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“Shiloh.” Dion steps forward, but I counter it, shoving Blaire back with me.
“No!” I look between the two of them. “You’ve been working with her all along. You both played me. All of you, and her! You used me as the middle person to help yourselves, for what?”
Blaire squeezes my hand in warning. I can feel bad about this later, but for right now, I’m angry.
“This whole time, I played the fucking game, Dion!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Dion growls low. It’s a warning that should scare me. It doesn’t. I just want destruction. I want my best friend somewhere safe.
“I won’t. So you’re going to let us go.”
“Why the fuck would we do that, Poppet? Hmm? After everything you know?” Malyk asks but seems to study me like a joke he doesn’t quite understand.
“Because.” I hold both of their eyes, standing straight. “Because I know who you answer to. I know who runs Hades Hollow. I’ve known all along. You see, between you three tricking me into a truce to play along with this craziness, and my mother helping you all, you forgot a blind spot.”
Malyk casts a quick glance at Dion before coming back to me.
“Your enemy.His enemy.”
I shuffle around the both of them.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Shiloh,” Dion says as I drag Blaire around Malyk while still holding her behind me.
Malyk is terrifying to me now. I’d never trust him near anyone, much less near me. He’s the worst kind because he blinds you with his softness, so you let your barriers down.
“That was all real. What we did—it was real. We brought you here because this is where you belong. Youhave to behere.”
“I didn’t initiate!” I snap at him, shoving Blaire out of the open door while keeping her beside me. “I don’t have to do shit!”
“You’re a fucking traitor,” Malyk sneers, turning back to face me. “You think we’re bad, Shi, but you’re the worst kind.”
“No, I’m not.” I slam the cell door closed to put a barrier between us, even if it isn’t locked. “You three played me. My mother played me. You all made me feel like I was important in some way to this story, but I’m not. I’m nothing but a pawn in a game that I don’t know the rules to.”
I try to ignore the way the words feel coming up my throat. I should love this. Hurt them the way they’ve hurt me.
“You all drew me in, all for what? Why the fuck did you bring me here?” I scream the final words, and Blaire once again tenses in my hand.
“Because of me.”
His voice sends fear down the crack of my spine, and now I want to run back into that cage and lock us back inside. Sparrow scares me in a different way than Malyk does. In a way that he’s unpredictable. Malyk is calculated. His particular crazy takes time, precision, and perfection. Sparrow is a savage.
My chest rises and falls as I try to think over what to ask him. “Why?”
I turn slightly, catching him leaning against the doorway of wherever this place leads to. I’m thinking an engine room, or maybe, I don’t know, a wine cellar.
Sparrow is dressed in an expensively tailored suit, his hair washed and brushed and his cigarette burning between his fingers. “Who am I, Shiloh?”
I swallow the build-up of saliva in my mouth.
“Say it.”
I watch as he brings the end of his cigarette to his lips, his eyes squinting around the smoke.
“I need to hear you say it.”
“Sparrow Dixon,” I answer easily. Is he crazy? What the fuck is happening?
“Do you know the original tale of this town?” His voice is low and calm as he pushes off the wall and parts his legs slightly. “The real story?”
