Page 12 of The Unravelings

Why vengeance?

No fucking matter. I need to get out of this room before I completely lose myself in her things and never want to leave. Before I drown. With fear. Worry. Curiosity. I can track Olivia’s movements throughout the city like I did before. Maybe I’ll find out why she’s here and why she’s not in the ground like I believed. Then, I’ll confront her about everything.

Discreetly, I secure the knife and walk out of Olivia’s dorm room, shutting the door behind me. Simon shouts his goodbyes, but I don’t respond. My mind focuses on the one person floating through my brain.

Olivia.

As I make my way out of Olivia’s dorm, I’m stopped by the crowd of people gathering around the building. Flowers, candles, and soft music fill the air. Their eyes turn misty as they lean on one another and stare at a large picture hanging above the flowers.

Dane.

The man who was killed in the woods. The one Mack found during our party with missing organs. His murder was broadcast through several pictures on the SlamApp, revealing the gruesome nature of his death for the entire world to see. Everyone saw what looked to be his last signs of life, and then he was left in the brush like trash. I didn’t know the guy. I knew he was Olivia’s roommate, and he’d lived with Wade and Simon the year before, too. But I never spoke with him or knew very much about him.

Now, I do.

I’ve hacked every database I could get my hands on, trying to find the person who uploaded the pictures. Or follow Dane’s movements through town. The last place anyone saw him was at the convenience store, buying items. Then the lights dimmed in the parking lot, and he vanished into thin air.

So odd.

The gathering crowd sniffles as I walk by, murmuring to each other. But I try not to pay too much attention to their grief. I’ve been there. Mourning the person I loved the most and trying to move on with my life.

“I bet they did it,” one girl’s voice says above the crowd. I feel the heat of her eyes on me as I pass through, ignoring the others agreeing with her.

“Shhh!” another one hisses. “You know who their dad is, right?” Panic creeps into her voice.

If a crime happens on campus or even in this town, the first people accused are us. In their eyes, we associate with a bad man. Thus, we’re the reason everyone is dead.

Fuck. Dead.

Olivia. How in the hell am I going to explain this to Hux and Mack? Oh, hey, by the way, guys, Olivia is alive and she’s pretending to be Oliver. You know, the kid you set up against Brutus to fight…

My goddamn head hurts. My heart hurts. My entire body aches with every step I take. And it hurts even more when the graveyard comes into full view. The bright midday sun shines down on Mack as he rests against Olivia’s headstone in his running gear. Waffles lies beside him, getting his head rubbed with a lovesick expression.

Mack’s mouth moves a mile a minute, I’m sure, telling her every detail of his day.

Even in her death, Olivia is the only person Mack turns to when he needs to get something off his chest. And now, I have to march up to him and tell him that Olivia is alive. I’ve seen her with my own two eyes.

I stand at the edge of the graveyard with my heart in my throat. Waffles wags his tail when he sees me standing there and lopes over. Reaching down, I rub his ears, looking deep into his soulful eyes.

“You knew, didn’t you?” I barely say, earning a lick on my wrist as he sniffs every inch of me. Smelling her. “That’s why…” I shake my head, trying to get all these emotions off my face. “That’s why you let Oliver pet you. You knew…” I roll my lips together when Mack stands tall, dusting off his tiny running shorts. “God, you knew.”

And I didn’t.

We didn’t.

Truly believing she was dead.

Over the past five years, Mack has seriously lost himself to the grief eating him from the inside out. He’s grown reckless, putting his life in danger. And now, I have to decimate his world all over again by telling him the girl he was speaking to isn’t in that grave.

How the fuck can I do this?

“Come to see me in action?” Mack mocks, running his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.

“In those shorts?” I jest, rolling my eyes and hoping he can’t sense what’s on my mind.

I could tell him now. Tell him everything I saw. Show him the video evidence from the hotel and the gravestone. Prove to him once and for all.

Olivia is alive.