Chapter 16 Sable
SABLE
“What the hell are you guys doing?”
The voice of my old friend starts again, bringing chills down my arms. There has to be something horrible to explain why I’m hallucinating, because there’s no way in hell both “Liliana” and Hadrian are here. I’m probably dead or brain-damaged.
“I’m not sure what to do.” Hadrian’s voice calms me back down. “I wasn’t expecting there to be a body.” My hopes that I didn’t actually kill my uncle start to fade.
Blood seeping through his eye and soaking the sheets flashes in my head, and I can’t hold back my reaction to the imagery. My eyes snap open, and I suck in air, still terrified as if even dead, he still can squeeze my neck to drag me with him.
Above me stand two faces I never thought I’d see again: Hadrian and whoever her real name is.
His face is painfully handsome, digging into my chest with a kind of lust and heartache I didn’t expect.
She doesn’t look the same either. That’s her face, alright, but her hair was always light brown, and now it’s pitch black.
The color sets off her ashy blue eyes like you wouldn’t believe.
Neither of them has noticed I’m awake yet, and it gives me a moment to try to make sense of the situation. Why the hell is she acting so calm? I was the one who brought down another Briarwick, and I’m not feeling that calm myself.
“What about him? He isn’t even pretending to be useful. Did he get hit in the head or something?” “Liliana” talks again, and now that I’m awake, I have to accept this is not just a bad dream.
She’s really here? Her voice sounds the same, but I don’t recognize her tone. The person I knew was prissy and girly to the utmost degree. My chest burns as I realize why. It shouldn’t surprise me that she seems so different, given I never knew her at all.
“Don’t worry about him,” Hadrian says. There’s an undertone of animosity so thick, and I don’t follow what they are talking about. “I don’t get why you suddenly think you’re in charge.”
“How many bodies have you gotten rid of?” she asks with a cold assuredness that makes my skin crawl.
“How many have you?” His disbelief sounds nearly as thick as mine.
A thousand questions about the person I considered my best friend bubble up in my throat, but I doubt she would even entertain my curiosity. As I assumed, she doesn’t answer him, but shoots him a dirty look as she turns to the body, now on the floor while I rest in the bed. The bloody bed. Ugh.
The scene I watch is bizarre. I can’t see what she’s doing, but my eyes stay on her confident movement until I notice someone in the corner.
The air leaves my lungs at once. For a split second, I think it’s Orion, but my heart leaps and hurts, and I realize immediately it’s not, though.
Orion would have run to me; I’d be in the arms of that maniac in a second, and not in this bed.
My wounded soul cries and bleeds out when my eyes lock on Soren.
My eyes trace from the tattoos peaking out of his T-shirt, up to his gorgeous face, where I find his eyes on mine.
For a long moment, I say nothing. He’s the only one who’s noticed I’m awake, yet he lets the moment between stretch until my eyes welled with tears, and I want to scream again.
What on earth is he doing here? He had a chance to stop me before I left, and he said nothing. Why would he come here now?
“What the actual fuck is going on?” I spit, sitting up, head spinning yet eyes glued to Soren.
They’d better be hallucinations about to vanish. Otherwise, someone needs to start explaining right now.
“Sable.” Hadrian tries to bring me back to him, and when it doesn’t work, he bends down and snatches my face in his hands, carefully sliding his thumbs over my cheeks and lips.
He looks me over, green eyes piercing me.
I never thought I’d see anyone else again, certainly never thought I would see him.
He kisses me hard, lips pressing to mine and sweeping his tongue into my mouth.
Despite my relief and even joy at seeing him, I don’t return the gesture right away.
Missing his tongue and kissing him back a moment too late.
“Sorry,” he says as he pulls back. “You clearly need a second.”
“No, I’m fine,” I lie again, but a chill still coats my skin from all the places my uncle touched me, all the times he covered me in him.
Pain tightens the edge of Hadrian’s expression, but he forces a smile, hands falling from my face to squeeze my hand. “We’re just going to deal with this. You go ahead and relax.”
I blink at him slowly, letting the order sink in.
I’m covered in blood from head to toe, so it’s hard to think I can relax, even if Soren, of all people, stands in the corner, no words coming from his mouth yet.
I wonder what his first words for me will be.
Will he try to explain himself? Instead of waiting on him, I glance at my uncle.
“He’s actually dead.”
“Doesn’t get much deader than that,” the girl I once knew as Liliana says.
“Why is she here?” I ask, aiming the question at Hadrian. He just shakes his head and gives me a look that says he’ll explain later, but I’m not feeling very patient right now. “What are you doing here?” I say, and when Soren looks up for a brief second, I add, “Liliana.”
Yes, I want to know why he’s here too, but he can beg and crawl if he wants me to talk to him.
“Liliana” gives me a cutting look, her expression different from what I’ve ever seen before. She’s sharper, rougher. Even her voice is deeper. “Your little boyfriends couldn’t find you, so the musician choked me to get me to show them the way.”
My face puckers as I turn to Hadrian, expecting him to deny the accusation. Instead, he shrugs.
“I would have killed her too.”
“And you’d be dealing with this yourself, pretty boy.”
“You just happened to know I’d be here?” I challenge. Not bothering to get to the other confusing aspects like how the hell would she know what to do and since when does she call people pretty boys? Every guy she ever showed any interest in was as rich and entitled as they came.
“I didn’t even know you were gone, but they said they checked everywhere. Not many people even know this place exists, and I assumed they weren’t smart enough to find it themselves.”
“Screw you, I found your real name, didn’t I?” Hadrian spits.
“Depends what you think my name is, I guess.” She laughs.
“Anyway, I didn’t feel like dying when I could help them find you.” She waves their threat away as if it were nothing.
The pain and exertion make it hard to focus, too much information falling on my lap when all I want to do is lie and sleep for ten hours, but I can’t move back to this bed, not when the hot metallic smell of the blood makes me gag, and my eyes find the body of my uncle on the floor.
What the hell did I just do?
Fingers tingle with the phantom feeling of the heel shoving through his brain, the sin trapped forever beneath my skin.
This is my most vulnerable moment, my biggest mistake yet, and staring back at me are the worst knights in shining armor a girl can ask for.
Soren is a lie wrapped in poetic melancholy, Liliana is a snake waiting to eat me whole, and Hadrian is not that reliable either.
I may have given him some loose permission, but he fucked me in my sleep for months without me knowing.
My heart betrays me when all I can feel when I look at them is relief that I don’t have to die alone.
“I think burying him out back is the best option. We need to get this done.”
“Why are you in such a rush?” Hadrian asks.
“School starts tomorrow, dumbass. What’s going to happen when you two don’t show up?”
“Our grades will slip?” he drawls out sarcastically.
“People will notice you’re gone, and they’ll try to find you.”
My gaze focuses on her, and a deep suspicion runs through me.
“Who the fuck are you really?” I demand, a question I’ve desperately wanted answered since she was revealed as a fraud at school.
Clearly, something much deeper is going on.
The Liliana I knew was a spoiled rich girl, and she sure as hell didn’t have the guts to deal with a dead body, let alone the know-how.
“Nina. Nice to officially meet you.” If it weren’t for my exhaustion glueing me to the bed, I’d launch myself at her.