Page 37 of The Unravelings

I shove a grape in my mouth and sigh with satisfaction. There’s something about juicy green grapes squishing between my teeth after a run that makes me feel better.

“Fuck off,” I say through a mouthful, offering him a food-filled grin when his penetrating gaze narrows on me. He opens his mouth to retort something, but gets cut off.

Hux leans on the other side with a constipated look on his slightly broken face. I squint. Was that split lip there before?

“Go on,” he urges JJ, who sighs beside me.

“Yes, do go on. You called me home. I was in a very important meeting.” They both know what I do at the end of every run, and they interrupted my Livy time.

“You spend an unhealthy amount of time there,” JJ mutters under his breath, eyeing me.

Huh. He never says shit like that. He always leaves me to mourn in peace.

I crinkle my brow. Am I losing my shit and sitting at her grave too much? Nah. No way. She’s the only one who grounds me.

“You and I have a completely different definition of unhealthy,” I say, shoving a grape in my mouth and groaning at the juices hitting my tongue. “So, what’s up? You find the asshole responsible for ruining Livy’s things, yet?”

He should have by now. There are cameras on every inch of this fucking campus, thanks to Franco. It’s obvious he wants to keep an eye on everyone. Other gangs. Normal students with no affiliations. Us. Plus, JJ can hack into anything to get the information we need.

“They found another body this morning.”

I freeze with a grape dangling over my lips for a brief second. Of course. A damn body. Another one. It’s been like this for over a year now. They keep showing up with missing organs. Like the kid I found in the woods at our party. His bloodied fingers and gasping lips haunt me in my sleep.

And we have no fucking clue who is doing it. Even Franco hasn’t said a word.

“It wasn’t Meredith,” Hux confirms.

“Still no ideas on her whereabouts?” I ask, chewing my grape slowly and watching him closely.

Sometimes the bastard likes to keep things from us. I know he does. His brain is a treasure trove of secrets I’d like to crack open like a damn coconut. One day I will. One day, Huxley will tell me all the secrets inside his brain.

Not today, judging by the droop of his eye. Fucker.

“No,” he quickly says, swiping a hand down his worried face. “No clue where she is. No signs of her. No matter how hard we look.”

Oh, and we’ve looked. One day, she was here and then poof, Mere was gone. Is it a coincidence that some shady shit fell into her lap and then she disappeared?

No. I don’t believe in that sort of thing. It happened for a damn reason. Maybe because she’s Malic Monroe’s half-sister. Or maybe because she overheard some shit she shouldn’t have. We were working on it, though.

“Tell him the other thing,” JJ says, gesturing to Hux with a pointed look.

Huxley sighs, holding up his left hand, smudged with pen marks. “Fuck. Don’t do anything impulsive.” He eyes me sternly, and I shrug. I can’t promise I won’t, especially if it’s bad. “Malic took me to his torture chamber last night, and we had a discussion about Meredith.”

I blink several times. “What the fuck?” I bark, slamming my water bottle down. “Took you? As in⁠—”

“Kidnapped… Yeah.” Hux shrugs like it’s no big fucking deal. “Sure, if that’s the fucking word you want to use.”

“And you’re what? Fucking cool with this? Is that why your face looks like you took a beating? Fuck. We should hunt that asshole down and—” I shake my head, getting to my shaky feet, snack and water be damned!

“Chill,” Hux grunts, holding up a hand.

“Why the fuck should I?” I reel back, dropping the grapes. “That’s declaring war.”

“He saw surveillance footage of Hux and Meredith talking the night she disappeared. It’s his sister,” JJ says flatly. “He was worried about his family and took the only person who might have a connection with her. He’s getting desperate.” JJ shakes his head, running his fingers over his forehead.

“So the fuck what!” I shout, throwing my arms around. “How the fuck did he even get you?”

Hux’s expression immediately drops, and he sighs again. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is we got it resolved, and the fucker won’t touch me again. Besides, I only told him half-truths about what we talked about with her. He doesn’t need to know that we know why she was so upset.” And that makes it better? Lying to the fucking enemy about where we met her? Maybe he should have told him the fucking truth after stabbing him through the heart.