49. Trace
Trace
T he door slammed behind us.
I didn’t hesitate.
Zeke barely caught his footing before I shoved him again, harder this time. “You fucking touch her again—”
He laughed.
Fucking laughed.
“Careful, Trace,” he said, adjusting his shirt like I hadn’t just tried to knock the smug off his face. “You’re showing your cards.”
“She’s not a game.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he said, glancing back at the house. “The way she’s playing all of you? Shit. She kissed me like she meant it.”
I lunged.
Fist cocked.
But Alden was there—shoving between us, palm flat against my chest.
“Stop,” Alden barked. “Not here. Not like this.”
Zeke’s smile sharpened. “Aww. The babysitter still has a leash on you?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Alden growled. “This isn’t about you.”
“Everything’s about her,” Zeke said, pointing to the door. “And none of you are thinking clearly. Not with her wearing sin like perfume.”
I shoved Alden’s hand off my chest
“You don’t get to talk about her,” I snarled. “Not after what you did. Not after what you said.”
Zeke tilted his head. ““None of you are thinking clearly. She’s not just some girl. She’s the reason we’re all still breathing—and you’re all so busy fighting over her, you’ve forgotten why she matters.”
“I don’t think anything anymore,” I said. “I know I’ll kill for her.”
Zeke’s smile dropped. That shut him up.
Even Alden froze. His face had gone pale.
Then Zeke stepped back into the dark, voice almost quiet now. “Then you better figure out whether that means saving her,” Zeke said, stepping back into the dark. “Or breaking her.”
He vanished into the trees.
And I stood there, breathing like I’d just come back from war.
***
Scarlett
No one spoke. The silene pressed in from all sides.
They were back, but everything felt different.
The fire had gone out. The heat replaced by something cold and hollow.
Lena hadn’t moved.
Sloane looked like she might cry or scream or both.
Alden wouldn’t look at me.
Trace looked too much.
And I—I finally felt it.
The weight of the game I thought I was winning. Maybe I wasn’t the one pulling strings anymore.
Maybe I was the string.
And I was unraveling.
I wrapped my arms around myself without meaning to. My skin buzzed with leftover tequila, lust, and the kind of shame that didn’t have a name yet.
Nobody spoke.
Lena glanced between us, eyes wide, searching for someone to blame.
Sloane sat frozen, lips parted, breathing slow and shallow.
I wanted to say something.
Anything.
But all the power I’d stolen was bleeding out of me, drop by drop, into the crackling quiet.
And for the first time since the game began—I realized I’d gone too far.
And maybe that was the point.
Maybe this wasn’t about the game anymore. Maybe it never was.
Because the way Trace looked at me—
The way Zeke kissed me.
The way Alden whispered that dare.
And the way Rhett held my waist—gripped it as if he didn’t want to let go, as if even he didn’t understand why he responded to me that way—
None of it felt normal.
It felt inevitable.
I wasn’t just a girl in a room full of tension and tequila.
I was the reason they were all here.
And suddenly, the silence didn’t feel empty.
It felt staged.
Heavy.
Waiting.
I was the missing piece in something none of them wanted to explain.
And I was finally starting to feel it—
The truth behind their stares.
The weight in their silence.
The secret in my blood.
I didn’t know what I was yet.
But I was starting to understand.
They did.
I didn’t say anything when I left.
I just walked upstairs like my bones were hollow, like my skin didn’t quite fit anymore.
No one followed.
Good.
The air in the bedroom was still. Heavy. My head buzzed, heart still thudding from something that had nothing to do with tequila.
Hemingway was on the bed, curled into the same spot he always claimed, lifting his head when I came in. No judgment. Just eyes. Warm and soft and real.
Sitting down beside him, I buried my fingers in his fur.
“Hey, buddy.”
He pressed his little face into my thigh sensing it—that something had shifted. That I wasn’t okay.
I didn’t cry.
Not yet.
I just sat there, fingers tangled in fur, heartbeat trying to slow. My body was still buzzing. Still reacting to the kiss. To Alden’s whisper. To Zeke’s mouth on mine and the way Trace had exploded.
The room was quiet except for my breath and the faint echo of voices downstairs—muffled, distant. I couldn’t tell if they were fighting. I didn’t care.
I stood slowly and moved toward the mirror, dragging my feet across the floor. My reflection looked unrecognizable. Lips swollen. Shirt rumpled. Hair tangled and wild.
A girl trying to wear power as perfume and self-destruction as armor. A girl trying too hard to pretend she didn’t care who she destroyed.
I stared at myself for a long time.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I whispered.
And I didn’t have an answer.
Not one that made sense anyway.
Nothing that made me feel better. Nothing that dulled the edge cutting through me.
The truth sat low in my stomach, heavy and unspoken: they were hiding something. All of them. And I wasn’t just part of it.
I was the center of it.
Every move I made pulled them tighter. Every breath I took made them unravel.
Why me?
What did they know that I didn’t?
I turned off the light and climbed into bed beside Hemingway, curling around his small, warm body—the only thing still steady in this house of breaking glass.
And for the first time since I spun that stupid bottle, I didn’t feel like a queen.
I felt like a girl who might’ve just shattered the whole goddamn kingdom.