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Coincidence? No, I didn’t believe in coincidences.
The note had just said,“I can’t wait to see you in them,”letting me know even more that tonight was the night I should wear them—the night we’d meet and our futures would change forever.
Once I was dressed, I climbed out my window, holding the shoes in my hand as I climbed over the overhang and slipped to the ground. Placing them on, I quickly made my way to Sullivan Street behind my house, where I’d told the car to meet me. The sedan waited at the curb, and I quickly hurried over, sliding in.
It wasn’t until later, when I was being handcuffed, that the implications of the night had set in. I was dumb, naive, and now a juvenile delinquent. Go me.
PRESENT DAY
The burner phone pinged, drawing me back to the present. Sucking back my tears, I dried my eyes and climbed out of bed. Crying wouldn’t do any good. I couldn’t let myself go down that hole again. I had to focus on the mission. The memory had reminded me just how important it was.
When I pulled out my phone and signed into the app the notification had come from, it made my last thoughts even more detrimental.
Blackhawk: Oblivion, babe, where have you been? I’ve missed you.
Four
FINLEY
I staredat the message like it was alive and he was about to jump off the tiny screen and strangle me where I sat. A million emotions coursed through me at the thought as fear took hold. I thought I was ready, that the moment I stepped away from everything else and faced this, it would all come to a head, and I’d know what to do.
But as I stared at the message, sweat building on my upper lip, I realized I had absolutely no freaking clue what I was doing.
Outside of my ‘get revenge’ list, it seemed I was poorly equipped to actually do anything else. Which in the grand scheme of things didn’t surprise me. It was my fatal flaw, after all. This time it seemed, I’d been the recipient of my own assumptions.
Not begrudging my brother his talent because I knew he had his own battles to fight, but growing up in his shadow had been hard. Henry was the one who seemed to flawlessly get everything right the first time. When he and Sariah started to win competitions, the spotlight around them became even brighter.
As theirs increased, it felt like all the light around me was sucked away into a vacuum, and I was left with a mere glimmer. I didn’t like feeling envious of my best friend and brother, so I found ways to share in their light, persuading others I had something worth looking at.
That was the start of my downfall.
I faked so many things, I convinced even myself I could do them, forgetting half the time I was only pretending.
But when I got a taste of that limelight, I couldn’t let it go, wanting it more and more like an addict. Once people thought you were perfect, it was hard to be anything other than that.
But it was exhausting constantly pretending, and when Sariah went missing, I no longer had their light to steal.
It was a sad realization that you missed your best friend because she made you brighter.
Standing, I walked over to the window, peeking behind the curtains to stare out into the parking lot. The sun was starting to rise, the day beginning, and I felt none of it. A sinking weight settled on me, and I struggled to stand as it pressed into me. Bit by bit, it would break me down, crushing me until I was nothing but a pile of rubble.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I pressed my fists into them, begging the pressure to lessen. All the thoughts swirled, folding into themselves, and I was on the verge of losing it.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
I hadn’t felt this out of control since…No! Don’t go there.
The memory I worked so hard to control came roaring back now that I was alone, filling all my crevices with the darkness, sucking out all the joy, and finding any space to root itself as I fell back into a flashback of how I ended up on the path that would lead to my greatest sin.
FINLEY, 16
Slamming the door, I stomped over to my desk, breathing heavily as I panted in and out.
“I hate you!” I yelled.
Dropping into the chair, the tears fell before my butt even hit the seat. Pulling my legs up, I wrapped my arms around them, leaning my head against my knees as I sobbed, rocking slightly.
No one understood. No one seemed to care. I was so alone in this house. I missed my friend.
