Page 41 of Cry Madness

All that fiery rage flies right out of her. Just. Like. That. And when she drops her phone and steps back, I follow, not allowing her to put any more space or walls between us. “She told you, didn’t she?”

I slowly nod, adding, “But I want to hear it from you.”

“Scarlett had no right to tell you my business.”

“Like I give a shit about her talking about you behind your back. Question is, why didn’tyoutell me?”

“Because Rook was my problem to solve, not yours.” Her tortured wail rips a hole in my heart.

I grab her by the shoulders and yank her even closer, until our noses practically scrape. “That’s a hell of a thing to say to me.”

She swallows hard enough for me to hear the torment skid down her throat. “I was handling it.”

“Really?” I scoff. “How well were you handling it when you had to run back home?”

“I didn’thaveto,” she declares. “I chose to return. Big difference.”

“Bull. Shit,” I growl. “You came back because you were scared.”

“I did have things under control,” she insists, the last word breaking on a sob.Goddamn it.Her tears instantly siphon the anger out of me. “Until I didn’t.”

I wrap my arms around her, her body trembling against mine. “What happened, Alice?”

“Things spun out of control,” she confesses.

Smoothing a hand over her hair, I rest my chin on her head. “You should have called me, Alice. I would have protected you. I would have put that piece of shit in the fucking grave where he belongs.”

“I didn’t think I needed protection. I didn’t think the situation was as bad as it was until everything spiraled.” She leans away and wipes the wet from her cheeks. “And I was going to call you. I thought about it at least a thousand times. But…” She lowers her voice. “I didn’t want to be the reason you killed a man.”

The air I drag into my lungs is saturated with her floral shampoo, exhaling it with a bitter laugh. “You act like I’ve never taken a life before.”

Probably not the best thing to say right now, but Alice already knows the worst of me. She knows my ugliest secrets.

“Never because of me.” Her whisper is soft, brittle. It crumbles around us. “God, Maddox, you have no idea how badly I wanted to call you. I wanted to tell you what was happening, but so much time had passed since we last talked, and then I camehome and… Seeing you made me remember… It brought it all back, all the pain and all the grief. I got mad all over again, not at you. God, Maddox, never at you, but at life, and how unfair it is that every time I looked at you, I had to be reminded of the night my dad died.”

The last time Alice was this vulnerable, this raw, was the day after she tried to commit suicide, when she begged me to understand and not be angry with her. I left my heart at her feet that day, and now, in our maze, I feel like we’ve come full circle. Her eyes shine with more unshed tears, and in those haunting blue depths, a world of hope is buried beneath the pain she’s been carrying all these years.

“Do you still see death when you look at me?”

“No.”

Thank God.

“Don’t ever shut me out again.”

She shakes her head again, and this time, when fresh tears flow, I’m the one who wipes them away. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? Being human? Fuck, Alice, you’re allowed to grieve and to hurt and to have to work through your shit.” I take her hand and lead her to the juniper tree—our tree—and sit under it, pulling her between my legs, her back to my chest, to cradle her in my arms. “Tell me what happened in Riverton, baby.”

She pulls in a trembling breath, settling against me. “Everything was a whirlwind. Professor Duke’s work was part of an exhibit at the Godstow Gallery. His students went to see it, of course, to lend him our support. Rook was there. Rook Knavish.”

Hearing the fucker’s name twists my gut into a tight fucking knot.

“He was handsome and charming. All the girls noticed him.” She pauses. Shrugs again. “I wasn’t impressed by his charisma. It felt fake. Everything about him seemed off, and not in the stereotypical eccentric artist way.” Her small laugh doesn’t hold a trace of genuine humor. “After that night, I saw him everywhere. The first time was at the grocery store. Then I bumped into him while leaving a movie theater. Riverton is small, so I didn’t think it was weird. But when he started popping up at Krobes, that’s when I knew.”

“Knew what?” The question is raw, pulled from a primal part of myself that has the overwhelming need to kill this motherfucker.

“He was stalking me.”