“Okay, fine,” I breathe, suitably appeased. “What do you want to know?”
His voice is crackly from lack of signal. “Have you seen, heard, or received anything suspicious since Cain Green went missing?”
I open my mouth to tell him about the text I received at the airport but shut it just as quickly when I remember what wasinthat text message. A photo of Alex and me, both dirty and bloodied, standing over a dying man in the forest. If this guy is working with the police, that’s probably not the best idea.
I’d die burying that photo if it meant those girls didn’t lose another parental figure in their lives.
But hiding the truth from Alex is something I’m trying to leave behind.
“I … I think I need to speak to Alex first.”
“You’re free to say as you wish without judgement.”
Yeah, but is thatI stole a cookie from a bakery when I was ninesort of no judgement, orI stabbed my lecturer and spat on his dead bodysort of no judgement. “I got a text from someone.”
I snap my mouth shut before I say any more.
“And this was before or after Alex buried your stalker?”
Oh.Well, that clears that up. “I … you …”
“I’m not interested in putting you behind bars, Ms. Winters. I’m more interested in keeping Alex and his sisters safe.”
“It was after. It was the day the article went live. It had a … it had a photo in it.”
“To your personal phone?”
“Yes, it’s my only phone.”
“Are you busy tomorrow? I’d like to have a look at your phone to see what I can gather from the text.”
I toe my boot in the wet mud beneath my feet, desperate to leave all of this behind. To leave Bancroft behind, Cain behind, Sorrowsong behind. “I’m not busy.”
His tone is sharp and efficient, like I’m helping him get through his boring to-do list. “Great. I’ll fly in later tonight.”
The line drops before I can ask him anything else, leaving me stranded and shivering on the forested path back to the castle. A shudder up my spine sends a puff of white breath into the frigid air, and when I walk toward my lecture in the tallest spire, eyes weigh heavy on my back the whole time.
A STRONG GUSTof wind sweeps through the valley, rattling the ancient window in its frame.
A thin strip of moonlight illuminates the dust on the cold tile of my bedroom. I can hear a few students laughing outside the mansion, despite it being past three in the morning.
I’m fighting sleep. This is how it goes every night: deluding myself into thinking I’m some new breed of human who just doesn’t need rest.
My friendships may be growing, my fitness improving, mygrades recovering, but my nightmares couldn’t be any worse. It’s so bad, the guy across the hall has filed a noise complaint.
I was sleeping better when Alex … never mind.
Why did he leave without a word?
I should let this go, move on, think about something else, but I can’t. I understand why he left that day, I understand why he took the CEO position, I understand why he dropped out of university, I understand everything except one thing.
Why didn’t he wake me up and fight for us?
I can only imagine his mental state that morning. Alex was doing better in the months before he left, but I’d still seen him at his lowest. Those sporadic evenings when he’d ask me to leave, tell me he felt so low that he might never get out of bed again.
Depression can be a cruel illness. When I checked the news every ten seconds for the rest of that day, it wasn’t for news of his father’s demise, it was for his.
So like I always do at this hour, when the Nightshade mansion howls and groans under the biting wind, I allow myself to hunt for any scraps of Alex I can find.
