Page 115 of Heartless Heathens

I grumbled something while turning up the music and pulling out of the campus parking lot. My mind was a clusterfuck of chaotic thoughts all spinning around the same damn thing.

Her.

I couldn’t let him be the one who told her. It felt too wrong.

“Fuck!” I slammed my hands against the steering wheel and called Corvin.

“Pull over,” I told him and hung up.

“What are you doing?” Felix asked me.

“He’s going to tell her. I can’t let her find out this way,” I told him, seeing where Corvin had pulled off and they both waited on the side of the road.

She was perched on his bike, smiling at him. She looked so carefree. So natural on her face and I didn’t feel better about the fact I’d be the one to ruin it. I barely turned the car off before I unbuckled and jumped out of it.

“I can’t let him be the one who tells you. He doesn’t even fucking know you,” I told her and she frowned at me.

“Who? Tell me what?”

“Arlan Black,” I told her, Felix got out of the car as well and Corvin scratched the back of his head and kicked away from his bike. “He’s gonna tell you, and you deserve to hear it from someone you know.”

“Tell me what?” she asked again, the V creasing into the middle of her forehead even deeper.

“Arlan. He’s your grandfather.”

She looked dumbstruck. Like I’d sucked all the air out of her lungs.

“H-how is that possible?” She glanced around at all three of us, waiting to see who would answer first.

“Your mother, her name was Korina Black. She disappeared nineteen years ago. She was Arlan Black’s daughter. The same man who raised me.”

I could see the destruction happening inside her.

“Take me home, Corvin.” Her voice was so devoid of emotion I hardly recognized it.

He looked at me but when I stared at the blank expression on her face, I knew I had no right to ask anything of her, let alone demand it. Arlan would have to wait. I nodded to him and they both got back on the bike.

I kicked a pile of dirt before crouching on the ground and letting out a throaty yell.

Thedrowningwashappeninginside my own mind. I couldn’t tell how long it took to get back to the chapel. All of a sudden I was there, sitting on the couch again with three men gazing down at me.

They were waiting for me.

Waiting for me to say something, to tell them that I was okay.

But I wasn’t.

I didn’t think I would ever be okay again.

This was the closest I’d ever gotten to know who I was, where I came from. And in the end the only men I trusted had known the whole time. Was I a sick joke to every person who passed me around? Had they planned this with Frollo from the beginning?

“I-I need air.” I stood up and they surrounded me, “I need to be alone…I think.” I refused to meet any of their gazes.

The oxygen felt thick surrounding us and I couldn’t face any of them. Not right now. I knew looking at them would only put cracks in my resolve and I’d crumble. I knew I couldn’t hold my own against any of them, let alone all three of them.

I needed to feel my rage and I needed to go through it without any of them trying to talk me into reason. I didn’t need a reason.

What did it ever do for me before?