stood over me while I slept," I say right into his masked face.
"You took my necklace! You sat across from me in a library for months, and you knew — you knew the whole time — and you let me think what we had was mine, and it was never mine, it was yours, you built it, and you held it and you—"
My voice breaks.
I hate that my voice breaks.
I hate that I'm standing in front of him with a broken voice and hot eyes because I told myself six weeks ago that I was done feeling things about these men, and here I am.
"I trusted you!" I say.
He says nothing.
I turn to Cody. “And Cody? I have no idea why you’re taking part in any of this! I expected it from these two, but you? Are you fucking kidding me? Why am I even here, Cody? You haven’t called me. You didn’t visit. Fuck every single one of you, but especially you, Cody!”
I pick up the blanket and pillow and sit on the bed. They stand, unmoving, for five minutes. And then ten.
I can’t take the fucking silence any longer.
"Do you have any idea what it feels like to find out that your entire life is a lie?
" My voice is shaking. "Everything I did — every decision I made, every feeling I acted on — I did it with self-respect.
And the whole time, every single person around me was lying and manipulating.
And building a version of me in their heads that I never agreed to and never got a say in.
" I look at all three of them. "You deconstructed my entire life.
All three of you. Piece by piece until there was nothing left.
" My voice drops. "And the only thing I have left is my dignity.
So do whatever you're going to do to me.
" I look between them. "Because I don't fucking care anymore. "
The room is silent.
Three masked men standing at the foot of the bed, and not one of them moves, not one of them speaks, and the silence is worse than anything they could say because at least words would give me something to fight against.
The silence absorbs everything.
I sink back onto the edge of the bed.
I'm exhausted.
Six weeks of healing my body and carrying everything, going to class, and going to work. I did everything I was supposed to do to feel normal again.
None of it worked.
I don't say anything else.
I'm done.
I have nothing left to throw, and nothing left to say.
The three of them turn toward the door, and something lurches in my chest.
"Where are you going?"
They stop.
My voice came out before I decided to use it. I thought they’d tie me up and torture me, but this torture hurts in all the ways they can’t see. I don’t want to be alone here. They can’t just fucking leave me right now. And I hate that I don't want them to leave.
They open the front door, and my gut sinks.
"I just asked where the fuck are you guys going?"
They turn around.
"You're ours now," Theo says.
The words land right in my chest. I haven’t felt like I could cry since they came into my dorm, but right now I could cry.
They walk out the front door. It closes behind them.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I whisper to an empty room.
I hear the door lock.
No.
I sit for exactly three seconds, waiting for them to come back. They don’t.
Then I'm off the bed.
I cross the room and grab the door handle. I twist it and pull, but it doesn't move. I try again — both hands, all my weight — and it doesn't move. I press my ear against it, and I hear nothing on the other side, no footsteps, no voices, nothing.
I try the handle one more time.
Nothing.
I turn around and look at the room. The string lights. The one window above the nightstand and the larger one on the far wall overlooking the water. I go to the far one first — the bigger one, the one with the view of the lake sitting black and still.
I try to push it up.
It doesn't move.
I look at the frame. It’s bolted, drilled into the wood on both sides. I realize that they planned this out, and that sends something white hot through my entire body.
I go to the other window where I can see them. I bang on the glass with both palms.
Outside on the gravel, three figures in black move toward the car.
"Hey!" I hit the glass harder. "Hey — unlock the front door! You can’t just fucking leave me—"
They stop and turn to look at me. I still can’t see their eyes because of the stupid fucking masks. They look at me for a moment, then turn back around and get in the car together.
"What the fuck!" I hit the glass with both fists. "Come back here! Come back—"
The engine starts.
"CODY!"
The taillights come on.
“THEO!”
I start crying.
“BECKETT!”
My voice cracks on the third name, and I realize that I’m going to be here all alone.
They drive off, and I watch them roll down the gravel drive. Then they disappear into the dark.
They’re gone.
I hit the glass one more time.
It doesn't give.
I press my forehead against the cold of it while I look out at the dark, and I breathe. I breathe. I breathe. I breathe.
It doesn’t work.
I am so angry I could burn this place down.