Page 179

It's the ultimate con. And here you are—alone in a jail cell, ready to die. Declan's very favorite thing, next only to stabbing women until their torsos are torn to ribbons. You told him he'd never get that from you, and he said, 'Watch me.'

Luca is alive.

Luca is dead.

Brady and Rhett are definitely dead.

They'll send someone for me soon.

I'm going to rot away in here for the rest of my life.

Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Someone slides a tray with breakfast into my cell. That means they'll start in on me again soon. They haven't ever let me rest for this long. Even if they aren't interrogating me, they leave me there in that room, hoping it'll drive me insane.

But I've been crazy for a very long time. And now, I'm something else—I'm broken—because Declan told me we were the same, and they woke up something inside of me that had been sleeping for a long time and showed me what my life could look like if I were loved.

If I were free.

And now, I'd do anything to put it back to sleep.

The sheer agony is overwhelming. I thought I knew pain. I thought I knew it like an old friend or like the bridges of the songs I used to scream to get through my loneliest days. I never even minded it because before I knew love, it was the only thing I had to remind me I was still alive. I'd lie in bed at night and flip through the mental Rolodex of my worst memories and think,You feel that? You're human. See how it hurts?

But god, I didn't know. I didn't know how it could hurt.

They found four bodies on the property. They demanded to know what I knew about them, but I insisted that I barely knew any of these people—that I just met them, and I'd never seen them violent.

I told them met a girl named Layla briefly, but I don't remember her. I don't know anything about anyone named Heidi, and I've never seen her sister.

They tell me that River and Hazel told them everything, that they got to go home, and I could go home, too, if I'd just tell the truth like they did.

But I don't believe them. There is no version of the truth River and Hazel could tell them that would have them promising to sendmehome. And they'd never do it.

"All we want is the truth," they say over and over again. "Tell us what the De Rossi brothers did to those girls. Tell us who the men in the masks were."

"I don't know," I've told them repeatedly. "I don't know what happened to any of those people, I didn't know we were going to an airport until we were already there. I was never told where the plane was going. I don't know who the men in the masks were. I'd never seen them before, and they never even spoke."

How long can they just keep me here? I know there are laws about this.

I get off the bed and grab the piece of dry, white bread toast from the tray, forcing it down. I know I need to eat; I know I'm hungry, but it's almost impossible to chew and swallow food when it's taking all of my energy just to continue existing against my own will.

"Townsend, show me your hands."

Hunched over the tray on my bunk, I turn and face the female officer, holding my hands up next to my head.

"Drop it," she says.

"Um…it's toast. You gave it to me."

"Drop it anyway and walk slowly to the door with your hands out in front of you."

But I know this game already. I walk to the door and wait for her to cuff me through the bars, and then she opens it and takes me back to the interrogation room.

Except this time, there's a man in a jacket with FBI written across the front waiting for me.

"Teagan Townsend," he says. "I'm Agent Morris. And I need you to tell me what you know about the De Rossis and their association with The Order of the Red Hand."

"The fucking what?" I ask. "What's that? Another band or something?"