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The road turns as it winds up the large hill, each switchback an opportunity to plunge down jagged rocks. Running off the side probably wouldn’t kill us, but it would definitely hurt. The gravel turns to dirt as the established road abruptly ends. Gigi’s arms tighten like a vise as the road gets bumpy, her fingers tripping along the coiled muscle of my abdominal wall. The touch is inadvertent and borne of unease, but my body still reacts like I have her laid out naked in front of me.
I could be on my deathbed and still want to screw her brains out.
It takes most of my concentration to keep the bike from tipping over until the road abruptly ends at a familiar metal barricade that marks where the path has to be taken on foot.
She obviously recognizes the clearing as soon as I stop the bike and help her off it.
“If you think that I’m going to skinny dip with you in this weather, then you really have lost your mind.”
I doubt the grotto has frozen over. The air is unseasonably warm for late January, but still crisp enough that diving into water would be an entirely unpleasant experience.
“I just have fond memories of this place, don’t you?”
She grumbles something inaudible, but I still sense the little shiver that goes through her body.
This girl is like a fire underneath my skin, burning me from the inside out. I don’t have any intention of getting in the water, but getting her naked is definitely on the list of possibilities.
Once we’re on the trail, I take her hand. Her fingers squeeze around mine, but there is a weary look in her eyes when I meet her gaze.
She still doesn’t trust that this is real.
“Olivia is the one who made a statement to get you arrested,” Gigi says cautiously, obviously unsure of how I’ll react. “I have no idea what my father told her before he showed up here to threaten me. I can’t tell if she actually believes you were involved or if he coerced her into doing it.”
I feel a flash of annoyance at the reminder, but force myself to tamp it down. The indignity of being booked and thrown into a cell is something that I still haven’t quite gotten over.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her. “The charges were dropped.”
Gigi blinks a couple of times, as if that surprises her. “My father said he would get Olivia to recant if I play along with her pretending to me. I didn’t think she would do it, but she must have. The police worked quickly.”
I open my mouth to explain and then close it again. The alumni made the charges go away, not Olivia. They’re probably the ones that got her father involved in the first place to get her in line. He had to know the truth when he confronted his daughter. In true Havoc House fashion, Gigi’s father convinced her to do what he wanted with an offer to save me, knowing I already had an offer on the table to save myself.
She traded herself away for nothing.
If I tell her that, she’ll be devastated. Or worse, she’ll hate me for exchanging the truth about her sister for my own freedom when I didn’t even know that the real Olivia was healthy and awake.
“Must have been a surprise when he showed up,” I reply noncommittally.
Gigi makes an annoyed sound in her throat. “I really wanted to believe that he wasn’t involved in this, but I guess that was just naïve of me. Havoc House has to come before family, right? But Olivia must be acting the way she is for a reason.”
I’m not surprised that the Pratt patriarch made an appearance. There is no telling what kind of pressure the other alumni put on him. But it’s mildly annoying that Gigi is still so quick to see her sister as a victim. Olivia knew precisely what she was doing when she climbed into bed with me. “When did she get out of the coma?”
“I have no idea.”
I angle so I can see her face. “She didn’t tell you?”
“Olivia hasn’t told me anything.” She pulls her hand away. Her steps quicken on the narrow path, like she can outrun this conversation. “Aside from the fact that she wants us to stay switched for the foreseeable future. Everyone thinks she is Olivia Pratt’s mysterious twin, Evangeline, who just showed up here out of nowhere to take the world by storm.”
I let out a sigh. “That’s annoying.”
“She even got tattoos to match mine.”
There is no reasonable way to react to that. This situation is twenty different kinds of fucked up. “Let her call herself whatever she wants. You’re one-of-a-kind. She just can’t be you.”
“Try telling everyone else that.” Gigi picks up a stick and slaps it against a nearby tree. Working out her angst the old-fashioned way. Through violence. “Agreeing to this was the only way to get you out of jail.”
I can’t tell her the truth. I won’t. Not now, when all of this might actually be over and done.
Some things are more important than the truth.
