The Truths we Burn (The Hollow Boys Book 2) Read online

  “That’s enough,” I interrupt, striding between the two of them. I’m just not sure who I’m protecting. Am I blocking Sage? Or am I shielding Silas?

  All I know is that Sage is in the mood to hurt someone. When she’s in distress, she takes it out on those around her. She never wants to hurt alone.

  So if she wants to hurt someone, she can do that to me, not Silas.

  Never Silas.

  “Screw you,” she spits, looking up at me. “Screw all of you. Acting like you deserve payback more than me. As if she meant nothing to me. Like she wasn’t my goddamn twin!”

  “It has nothing to do with that. We know we don’t deserve it, but we also know we don’t fucking trust you,” I argue, not backing down from her outrage.

  If she wants to be nasty, then fine, we can get nasty.

  “No, you”—she pokes my chest with her pointer finger—“don’t trust me, Rook. Which is rich coming from someone who lies to his friends.” She looks me dead in the eyes, warning me. Cautioning me that if I’m not careful, she could do some heavy damage.

  She could out us right here, right now. I wouldn’t put it past her either—she doesn’t care how deep she has to dig to ruin someone.

  She’s playing with fire coming back here and trying to fuck my life up all over again.

  But I’m not letting that happen again.

  This time, it won’t be a lake house I burn. It’ll be her pasty skin left in a pile of ashes.

  I breathe through my nose, my jaw tightening. “I knew saving you was a waste of fucking time. I should have just let you drown.”

  “If you knew that, then why did you? Huh?” She turns her nose up at me, hands balled up in tight fists by her sides. “For a guy who acts like the villain, you sure do love playing the hero, don’t you? That’s what you like, right, Rook? Saving the broken ones? You wanna be the hero?”

  “Do I look like a goddamn hero?” I grab her waist with both of my hands, pressing her flesh tightly as I haul her up the length of my body, then sling her damp frame across my shoulder so she is dangling down my back.

  “This is over,” I tell her while she fights me the entire way like I knew she would.

  She needs to shut her pink mouth, to learn that her comments have consequences.

  I let her beat into my back, pushing to get away from my hold, making the raw marks beneath my shirt sore.

  With one arm hooked around her, I use the other to grab the handle of her car door, jerking it open and tossing her roughly into the back seat. Her body sprawls out across the plush material, her chest rising and falling with unbridled emotion that I’m ready to absorb.

  I’ll take her anger, her irrational feelings—I would take them all.

  I place both of my hands on the doorframe, bracing myself, trying desperately to ignore the memory of the last time I saw her like this. Laid out in her back seat, naked. Smoking my blunt, staring up at me with those fuck-me eyes.

  Now they’re just fuck-you eyes.

  It’s hard to tell which one I like more.

  Like a feral cat, she moves quickly, sitting up on her knees and using her palms to shove into my chest, using mild-level strength to try and move me.

  “Let me the hell out,” she shouts, only becoming more and more agitated with my unmoving frame.

  Yeah, that’s it. Let it out, Sage.

  Make it hurt.

  “No,” I rasp, only making things worse. I look down at her wet hair as it sways back and forth with her movements.

  Her pressing turns into beating, her tiny fists doing nothing to me as she thumps on my chest, willing me to move. She only succeeds in tiring herself out and making me crave more. This is a breeze compared to what I need. A preview of what it takes to mend my hunger.

  “Is that the best you got? You really are all bark and no fucking bite, aren’t you?” I edge her on. “Come on, hit me.”

  I say exactly what I would if I were Alistair, pushing her further into her own rage, drawing out more violent punches. They start to generate more force, and she drops lower, hitting me in the soft flesh of my gut a few times, seizing the wind from my lungs. It’s nothing I can’t handle. It’s not enough to make me move.

  “Hit me!” I yell in her face, full of toxic madness and pent-up emotions I haven’t fully dealt with. Things I’ve buried deep, deep down when we ended. They’re all being dug up, making me want to do the one thing I haven’t stopped thinking about since she came back.

