“Then you stole security footage and leaked it outside. Oh, and you invited Glyndon to the initiation through the internal panel with Gareth’s access.”
A fact that he admitted to me after I brought a battered Glyndon with me to the house. Apparently, he’d wanted to tell me this on the plane since he had his suspicions about who might have access to internal security records.
Jeremy and Nikolai’s guards are more loyal than dogs since they were with their fathers for years. Those two are out.
So the most probable people are those from the club.
And the one Gareth has been getting in bed with is none other than the manipulative, on-crack Cherry.
We were able to fill in the blanks after that.
Cherry starts crying, her chin trembling and her eyes red. If I could give a fuck, it’d almost feel real.
Almost.
“I didn’t want to,” she sobs. “He…he made me do it. He knows about my drug addiction and if I didn’t cooperate, he was going to tell Dad, who would lock me up in some rehab facility. I swear I didn’t know he’d hurt Glyndon like that. I swear.”
I yawn. “Tell that to someone who cares.”
“Gareth.” She grabs his arm with desperation bleeding in her voice, knowing full well he’s the only one who’ll be able to get her out of this. It surely isn’t me. “I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t had to. You have to believe me.”
He removes her hand and slings it away. “You used me once. Never again.”
“Gareth, please. I love you.”
“No, you don’t,” Gareth says with a half-smile. “I was just a substitute for Kill. You don’t even love him. You love the idea of him and the feelings of grandiosity it gives you.”
“That’s not true, I swear—”
“Shut the fuck up. Your whining is getting on my last fucking nerve and that’s not playing in your favor, Cherry.” I tilt my head. “You know what will? Giving me a name and a recount of events.”
She sneers, all pitiful-girl act vanished. “You’ll hurt me anyway, so why should I tell you?”
“At least you’re smart enough to figure that out. Keep up that energy and tell me what I want. There’s a huge difference between being sent to rehab and being sent to an unknown place, say underground, where you’ll slowly but surely go fucking mad and start eating your own shit. Oh, and I’ll make sure there are no guards you can seduce.”
Her lips tremble, an ugly expression taking over her face. “Why her and not me? I came first, I had youfirst.”
“Beats me. Probably the face. Hers is better than yours, even when bruised. And the voice. Glyndon’s is the sweetest I’ve ever heard. You know what? Everything. She has the aura of a queen while you’ll always be a lowly peasant, Cherry. When I looked at you in the past, I used to feel indifference, but now, I have this urge to crush your fucking skull, so tell me what I want before I start acting on those feelings.”
It takes her a few moments of futile struggling before she lays the whole situation out. From how she got close to Gareth and connived to be accepted into the Heathens to how she helped her brother receive an invitation the second time around. Obviously, he’s the one who shot at me with that arrow, and she tried to stop him.
She also tells me about the threatening text messages he kept sending to Glyndon all this time to keep her on the edge.
Her word vomit goes on and on about how her brother used to control her and blah fucking blah.
Then she mentions the name that makes me see even more red than earlier. Devlin Starlight.
The supposedly dead Devlin. I knew that motherfucker wasn’t the type who would commit suicide. He had too much destructive energy to fit a self-harming concept such as finishing his life.
I’m not easily surprised—if ever—but I was when I heard the news of his death. Which is why I constantly visited that cliff just to see that death up close.
I met a fucking angel instead.
Now that I know of his actions, I assume that his plan all along was to get me interested in Glyndon. The way he talked about his ‘best friend' was filled with the right adjectives.
Innocent, sheltered, a princess.
Or the last thing he mentioned.