I know I should warn him of what I overheard, but the way he stares at me with such contempt stops me. Instead, I ask, “Do youtrust Frank and Ben?”
“With my life,” he answers cockily. It’s a lie. I see it as clear as I see Dax’s desire to distance himself from me. He lifts his mug and takes a gulp. “Why do you ask?”
“Because it’s not your life on the line; it’s mine, and I don’t think you know half of what’s going on right under your nose.” I glance down at the floor under his feet and then back up to his face, pleased to see some of his brazen confidence replaced by doubt. “Wise up, Dax, or you and I are through.” I bitterly throw his words back in his face and storm out of the room, slamming my feet on every step the whole way down.
Ben and Frank are nowhere to be seen, but Sylvie waits for me at the door.
“Are you okay?” she asks. Amusement twinkling in her eyes.
“Fine,” I snap. “Where to first?”
“The grounds.”
“Let’s go.”
“But the shot itself wasn’t fatal…I mean it didn’t hit arteries or organs or anything?” Sylvie asks, she’d been asking questions constantly since we started the tour, mostly the same things on repeat, like she needs the answer drummed into her before she believes it.
Did I see who’d done it?
Did the Tower have security cameras?
Did Tom tell me why he was there?
Did he say who shot him?
Were there signs of a struggle?
Did they find the gun?
Do the surgeons think he is going to die?
“No, but he was lucky. Being shot twice and surviving when any of those bullets could have caused irreparable damage…lucky doesn’t even cover it. If the bullet in his chest had gone a little more to the left, it could have hit his heart. Honestly, I’m surprised it wasn’t worse.”
“That’s the truth.” Sylvie stares into the distance, her eyesnarrow in thought. Tom seems important to her; if important means verging on obsessed. She asks me everything; from what I’d overheard, to what it felt like to touch another person’s insides. For a delicate, well-bred young woman, she has a twisted fascination with the macabre. She stares me right in the eye the whole time, hanging on every word.
Sylvie directs me to a lawn of thick grass in a pool of sunlight. She takes off her shoes and pads to the middle of the glowing circle. Sitting, she stretches her legs and leans back on her arms. I sit beside her, keeping a wary distance between us. She tilts her head back and hums contentedly as she soaks up the rays.
A long—though not unpleasant—silence hangs between us, until, with her eyes still closed, Sylvie asks a question I’m not expecting.
“I heard he was there to deliver mail? Like a letter or something?”
“Really?” I quit yanking at tufts of long grass to look at her. She glances at me quickly, possibly trying to read my reactions, then looks away. She staring up at the clouds as though dreamily watching them pass overhead, but her body is anything but relaxed. She’s coiled tight and deliberately avoiding my eye for the first time since leaving the house.
“Have you told Dax?” I ask. “That sounds like something he should know. Did someone tell you, or is it a rumour?”
“Just gossip,” she dismisses. “It’s easy to pick things up if you listen to the right people.” Her words aren’t casual or even coincidental. They’re pointed. Could she have seen me on the staircase? Does she know I overheard Ben and Frank? Forgetting that, how could she even know about the letter? Is it openly gossiped about at the compound? The only people who know about it are Tom, Dax, Ben, Aiden, and me. I haven’t said anything about it. Tom is still in a coma, and I doubt Dax mentioned it to anyone. Hell, since everything happened, Aiden and Dax have been glued to my side, which only leaves Ben.
Why doesn’t that surprise me?
Prickles form along my arms and I glance up to find Sylvie watching me a little too closely. I try to relax, shrugging my shoulders and pitching a regretful wince in her direction.
“Honestly,” I begin, “I have no idea. All I know is I got caught up in an unholy mess and would really like for my life to go back to the way it was.”
“You would? I’d have thought you’d be relieved to be out of the Vale?” The comment is innocent enough, or it would be if it hadn’t been delivered maliciously and accompanied by an intelligent glare.
I ignore the attitude and correct her assumption. “The Vale isn’t the problem. It’s the people who run the Vale that make it a problem.”
“Well, it’s a problem Dax is determined to fix.” She doesn’t sound happy about it.
