Page 93 of Darkest Obsession

“Theo. Hi.”

“Er… I suppose you’re Sylvia’s friends?” Theo asks, his cheeks turning bright red as he turns to Clover and Kola.

“Who the heck are you?” Kola asks.

“Friend of the family,” Theo says, grinning. “Sylvia’s sister sent me to make sure she’s okay.”

“Is there any legitimate way for us to verify that?” Clover asks.

Theo turns to me. “Well, er… I sort of know Thomas Bainbridge?”

Kola and Clover turn towards me with accusatory looks on their faces. Clover’s fist clenches and I know I’ll have to dodge a punch if I give her an answer she views as unsatisfactory.

“Yes, he’s Amina’s fiancé’s cousin. Theodore Hargreaves.”

“Does Sylvia know you?” Clover asks. “Because her sister didn’t send you here to watch her sleep, I’m sure.”

Theo looks absolutely terrified of the teenage girls. I get it. Clover and Kola have sharp tongues. Not my place to defend Theo. He’s a grown man.

“I’ve been visiting Ben and Libs,” Theo says. “Amina only sent me because I’m nearby. I promise, I wasn’t watching her sleep, just looking after her.”

He turns pink. Really pink, which makes his blond hair stand out all weird. Stupid bastard. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. There’s something strange about Theo now. He doesn’t smell like marijuana, like normal. Hm. I dunno. Maybe there’s something else, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

“We’ll just wait for Amina’s sister, then,” Clover says. “Make sure you aren’t lying.”

Theo turns a brilliant shade of red.

“Sure,” he says. “Brilliant.”

Chapter Forty-One

Clover

I don’t trust that white man. I don’t care if Thomas “kinda knows him”. He’s standing over Sylvia’s unconscious body and looking at her in a way I don’t like. Someone attacked Sylvia last night and the 6’4” blond older man standing right next to her raises my suspicions. I don’t buy his story for one second about Sylvia’s sister sending him in.

Unfortunately, no one else agrees with me. I can see even Kola thinks I’m being too harsh. Thomas is just standing there, looking bored, as usual. He thinks nearly everything is too boring for his attention. Except me. He seems to find me a little too interesting.

Theo’s reddening face only proves my point. He knows more than he’s letting on, he’s hiding something, or some combination of both. We just have to wait for Sylvia’s sister to get here so we can find out. The nurse won’t release any medical information without her here and the best we can drag out of her is that there will be a police investigation about the attack.

That ought to scare blondie over there, but he doesn’t seem perturbed. He seems genuinely worried. But I still can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something. If he’s the one that hurt Sylvia, we’re still out on our asses when it comes to the blackmailer, but at least we could do something to stop anything like this from happening again. I can beat the shit out of someone who attacks me once I’m prepared. Sylvia’s so damn sweet, she doesn’t expect anything like this to happen.

We don’t have to wait long before there’s a bustling in the hallway – an imperious, booming voice with an accent about as posh as Thomas’ blares throughout.

“YOU’VE KEPT HER HERE HALF-DEAD WITHOUT ENSURING THE BASTARD WHO DID THIS–

“Crispin, relax,” a smoother, soothing voice follows. That must be them. Theo rushes for the door, but I get there first, giving him a suspicious, knowing look. I’m onto you, white boy.

Crispin, the screaming guy, does not in fact relax.

“Relax?! She pays good bloody tuition so she can walk about without fearing for violence. Somebody, and I mean anybody will pay for this. I’ll squeeze every fucking pound out of Barnaby Fox if I have to. Well? Are you going to let us in or wait for her to decay?”

“Crispin, calm the hell down, or I will kick your ass.”

That must be Amina. I know the second I see her that she’s Sylvia’s sister. She looks almost exactly like Sylvia, but much thinner and a bit taller. She’s pregnant, too. Or she was recently pregnant. I’m not exactly an expert, but I do remember a few details from my mom’s pregnancy with Chaos, not to mention the videos about it she had me editing between home school classes in middle school.

The tall blond boy next to her looks a bit like Theo, but with a sharper jawline and… a fake eye? One of his eyes doesn’t move at all. I bet there’s a weird story there, but I’m too dumbfounded once I see them to say anything that’s actually intelligent.

“Sylvia… She… There… Fine.”