  Ruining her.

  Breaking her.

  Make her question who she is just like she’d done to me.

  “Fucking hit me!”

  The dam breaks. It’s the match in the powder barrel. The final straw for her.

  She sends one solid punch across my jaw, snagging my lip in the process. My head is sent to the right with the force, and I feel the blood leak into my mouth immediately. The tangy metallic taste coats my taste buds, and the bite of the cut has my lip aching.

  I snap my head back, locking onto her eyes, seeing them wide and full of tears as her hands cover her mouth. She’s shocked that she was capable of something like that, of being pushed to that point.

  Everyone is capable of something despicable. It’s all about the right time, the right motivation and emotions.

  “What is wrong with you,” she murmurs. “Why did you let me do that?”

  I don’t anticipate that question to draw a reaction out of me.

  I don’t expect it to slice my throat like razor blades and burn everything inside my soul, leaving nothing but unfiltered honesty.

  There are a lot of things wrong with me.

  But right now, there’s only one thing that’s really fucking me up.

  My fingers snatch the back of her head, gathering a chunk of hair in my grip and yanking her face close to mine. Our noses clash bitterly, so close that I have no choice but to smell her, inhale her for the first time in months.

  “You,” I bite out, hating the taste of that truth on my tongue. “You are what’s wrong with me. You being back here. You walking around campus, showing up at the cliff. You fucking existing.”

  My breath fans across her face, making her gasp. A charge of friction snaps between our mouths.

  “You don’t get to do this. You are done,” I tell her, “You want to be sad? You want to mourn your sister? You do that, but you don’t get to wreak havoc on everyone else, Sage. You don’t get to hurt Silas or anyone because you’re angry and damaged. We lost her too. We all lost her.”

  I leave her no time or room to reply to me. I want her to sit with that, to feel this, so that the next time she is missing Rose, she won’t take it out on people who don’t deserve it.

  Because she’s better than that.

  I know what it’s like to be the target of someone’s grief and mourning. I know what it feels like to be the scapegoat, to be the punching bag for someone who lost a piece of themselves.

  I refuse to let her turn into my father because she’s better.

  She drops into the seat when I release her, extracting myself from her space. I glance down at Silas’s sweatshirt in her lap, her hands nervously fiddling with it.

  “And you’re not fucking putting this on,” I add for nothing other than to aid my irrational jealously, capturing the material from her hands and slamming the door closed.

  I’m pissed, I’m cold, and I want to get the fuck out of this place. I need to get away from her, from the crazy shit she makes me want to do and the way she makes me feel. Taking a deep breath of air away from her, I rub the back of my head roughly.

  I know what I need. I need to let out some aggression. I wanted to spar with Alistair. Go for a ride. Get cut up by Thatcher. Anything that would make her go away, even if it’s just for a second.

  Briar and Lyra say their goodbyes, driving themselves and Sage back to the dorms and leaving us here to take in everything that had just happened.

  “What the hell was that about, Van Doren?” Alistair accuses as
I start my bike, letting the engine heat up in this cold weather.

  “It was me protecting Silas, what else would it be?” I snap back, too on edge to add his attitude to the list of things I have to deal with.

  “I don’t need you to protect me.”

  “Yeah? Just like you don’t need me to make sure you take your meds? Or are you okay calling someone your dead girlfriend’s name?” My eyes zero in on Silas as I toss his sweatshirt back.

  Does he not realize that all I’ve been doing since Rose died is protect him? Watch him? Spend every single second I’m awake making sure he’s alright, that he’s alive?

  “Everyone calm down,” Thatcher interjects. “It’s been a long night, and everyone just needs to relax, alright?”

  He’s right. Like always. The only voice of reason when our tempers start to flare.

