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When she finally hears me, she leans on the headboard and says, “Help me. I can’t stay with him. I just can’t. Please.”
I don’t remember her ever pleading. My heart breaks for my best friend.
“How can I help?”
“Your uncle.”
I know I said I’d help her, but hoped I wouldn’t be put in the middle.
“Help me escape. Please.”
I shake myself out of my thoughts and walk into our bedroom. The phone lies on my nightstand and my finger trembles on the screen. The implications of what I have to do sit heavy on my chest—cement being poured over me, drowning me.
Am I really going to do this? Kieran trusts me. He will understand that I love him, but I love my friend too, and I have to help her. He has to understand. He’d do the same for Cameron and Cato. I am doing the right thing, but a voice inside me whispers betrayal.
Grabbing the phone, I go back to her room. I dial Uncle Hayden’s number and he picks up right away.
“I need your help.”
“What happened?”
I drag in a lungful of air and say, “You wanted to help me escape. I don’t need it, but my best friend does.”
“I will pick you up tonight.”
“I can’t come. I have a tracker. Silence on the other end, and a horrified gasp from Chiara shoots through the silence.
“No problem. I’ll know how to disable it.”
Fascinating how easily a plan of escape is formulated in the next five minutes, and with every word, I become numb. He tells me he’s going to take care of everything and to be ready.
“Don’t hurt anyone,” I plead and hang up.
“Thank you,” she says, relief written all over her face while my heart withers in my chest. I nod, words stuck in my throat. Chiara squeezes my hand.
“Take this chance as well. He has you brainwashed. He even chipped you.”
“It’s not like that.”
“That you defend this despicable act tells me I am right.”
I roam through the house and end up at the end of the hallway. I open the door, and tears already stream down my face, finding the sculptures Kieran loves.
I feel him long before the door clicks closed.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
His love digs the knife deeper. I was supposed to tell him how in love I am with him tonight, not betray his trust. He will take it as a ploy and will ask himself if any of this was real. And it couldn’t be more real than this.
I turn to him, my entire body shivering. Kieran cups my face, lifting my chin up, looking at me with those eyes brimming with love for me, kissing my forehead. Loyalty, fuck you.
“I am just emotional.” The lie turns sour in my stomach. I am about to vomit.
I drag him toward the sofa and stare at the half-human half-beast sculptures.
“Tell me why you love this theme?”
He plays with a strand of my hair. “I like the contrast as if you are your own antithesis.”
