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“You’re my knight in shining armor, Finn Thorne,” she whispers against my lips before stepping back. “Remember when the time comes, don’t fight it. Allow yourself to fall for some pretty boy. Promise me.” Her words are nothing more than a giggled murmur, and I can only nod. “Good.” But before I can respond, she runs off into the night and the game begins.
Confusion wraps itself around me as I pull out the note she shoved in my pocket. When I open it, I find her perfect, girly scrawl and scan the words with the light of my phone.
Take care of yourself, handsome. My time has come. Remember, keep it locked up tight.
My brows furrow as I look up. There’s nothing to see because the rest of the guys have all run off to find the girls who are deep in the woods. I look down once more, and then I turn the note over to find the words that make my blood run cold.
I’ve left you all my secrets in a letter in your bedroom. Goodbye my love.
And that’s when my feet race through the darkness to find Ellie. But when I finally come across the beautiful girl, she’s no longer breathing. Everyone stands around her body as if paying their final respects. I drop to my knees beside her, screaming for them to call for help. I know it’s too late. Eloise never did anything by half measure.
This was purposefully done.
She knew.
She wanted this.
She came out tonight to seek her death.
“Don’t fucking do that!” The shout comes from behind me. I spin around as annoyance wrangles me in its hold. There’s someone on my roof. Even though Damien and Cass do come up here sometimes, I consider this my hiding spot. The boy standing there glaring at me looks like he’s just walked off a goddamned emo music video. His black hair is long, covering one eye, as the piercing in his lip glints at me.
But it’s his eyes the color of metal that look right through me. It’s as if he can see all the agonizing pain, and he understands it. He’s dressed in a black tee with sleeves of ink. I can’t believe my father hired someone who looks like him, but he must be one of the new staff members. I recall in my fuzzy memories that Dad said he had five new staff coming in because of some party he wanted to throw.
“What the fuck are you doing up here?” I sneer, hoping the glare I pin on him is enough to scare him off. But he only chuckles. “I asked you a fucking question.”
“I’m Jarred,” he tells me, not answering me. “I’m one of the new gardeners, or well, handy men. Not sure you need that much around here, but I was brought here with a few of the others.”
“I don’t give a shit who you are, I don’t want you in my space,” I bite out. Nobody sees me like this. I don’t show my pain to anyone else, only the goddamned mirror. And that’s only because I deserve it. I let my best friend kill herself and I didn’t even try to stop her. Granted, she didn’t show the depression she suffered from daily, but I should have known.
“You should know I don’t take kindly to being told what to do,” Jarred informs me coolly as he flops onto the mattress. With his stare on the sky, I find myself curious at this stranger who’s decided to invade my pity party.
“Well, I’m a Thorne, and since you work for my father, you work for me. So if I tell you to fuck off, you fuck off.” I take another mouthful of bourbon as I step down from the ledge and make my way over to where he’s lying.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t even glance at me. Usually, I’d be willing to spar with someone, but there’s something about him that intrigues me. Maybe it’s his disregard for who I am. Most people in this town bend over backwards when they learn of my last name. And some people bend over forwards too. But not this guy.
“Where did you come from?” I ask then, allowing my curiosity to get the better of me.
This time, he flicks those silver eyes toward me. “Chicago, L.A., New York,” he tells me. “All over the place. Hopped from foster home to foster home.”
“And what? My father saved you?” The idea is laughable because Bradford Thorne is not a man who makes anyone happy. Not since my mother left. She left and took his heart with him, and since then, there wasn’t a father in this house; there was a tyrant who wanted to run the house like a goddamned army.
“Nobody can save you if you don’t want to be saved,” Jarred informs me. I guess that’s true. Nobody could save Ellie because she didn’t want to be saved. My chest tightens at the thought. People think that by looking at someone you can see their depression, but you can’t. I know that now.