  But it’s impossible to control myself when it comes to her. It’s like every feeling, every emotion I have is heightened when she is around, when she is mentioned. No matter how many times I try to rip her out of my system, she just finds a way to crawl back, turning me into someone I don’t recognize, someone who gets pissy with his friends because they look at her a certain way or threaten her.

  It was supposed to be a game for me, to break the pretty, little cheerleader. And I was the one who got screwed in the end.

  Fuck feelings.

  Fuck all this.

  “Here.” Alistair tosses me a pack of cigarettes. “We all need one.”

  I pull one of the white sticks from inside, placing it on my lips before handing it over to Silas. I light the end with my Zippo and inhale the stress-relieving smoke into my lungs.

  “Six minutes,” Thatcher says. “Each cigarette takes six minutes off your life, did you know that?”

  I can’t help but laugh a little. “Six minutes closer to the goal.”

  The smoke comes out in rings, swirling around in the night. My head is stuffy from the light head buzz from the rush of nicotine. There are times I think about when we were younger, fourteen and smoking at the cliff, thinking of all the chaotic things we wanted to do to Ponderosa Springs before we left.

  Thinking, how the hell did we end up here?

  All of us are even more tormented and twisted than we once were, spending every single day getting closer and closer to the grave.

  “A little late for the game tonight, boys. The only thing you guys were good at, and look, we can win it without you now. Seems like it’s this place’s way of telling you it’s time to get the fuck out.”

  Just when I thought the evening was starting to settle down, the king of stirring the pot decides to rear his prestigious head.

  The last person who needs to talk shit to me tonight.

  Our history is a lengthy, messy one, going all the way back to elementary school, and yes, he was just as annoying then as he is now.

  I look over my shoulder to see Easton waltzing into the parking lot as if he owns this as well. He walks like that everywhere, as if everything he steps on is his for the taking, as if he already owns it.

  The sense of entitlement he carries reeks from miles away.

  “It would seem the only reason you won was because of a girl. Not only do you need your daddy to back you up, you now need ladies to fight your battles? If you’re going for the look of pathetic waste of space, you’re nailing it, Sinclair,” Thatcher comments, leaning against Silas’s car and tucking his hands inside of his slacks.

  Easton sneers, not enjoying someone threatening his ego. “That’s right, I forgot to ask, how is Sage? Did we get lucky and she did us all a favor by drowning? Or is what I’ve heard true—Rook jumped in to save his damsel in distress?”

  And that’s when the twitching in my hand starts.

  The persistent and irresistible urge to do something reckless. Something violent.

  It stirs in my gut, taking me over, the impulse to do severe damage to his spinal cord or record his screams while I burn him alive for my new ringtone.

  That evil I’d been cursed with as a child starts to blend with my unsettled temper, turning into a scary concoction.

  Dynamite just waiting for the fuse to light.

  He’s not the main target of our retaliation—he never had been—but somehow, he always finds himself right in the fucking middle of it, sticking his nose in a place it doesn’t belong, talking shit about things he shouldn’t.

  I look at him, unsure if he knows about Sage and me. Knowing if the boys found out from a scumbag like him, Thatcher would be right again—they wouldn’t trust me. Which means I’m going to have to tell them soon or keep hoping those who knew would keep their mouth shut.

  But that’s the thing with Ponderosa Springs—nothing stays buried. Not a goddamn thing.

  “All alone tonight, East? No meatheads to back you up?” I ask, unconvinced how he can be confident in his safety when he’s stepping straight into a lion’s den. A group of lions that haven’t eaten in months and are ready to feed on just about anything.

  Even preppy assholes in sneakers.

  “I don’t need to travel in a constant group like teenage girls going to the bathroom, you know. Unlike you.” He starts to walk past us, clicking the unlock button on his car that happens to be parked near my bike, but decides to add another smart-ass remark for good measure, “Soon enough, I’ll be cleaning this town of you. All of you. Taking out the trash, just like we did with your slut of a girlfriend. Rose.”

  My toes are tingling, my tremble getting worse. I bite down on the cigarette in my mouth as my thumb rapidly taps my thigh. My impulsive desires are starting to takeover, starting to win.

  Hearing him say her name, hearing him allude to some type of involvement, makes our plan of waiting fly out the door for me. I can only control myself for so long before I snap.

  Silas moves in his direction silently, carrying the weight of his unfinished business and guilt on his shoulders. I follow, not because he needs backup, but because I want a piece of whatever flesh Si rips from him.

  They stand toe-to-toe. “If I find out you had something to do with Rose, Easton, I will make you beg on your knees for me to kill you.”

  Easton’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows, his mouth not matching his nervous stature. “Empty fucking threats. You all are fucking full of them. Always have been. When are you going to do something other than talk out of your asses?” He leans in close to Silas’s face, making the flint inside of me strike. There’s no putting it out now, not until I get what I need.

  “You know, if I did have something to do with little Rosie’s death,” he whispers, “I would’ve at least tasted the product first to make sure she was worth the heat.”

  Tick, tick, boom.

  There isn’t much thought of consequence or repercussion for my actions when I snatch the back of Easton’s neck, holding him like a rabbit caught in a trap, feeling his heartbeat spike through the pads of my fingers.

  All I can see are bright orange flames and captivating darkness, controlled by nothing but primal instinct.

  A film reel of everything crooked he’d ever said or done to me, to my friends, flashes inside my mind. The cruelty towards Rose, the asshole remarks, the times I watched him grope Sage right in front of me.

  They are gasoline to my blaze.

  Now, the world will see him for what he truly is. He’ll be just as disgusting on the outside as he is on the inside. No more hiding behind his golden boy image.

  It’s time for Easton to be punished.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he shrieks high enough to break glass, trying to push me away, but my grip holds.

  “Making good on all those empty fucking threats.”

  I send my knee into his gut, making him double over with a grunt of pain. I’m not doing it to hurt him, just enough to get leverage so that I could.

  He reaches up to my forearm, his nails digging into my body, his weak attempt at defending himself. I jerk his body closer to my bike, prac
tically dragging him the few inches I need him to go. For someone so tough, he sure is wimpy.

  “Rook.”

  I’m not sure who says my name, but it’s too late for it. Too late for talking. I’m past that stage, and there’s no stopping me. I won’t be finished until I feed the evil inside. Until I give him what he deserves.

  The devil is getting his fix, delivering punishment.

  I shove the left side of his face straight onto my exhaust, plastering him to the side of steaming hot metal. My body buzzes with pleasure when I feel him try to pull away and hear him start to yell in despair.

  The smell makes me inhale deeply, and I tilt my head up to the sky as I close my eyes, reveling in this feeling of power. Muscle and tissue being consumed by the heat emit a fragrance like no other. Charcoal and seared hair mix together, making this sulfur scent of skin melting.

  I can hear the sizzling of meat on a griddle just below his screams of misery as he begs incoherently for any form of mercy, but he isn’t getting any of that here. Not tonight.

  I give him another few good seconds before I release my hold, his feet giving out on him so he falls to the asphalt with a hard thud. I watch as his face rips clean from the exhaust, pieces of his flesh still sticking to the shiny metal.

  I make a mental note to clean it.

  With shaking hands, he reaches up to try and assess the damage. His skin looks like melted, stringy plastic, the bumbling tissue and oozing yellow liquid from fat being broken down. Major third-degree burns cover his entire cheek. Unfixable damage has now been done.

  He’ll wear that scar forever, a reminder of just how fucking foul he is below the surface. He’ll see it and know there are no more fucking empty threats.

  And just like that…

  The twitching stops.

  Sage

  For some reason, I thought when the temperature started to warm up, this place would become less creepy. I think the longer I’m here, the more suspicious it becomes. The creaks in the walls at night, the shadows that seem to appear in the halls when the sun fades—it’s hard not to believe this place is haunted or there are secret passageways leading to some cult meeting room.