But I also can’t stand the idea of sending her back to her room right now. And who knows? Maybe having her here will chase the nightmares away.
“No,” I murmur, shaking my head. “You can stay. Maybe I’ll sleep better.”
Athena doesn’t say anything. But as I look over at her while she slips beneath the covers, and I see the tiniest glimmer of a smile on her face.
Athena
When I wake up, Jaxon is gone.
I can’t stop thinking about what happened last night, though. The entire thing feels like some kind of fever dream, from waking up hearing Jaxon screaming in his sleep to going into his room and winding up pinned beneath his body, the scent of his soap and skin filling my nose in the darkness as he ground against me.
I could have fucked him last night. He was right there, so close that I could have just shifted a little, and the tip of him would have been inside of me, and then I don’t think we would have stopped. But I know how Jaxon feels about us sleeping together. If we do, I don’t want it to be me taking advantage of a charged situation in the late hours of the night. I want to know that he wants it, too.
After everything the guys have done to me, it seems a little ridiculous to split hairs over whether or not Jaxon is fully on board with something like that. But I’m not going to sink to their level. Even if Jaxon and I never wind up in bed together, I can still find a way out of this.
I promised to meet Mia at the coffee shop, and I’m dreading it a little. Not because I don’t want to see her, but because I’m suddenly dreading having to repeat the story about Natalie, now that I know what it really is. When she was just a girl who died that might have some connection to me, it was one thing. I’dneededanswers and, well—I’d found them. Now the thought of repeating all of that story over again makes my chest ache and my stomach tighten queasily.
“I got the coffee this time,” Mia says cheerily when I walk in. She’s snagged our usual corner chairs, far from prying ears, and there are two coffees and gingerbread cookies sitting on the table. Her notebook is flopped open on her lap, covered in math problems that she must have been working on while she waited for me. “Did you go see your mom?”
“Yeah, I did.” I reach for the coffee, taking a big sip of it to delay the inevitable. It’s pumpkin spice, which I’ve always thought was overrated. Still, I’d do anything to not have to start explaining the sad tale of my family and Natalie to Mia just yet.
“And?” Mia leans forward eagerly, clearly not about to let me off the hook. “Did you find anything out?”
“Yeah.” I let out a sigh, setting the coffee back down and reaching for a cookie. “She, um—well, she was my half-sister. Just like I thought.”
Mia’s mouth drops open a little at that. “Wait—really?”
I tell her the whole story, from beginning to end. There’s no point in leaving anything out, and besides, it’s not like my mom asked me to keep it a secret. Even if I felt like it should be, Mia isn’t going to tell anyone. She’s the best person on earth to tell a secret to.
When I’m finished, Mia is still staring at me, her face soft and sad now. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “That’s awful. And no one knows who was driving the car?”
I shake my head. “No. But it seems even more suspicious now. The family would have had a reason to want to get rid of her. They wouldn’t have wanted her with Jaxon. If their relationship got serious—it would have jeopardized the game. She couldn’t be a player in the game. She and Jaxon had almost certainly slept together by then, and anyway, he wouldn’t have stood for it. It would have broken the whole thing apart. So I’m guessing they did the only other thing they could.”
“They had her killed.” Mia looks pale. “Athena, this just keeps getting worse. Don’t you think—”
“That I should convince my mom to come with me and get the fuck out?” I sigh, running my fingers through my hair. “Of course I do. But it’s not possible. She wouldn’t believe me, and I don’t want to tell her half of what’s happened here. And besides, they can’t keep getting away with this. They just can’t.” I look at Mia levelly, my stomach churning with anger all over again after retelling the story.
“The game that I’ve played with Dean, Cayde, and Jaxon is going to be the last one ever played in this town.”
* * *
When I get backto the manor house, I feel off in every possible way. My conversation with Mia finished on a dead-end—we both agree this needs to be stopped. Still, neither of us has any real idea how to do that beyond what I’m already doing, sabotaging this from the inside. I know there will be some kind of ritual on Halloween, and if I’m expected to be present, that might be the time to make whatever move I’ve decided on. But I’ll need the boys on my side to succeed, fully. And while Dean and Cayde seem okay with sharing me and open to sharing the town, I’m not entirely sure how deep that runs yet. Will they defy their families completely? Promise that the game will never be played again? Unseat their fathers from power and take over, even holding them accountable for their crimes? And most of all, if I want to go—will they let me?
I know that telling Jaxon what I know about Natalie and my suspicions about her death might be enough to push him over the edge. Everything from him calling out her name that night we hooked up on the cliffside to him screaming out in his nightmares last night tells me that he’s anything but over her—and how could anyone blame him? I have a feeling if he knew everything, even just suspicions, he’d burn this whole fucking town down over it.
Which means he’s perfect for me.
Perfect for what I need to do.
But now I’m at an impasse.
Every step down this road with the boys has made me into a different person. I started out good, innocent, maybe a little damaged but still tough. And since I’ve been with them, I’ve started to want things I never knew I could. I’ve started to plot, to scheme, and I can feel myself disappearing into their darkness more and more with every step I take.
With Jaxon, I have a choice—leave him be, or pursue him until he finally gives in. Keep my suspicions about Natalie a secret, or tell him. And if I fuck him knowing what I know and don’t tell him—in my opinion, that’s a pretty shitty thing to do.
But if I tell him, he almost certainly won’t go to bed with me. In fact, he’ll probably do everything in his power to stay as far away from me as possible.
Trying to figure out what to do consumes me throughout all of dinner. I barely hear anything anyone says, except to catch that Cayde wants me to come to his room later. “To help with math homework,” he says, but I have a pretty good idea the only addition he’ll be doing is his body and mine.