When he starts to angle his face toward mine, I lean away, though. “I care about you, too,” I say, my heart hammering in my ears. “But… I don’t know if it’s that way or not. It’s too complicated. I got attached to you when I was all fucked up. I felt safe.Youfelt safe. But it’s not the same…”
“Not the same way you feel about Royal,” he says, bitterness curling the edges of his words like frost.
“I don’t think you care about me that way, either,” I say. “You deserve more, Preston. You deserve to love someone in a big way, not just because you got attached or they’re comfortable. And you deserve someone who loves you back that way. I just don’t think it’s me.”
He scoffs and picks up his mask, pulling it back over the top half of his face. “Of course it’s not,” he says. “Look at me. And look at you.”
“Preston…” I reach out and touch his arm. “It’s not about how you look.”
“Right,” he says. “Well, I didn’t fuck your boyfriend, so I guess we can still be friends.”
“I’m sorry I had to ask you that,” I say. “I know you’re not into hurting people, but… Well, maybe he’s the exception. And in my defense, three years is a long time. I know I’m not the same person I was three years ago, and I bet you aren’t, either.”
“You could say that.”
I finish my wine and hand him the glass. “I don’t know what kind of person you were. To be honest, I’ve heard things that weren’t exactly complimentary.”
“Whatever you’ve heard, I’m sure it’s true,” he says. “Groomed in my grandfather’s image to take over the practice, just like Dad, because we were the most like him out of each generation.”
“If it makes any difference, I don’t think you’re like him,” I say. “And if you are, then he’s a damn good person.”
“He’s not a good person,” Preston says, picking up the rest of the food. “And neither am I. I’ve run your boyfriend off the road, vandalized his house to remind the neighborhood he’s corrupt, and fucked with their candy business. Want honesty? I wouldn’t give a fuck if he died. Hell, I’d throw a party. But I’m not his kind of monster.”
He finishes shoving the stuff roughly back into the bag and glares at me, like he’s pissed that I love that kind of monster instead of him.
“Maybe he wasn’t that kind of monster before your family did that to him,” I say quietly.
“Maybe you’re right,” he says, pulling out the rest of the contents of his bag. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there when Grandpa found Royal. I just know he took him to the Swans for the incoming pledges to beat up as part of their initiation, and it went too far. I don’t know who participated except one of my cousins.”
“Colt?” I ask, my throat going so dry I can’t swallow.
“No,” he says. “Colt was already a Swan. Sullivan was in the upcoming class who would have been freshmen the next year, though.”
“The one you said was obsessed with Royal’s dick.”
“I said he was fucked up enough to ask that kind of thing,” Preston corrects. “He was a fucking kid, and our grandfather isn’t a person who takes no for an answer. So yeah, he participated, but it completely screwed him up. He’s been in and out of psych wards ever since. As for the others, I assume my grandfather, maybe my father, and possibly a couple other Swan pledges or alumni. Any of the current members who are juniors or seniors could have been there. But they’ll never tell you. It’s not something you talk about, even if there wasn’t an oath.”
“Bound together by a shameful act,” I say, remembering the words from the Midnight Swans book. I don’t want to think about the Swan members who could have been there—the Dolce boys’ friends are seniors.
Preston tugs on the blanket, and I stand. I’ve avoided thinking about where we are, but now I stare at the bark of the tree, and it’s like I can still feel it. I can feel the unforgiving hardness, the roughness against my bare chest when they shoved me against it. I thought I’d die here.
I reach out and run my fingertips over the rough, cool surface of the trunk. I look for blood in the crevices in the bark, but there’s nothing, no sign marking this tree as different from the others. When I look up, though, I can see a line where some of the bark is rubbed away, where the rope was wrapped around. I dragged and yanked on it until pieces of bark came away, and it didn’t grow back. It’s just the outer layer, not noticeable if you aren’t looking. But it’s there.
Another shiver rolls through me, and I’m grateful for Preston’s company. I step against the tree, lifting my hands to touch the damage I caused, so minimal it’s almost invisible. I remember how insignificant I felt, the raw fury of helplessness as I hung here. And I remember the moment I realized I couldn’t get free, that I would die there.
Something in me did die.
I squeeze my eyes closed and press my forehead to the tree’s trunk. I remember the burn deep into my skin when Duke fucking branded me, proud of the notch he was adding to his belt. I was desperate, panicking, terrified for my life to be over, and he didn’t even worry about repercussions. He was so arrogant he didn’t even consider there would be consequences if I was found with a new brand burned into me. He was proud of what they’d done to me, and he wanted to show it, like he secretly wanted someone to find me so he could boast about it. Maybe that’s the real reason they brought Dawson. So someone could admire their cleverness, their savagery.
And Baron… Baron didn’t worry, either. He didn’t want me to be found, and he knew I wouldn’t be. He made sure to tie good knots, like a Boy Scout. He made sure I couldn’t scream, knowing no one would come here for years. They even talked about it at the end of the night.
“Are we supposed to kill her now?” Duke asked when they were packing up to go. His voice was slurred and quiet. I heard a click, and I thought it must be a gun, that they were going to finish me off after all the torture. I always said they’d kill me if they found out about Mr. D. And yet, it didn’t feel real. I didn’t truly believe it until that moment. I’d endured it all for nothing.
“Royal said to leave her,” Baron said. “She’ll die out here in a couple days. No one would hear her even if she could scream, and she can’t.”
He’d made sure of that. I could barely breathe through the thick, wet hood he’d tied into my mouth. I’d tried to scream, at the end, when they both used me at the same time. I could barely croak out a sound now.
“What if someone working smells her once she’s dead?” asked another guy, a stranger at the time. Now I know it was Dawson. “I came in her. Our DNA is all over her.”