I spun around at the sound of the surprised gasp, seeing Anya standing with an arm draped with leashes. Her large eyes blinked at me in surprise before darting toward the floor.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t know anyone was here.”
I cocked my brow. “I do live here.”
“Yes, but, you know… I haven’t seen you around since the party…” Her voice trailed off. She had not looked in my direction since that first glance. “I’ll just… go.”
I said nothing as she turned, making it halfway to the exit before she stopped to face me once more. Her hands shook at her side as nervous energy skittered through the charged air between us.
I knew the question she would ask before she formed it in her mind.
“What happened to her?”
I studied her carefully, noting the guarded hesitance in her eyes that had never been there before. She and I had never been close by any stretch of the imagination. Still, we had regarded one another with a natural respect until now. Her father had been a wonderful man and would often bring me books about the world outside of Kallistos. Those same books now filled my personal shelves, deemed too important to stock in the family library.
But Anya was right to be wary of me now. Even if I had no intention of uttering those words out loud. Even if I wanted to, I could not risk the truth falling into the wrong hands. While not likely, it was always possible that Anya was working for my mother. At the very least, she could leak any information I relayed to her to the media, which would be a shitstorm come morning. “I assumed you already knew. The council?—”
“With all due respect, Mr. D’Arcy, I don’t believe the bullshit the council spewed about a tragic accident.” She stood taller, pushing her shoulders back. However, I could hear the barely perceptible shake in her voice that gave her away. “And I think you know it’s bullshit, too.”
Smart girl.
“You do not have to believe it, Anya,” I said, narrowing my gaze. “But that is all you will get.”
“I deserve to know what happened to my friend. Your uncle—he was not a good man. Surely you know this. Did he hurt her? And if so, why are you protecting him?”
I closed my eyes against the memories of Renwick’s hand woven through Calia’s auburn strands, the way tears had welled in her eyes before and after she had learned about my lies. I relived that memory every day, listing everything I could have done differently from the moment I laid eyes on her. “Anya?—”
She scoffed, silver beginning to line her eyes. “You’re just as bad as they say, you know. You didn’t deserve her. You never did,” she said, each venom-laced word an arrow aimed straight at the shattered pieces of my broken heart.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Brea—
My anger sprang to life as I lunged forward and gripped her by the throat. I leaned in, focused on the terror staring back at me. “Do you think I do not know that?” I whispered harshly, unable to stop my own emotions from driving me. “Do you think I do not know that she should have been with anyone but me? Someone who could have protected her? Because I do. And trust me, no one—not a single fucking person—hates me more than I do.”
“I hope her memory haunts you,” she said, rearing back as much as she could before spitting in my face.
The back door clattered open, and I felt Jasper’s hands clasp around my waist and haul me back. I released my hold, causing Anya to stumble. Her shaking hand clutched at the spot mine had just been. Even if I had known better than to act on my anger, her words had triggered the response without me thinking.
“I hope her memory haunts you.”
It already fucking does.
“Go, Anya,” Jasper said without looking her way, gripping my face and forcing me to stare at him. Her scurried footsteps fell away as she ran, fading away until she was but a tiny speck outside of the glass.
I pried his fingers away before pushing him off. My nostrils flared as I fought the demons clawing at my chest to escape. He took a step closer, and I held up my finger. “Don’t.”
He crossed his arms. “What the hell was that? And before you tell me to mind my own business, I should remind you that youaremy business.”
“That,” I gritted out, wiping my face clean, “was the sliver of self-control I had slipping away.”
“What did she say?” he asked, furrowing his brows. I did not know how to answer because I did not want to utter the words again—no matter how true they might have been. “What affects you affects us all, so don’t push me away. Tell me how I can help.”
I did not know how to be helped.Not anymore. It was a morose way of thinking. I knew I could trust Jasper with my life, but no matter how much I wanted to let him in, I could not. There was a metaphorical wall built ten feet high standing between us that was reinforced with steel. Nothing could penetrate it.
Not even my best friend.
