Page 56 of Cry Madness
Nodding, I say, “Right down to that left eyeball hanging out of the socket.”
Maddox stares at the painting in silence for so long that the silence becomes uncomfortable. Long enough for the windows to fog and for me to start the car and turn on the air conditioning to dehumidify the air in here…
…and to cool it down from the furious heat radiating off Maddox’s body.
Finally—finally—he lowers the painting, and in the amber abyss of his eyes are twin flames of wrath. “Before, I wanted to kill the bastard quick. Get rid of him. Not make a huge mess. Now? I’m going to have so much fun torturing him.”
“I should be appalled,” I tell him. “I shouldn’t want you to do that.”
“Wouldn’t matter,” he declares, his tone harsh. “This is gonna happen with or without your blessing, Alice.”
I gaze down at my hands, wringing my fingers. “I know,” I whisper. When I lift my gaze to look back at him, I meet his unflinching stare. “And yet you have it anyway.” I swallow hard, pushing the lump in my throat to my gut. “He can’t be allowed to do what he did to me—or worse—to anyone else.”
“Trust me, Malice, by the time I’m done with him, he won’t be able to hurt anyone—ever.” Maddox leans toward me and cups my chin. He seals his oath with a kiss, and I know nothing—not Rook, Scarlett, or even my own demons—will ever hurt me as long as this man has even a single breath in his body.
NINETEEN
“How long is forever?”
—Alice,Alice in Wonderland
Yesterday was a whirlwind, and I never did get a chance to call Ivory. But she’s here now, and one thing I’ve come to learn about harboring secrets is that the longer they remain buried, the worse they rot. And the Rook situation had become a festering wound, but the sore was lanced when Scarlett told Maddox. Now, with the infection drained, I can finally heal.
Sitting cross-legged on my bed, hugging a pillow, I keep my eyes downcast as I tell Ivory everything, leaving out nothing. She’s angry, of course, because I kept her in the dark while I was being stalked by a lunatic hell-bent on terrorizing me. And she listens, quietly crying through most of it—as only a best friend would. That Maddox knew before her didn’t bother her. When I told her that Scarlettknew…
That’s the slap to her face.
“I didn’t tell her, I swear,” I assure Ivory.
“No, but you should have told me. That’s what best friends do. They trust each other.”
“You’re right, I should have,” I admit. “I guess I got real good at keeping everyone out that…” I lift my shoulders in a slow, defeated shrug. “I forgot there are people who care about me.”
“Oh, my God, that’s a bullshit excuse, and I’m sorry, Alice, but I’m done tiptoeing around you.”
Taken aback, I say, “No one said you had to!”
“Of course you didn’t, but that’s what we’ve done anyway because…”
“Because you’re all afraid I’m fragile. Well, I’m not. What happened was an accident. A one-time accident, and I wish everyone would just stop. I didn’t try to kill myself on purpose.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No!” I insist for the billionth time since that day I accidentally took too many of my mother’s painkillers. “And you, of all people, should know better.”
“But that’s the problem, Alice. I don’t know better.” Ivory hops off the bed and paces the room. “I barely know you at all anymore.”
“What? That’s not true!”
She stops, throws her hands in the air, and then brings them down hard, slapping her thighs. “Seriously? How can you sit there and deny that you’ve walled yourself off?”
Softly, I say, “I’m not denying it. But?—”
“But what?” she demands.
“I don’t know,” I whisper, utterly defeated.
This isn’t going as planned, I guess. But then, I’m not sure how I expected this to go at all, honestly. I expected anger andhurt, but not for the subject to flip entirely. To swing right instead of left, landing squarely on The Accident rather than staying on Rook.