Andreas’s expression goes sickly. “It wasn’t like that, not exactly. And it isn’t like that now.”
“It was exactly like that,” Jacob interjects, focusing on me again. “We had a little conversation right after we arrived at the college, while you were locked up in your room. I wanted to keep you out of our investigations, but Andreas insisted that we should get you involved so we could see if you’d give something away in the moment. He promised he’d convince you to trust him so you wouldn’t be as guarded.”
Pain lances right down the middle of me. My fingers flex at my sides, the tips aching around my claws.
“You argued in front of me about whether I should come along,” I say, my voice not much more than a rasp.
Jacob brings out his vicious smile again. “Yes, we did. We had to sell the idea in a way you’d believe. And it gave Drey his first chance to play your champion.”
They staged the whole conversation. Theyallknew.
My gaze jerks to Zian and to Dominic, and their tensed expressions confirm it. There isn’t a hint of surprise from either of them, only trepidation about how I’m going to react.
“Riva, I swear that has nothing to do with tonight or—or—” Andreas stumbles and then recovers. “I believe you. I realized we were wrong. I—”
“He’s very good at it, isn’t he?” Jacob interrupts. “Got you to let your hair down and everything.” He glances at Andreas. “You can stop now. I can’t see how you’ll get anything more out of her than you already have.”
“Will you shut the fuck up, Jake?” Andreas snaps, but my mind is already spinning back through our interlude in the basement.
He brought up Griffin. Told a story about guilty secrets. He prodded me about there being something I hadn’t told them about the night Griffin died.
That whole thing—the affection he offered, the supposed confessions he made—it was all to lull me into thinking I could open up.
Did he come up here and tell them just how very much I opened up to him? Jacob is talking as if he knows everything.
“Why would you— How could you—?” I don’t know how to voice the question that’s choking me. There’s a wail lodged in the base of my throat, expanding with a dull throbbing.
I loved you. All I ever did was love you, and you all…
Jacob narrows his eyes at me. “You actually think you deserve better?”
His sneering tone sparks a spurt of anger that sears up through my chest. It rattles through my ribs and grips hold of the vibration building at the back of my mouth.
My hand shoots up to close around my pendant. My thumb clicks the cat and yarn apart and together, apart and together, but the rhythm does nothing to settle the anguished fury that’s thrumming through my nerves, rising to a roar.
I could hurt them just as much as they’ve hurt me. I could tear them a-fucking-part.
I glance at Dominic and Zian again, my voice hoarse. “Are both of you okay with all of this? Really?”
Zian’s mouth opens and closes and opens again. “We needed to know—we needed to be sure…” he says weakly.
Dominic’s face has hardened with tension. “We’ve had to look out for ourselves.”
Themselves. The four of them together and me on the outside, where they’ve shoved me as hard as they can.
My teeth grit. The prickling vibration jabs its way up my throat.
No. I close my eyes, willing down the vicious urge that’s shaking me from the inside out. But I’m too raw, too churned up already. I can’t get a grip on it.
And Jacob’s voice follows me into the darkness behind my eyelids. “You don’t have to playourfriend anymore now. You’re not getting anywhere with that. So let’s see who you really are already.”
My lungs ache to scream right back at him, to show him what he’s daring me to do. To make him wish he never mocked and berated my misery.
No, no,no.
My thumb wrenches at my pendant again—and the joint cracks. The two pieces fall apart in my hand, the ball of yarn tumbling against my palm, the cat still dangling from the chain around my neck.
I broke it—Griffin’s necklace.