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The words slip from my mouth before I have time to think it through. Tara looks at me as if she's just seen a ghost. I can hardly believe I just said that out loud, toTarano less. I’ve barely gotten used to thinking about it.
“Really? You love her.” She folds her arms.
“Yes,” I say and for the first time since this conversation started, I feel like I'm getting through to her. There’s a look in her eye almost as if she wants to believe me, but she can't bring herself to. I need to tip the scales in my favor.
There’s a suffocating silence. The crickets chirp in the bushes around us, and there’s the soft flutter of wings as an owl glides by overhead.
“How is she?” I whisper when the quiet gets unbearable.
“Well, she's still alive,” Tara sighs. “I wouldn't say she's happy. She's different now. Colder. Harder. She's…she'schanged, Alexander. What the hell do you want me to say to you? That she's still the same person? That she's fine? No, she's completely different.”
I don’t know what I wanted to hear.
But what she’s said confirms my fears. I was worried her anger would bleed into the other areas of her life, and I hoped it wouldn’t. It was a foolish wish. I know better than anyone how much anger can change you.
The soft, pliant, gentle girl I met those months ago by the lake doesn’t exist anymore. Alize has risen from the ashes as someone else. Someone marred by hatred, someone whose entire life has been upended at the worst possible time.
I’m upset about that.
I’m upset with myself. I wasn’t able to protect her, not nearly enough. It was my responsibility to do that and I failed. Why didn’t I try harder?
It’s like I’m twelve all over again, regretting crouching behind the bushes when I should have stood up and done something. I keep making the same mistakes.
“Look,” Tara says, breaking me out of my thoughts. “I don't know what the fuck is going on here. I can't say that I think you're good for Alize. But if you want her, or me, or anyone to believe you, you have to try a different approach. You can't keep being this bulldozer that just wrecks everything in your path. You have to be softer with her if you want her to believe you, to understand you.”
Great, now she thinks she can give me advice.I scoff.
If you aren’t harsh in this world, it runs you over and leaves you for dead. If you never take what you want, you’ll always end up with the short end of the stick. That’s something else I know better than anyone else.
I refuse to be run over.
“I'm not asking you for relationship advice, Tara. I came here to find out who hurt my girl. I don't have enough evidence to say it's you. And right now I'm focused on finding that.” I wipe my palms on my jeans, smearing them with blood. “Alize is mine. She always will be. She will nevernotbe mine. And she'll realize that eventually, when she realizes that I wasn't the one who hurt her like this.”
Tara points a manicured finger at me. “You see, Alexander? That's why she fucking hates you. She's not something to be owned the way you think she is. She's a person with feelings, with emotions. And if you keep acting like this, you willneverhave her.”
I look away from her, balling my fists by my side.
I’ll be damned if I let a pampered mafia princess try to counsel me onmylife. Her relationship can’t even stand up to public scrutiny—it’s why they have to sneak around. Tara doesn’t make good decisions, so why should I take advice from her?
“If that’s all you have to say, I’ll be on my way.” I wipe away some of the blood that’s dried on my lips. “Once I find out the truth, the problem will be fixed.”
I leave Tara there scowling after me.
TWELVE
ALIZE
My eyes flyopen milliseconds before my door is kicked in.
The heavy wooden door slams against the wall, and I jump from the bed with a start, drawing for the knife I keep underneath my pillow.
This is it. They’ve come for me.
Heavy footsteps fill the room, andinstantlyI’m hit with déjà vu—I’ve been in this moment before, and it’s always played out the same way.
The footfalls are familiar. The way they’re muffled against the floor, even though I know the girls wearing them are stomping. Even the fact that Tara isn’t here.
It’s just like when they took me from my room on my first night here.
