Page 45 of Her Wicked Knights (Their Hallowed Queen #3)

"What you don't realize, puppet," Whit says, "Is that you're sick too. You'll figure it out one day. And I'll be waiting for you when you do."

He seizes her wrist and wraps the belt around it before she can even try to wrench free, and then he twists it behind her back, forcing the other one in before yanking on the sack so that she's stuck, unable to get her hands free. She's horrified, but I'm relieved when he stands and steps away.

"What did we do to you?" Marley cries.

"You?" Whit laughs. "Sweet, innocent Marley. Don't you see? This is all for you."

He snags the fabric sash from his costume and uses it to blindfold Marley, wrapping it around her head and obscuring her vision.

But he doesn't stop there... he's clearly done something like this before, or at least imagined it, because he doesn't hesitate to knot it around the back of her head before taking the slack and tying it again around her mouth so that it acts like a gag he ties around her neck.

And even then, he ties it to the belt around her bound wrists, making escape impossible because each tug on her wrists will only tighten the fabric around her neck.

It's not enough to strangle her, I'm sure, but it would be horrifying all the same, and I don't think she knows that his plan is not to kill her.

It takes everything in me not to fall to my knees and free her or slip my jacket off and drape it over her shoulders so that I can cover her and offer her a little dignity. But Colton's eyes stare at me in warning, and Rev pushes me toward the door.

I don't fight them. I just go, moving numbly to the door, and then, when we slip out into the dark night, I break out into a run.

I expected something more. I thought Whit would hold court and gather us so that we could talk about what's next.

I thought we'd convene and make plans or reinforce our alibis.

But we only clean up quickly in the locker room and leave, slipping out of the park the same way we came in.

And surrounded by dozens of other scare actors heading home for the night, we blend right in.

But my head is back in the last room of the haunted house, thinking about Marley, sitting there alone in the dark, tied up and blindfolded, exposed to whoever will walk in and find her there next to a dead body.

Instead, Whit told everyone to split up, to go home and act like everything was fine.

Everything is not fine, and Colton, and Rev at least recognize that.

We sit in the back of the parking lot, where other cars have been left to wait out the night from guests who decided to take a rideshare home and avoid drunk driving.

We watch as the police and ambulance lights cut through the dark night, the red and blue lighting up the darkness as they race toward the park, which is dark.

Most of the employees were gone by the time security would have done its final rounds and shut everything down for the night, but the lights on the Ferris wheel where Rev and I had our first kiss not even eight hours ago are dark, and everything about today feels tainted.

"We're useless to help her if we got ourselves killed trying to be a hero.

" Rev reasons. He's always the most logical of us.

Colton reacts with a hot head, impulsive and brash most of the time, but he knew we couldn't do anything to keep her from suffering.

I'm the most emotional, prone to letting my feelings push me toward reacting. It’s why I'm still gutted, my stomach twisted into about fifty knots as I think of how scared she must have been.

How scared she must still be. But the first responders are here, and as they rush in through the vehicular path to get as close to where we left her, I know that means they found her. She's safe.

We can fix this for her. We can make it better. We have to, because there's no other choice. Tolerating what we did was wrong, but it was the only way to keep her safe. I know that, as much as I hate it. Whit is unhinged; there's more than a few screws loose in his head.

I don't know what comes next, but we'd better figure it out soon, because I don't trust him after all that. I barely trusted him before all that.

We've sat in silence for a while before I can't handle it anymore.

"Shouldn't they have brought her out by now?"

"She's a witness." Colton says calmly. "They're going to question her, investigate her, scrutinize her. It'll take some time."

I nod, and we fall silent again, each of us lost in our own thoughts as the radio plays quietly in the background.

"Shit." Rev says after a while, pointing his phone toward us so that I can see the headline. "Murder at Halloween Terror Nights."

"So, the story broke." Colton nods. "News vans will be here soon to swarm this place."

"This is so fucked." Rev laughs, a humorless sound as he dips his head, letting it rest between his hands on the steering wheel.

"Which part?" I prompt. "The one where we watched him assault her and did nothing about it or the part where we left her tied up next to a dead body in a puddle of blood?"

"Tripp..." Colton warns, "get over it."

"Get over it?" I laugh, and mine is a humorous one. Because what Colton said is actually funny.

Get over it.

"No, sorry. I can't just get over the fact that we let her be used like a fucking lamb for slaughter. You have any idea what this is going to do to her? That's traumatic, Colton. Layers of trauma, like a rotten fucking onion. This is going to ruin her."

"Maybe she needed ruined." Colton argues, far too easily for my liking.

I turn in my seat to glare at him where he sits in the middle, his knees spread so that one leg is behind the driver's seat, and the other is behind mine. He looks so calm, completely unbothered by everything that just happened.

"She needed ruined?"

"Part of her did." Colton doubles down. "I mean, she's been different since her parents. Reckless, like she wants a collision."

"Makes sense." Rev says.

We haven't spent nearly as much time with her as I'd have like to lately, so I'm not sure what Rev is talking about.

"When you're grasping for control, you'll grab hold of anything, destructive or not."

I'm about to ask him how he knows when I remember how he was a few months ago, after Whit slipped into his mind and controlled him.

Rev was reckless then too, drinking so much that I found him half-dead in a fucking bar outside of town.

He was hurting, and I was helpless to stop it, and he tried to numb the pain. Is that what it's been like for Marley?

I've tried to be there for her in the wake of her parents' death, but it almost feels like Jake and Audrey closed ranks more than ever in the wake of those murders.

They sunk their hooks deeper into Marley, pushing us out, and she was hurting so she held tight to them.

Except for, maybe Jake hung on too tight, because she kicked him to the curb months ago.

And without him, I think she relied on Audrey even more.

I've been a shitty friend for not trying harder, for not fighting for her. I accepted too easily that she didn't need me, but when you're struggling, you need all the support you can get.

It's quiet as I resolve that I'll never fail her like that again.

It's quiet as the flashing lights stop flashing and turn solid.

It's quiet... until Colton's phone begins ringing.

His face goes blank when he looks at the screen, but he rushes to answer. "Marley?"

Rev's hand slips over mine as the gut punch hits me hard. The realization that she called him, that he's the first person she wanted to talk to after all of that, is like a blade to the chest, threatening to cut me right down the middle and let me bleed slowly to death.

It's quiet as I watch him in the rearview mirror, listening to whatever she's saying. I can't hear anything from here, and he doesn't speak other than to say, "I'm on my way."

When he ends the call, his eyes find mine in the rearview, but they're not victorious, like I expected them to be. He looks almost ashamed.

"She called you." I say, voicing out loud what we've all already been thinking.

"Because Audrey was my girlfriend, and she's dead. Marley wants to tell me in person."

I swallow back my response, because we all know it's something more than that.

While it's true that she has to be the one to 'break the news' about Audrey, there's no way that's the only reason she chose to call him first..

. not after something like that. After what Whit put her through, she needs someone who's going to make her feel safe.

She called Colton, and it tells me all I need to know about how much she needs me.

I push Rev's hand off of my own as Colton rakes his through his hair, blowing out a sigh.

"Time to dust off those theater skills, Colt." I tell him. "You've got a show to put on."

Colton nods, letting his hand drop and staring at the phone in his other one. "Yeah." He nods again, and I can tell he's hanging by a thread.

As much as I resent him for being the one she reached out to, I need him to quit spiraling. Marley needs him.

"Hey." I say, turning to look at him. "Get over it."

He doesn't even seem to realize I just threw his own words back at him; he only blinks at me.

"You don't get to fall apart. Not now, not with her.

You get that, right? She called you, