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Swallowing hard, I do as I’m told. “Yes, sir.”
“There are snakes in the grass, son. Masking themselves, shedding their skin, but you must remember, they will always be snakes. One bite will inject their poison inside you. We must not let them bite.” He grips my skull harder, his hands jerky. “Do you hear me?”
I hear his words, so I nod in response, but I don’t understand what he means.
“That girl is a snake and she will bite if you let her. Never forget what I told you. It’s our secret, but it’s the truth. Stay far away from her.”
That wasn’t the first time my father drilled it into my head that Scar was a snake. All my life, he’s made it a point to keep me away from her out of fear that one day I’d fall in love with her. It’s fucking ridiculous. Of all the girls in the world, why would he think I’d fall in love with that one?
But that day was just the beginning.
So, yeah.I hate her because I have to.
“Ya know,” Crew says, “I was kinda hoping all this shit would open your eyes a little bit. Jagger and I have tried being patient because of all you’re going through, but don’t you think it’s time you quit blaming her for everything?”
“Don’t blame her anymore,” I retort with a drawn-out exhale. Just as all the air escapes my lungs, my eyes land on a drawing on an old newspaper.
“Thenwhydo you dislike her so much?”
I hear his words, but I don’t process them as I tug the paper out of the stack, holding it out with two hands. Circled in black marker is an article from 2002—the year my dad graduated from BCA.
Crew keeps talking, but I no longer hear anything he’s saying, even as he shouts at me. Instead of listening, I read the headline…
Body Recovered of Eighteen-Year-Old Elias Stanton of Evergreen, Colorado.
After a weeklong search into the disappearance of Elias Stanton, his body has been recovered in an apparent suicide at Eldridge Mountain in Boulder Cove, CO.
Suicide?“What a bunch of shit,” I blurt out. I think every member of The Society knows damn well his death was not suicide. The way they cover this shit up baffles me daily.
“What is that?” Crew asks, peering over my shoulder.
“Article on Elias’s death.” I shove the paper at him, then run my fingers through my hair.
“Jude Beckett likely did his homework before taking over this guy’s life.”
“No shit. He had to have done a lot of homework to pull it off for this long.”
“How were we so fucking blind?”
It infuriates me to no end. All this time, he was right fucking there.
“Whatever,” Crew drops the paper back down on the stack, “none of this matters. All we need to worry about right now is letting him lead us to Maddie, and once we’ve got her—”
“We’ll kill him.”
Crew nods in response, but I’m not one hundred percent sure he’s up for the task. Doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t. I’ll kill that son of a bitch with my own bare hands. It’ll be one less Beckett grazing the soil of this earth.
“Oh shit,” Crew blurts out, eyes beaming out the window.
As soon as I see the lights shining through it, I crouch down, pulling Crew along with me.
“Who the fuck could that be?” he asks as I shut off the flashlight on my phone and hold my hands under the table to hide the screen light.
“It’s gotta be Jude.”
“Can’t be. He was mandated to stay for party cleanup.”
“And you think he’d fucking listen?” I tap on my open text messages to Jagger and shoot him a quick one.
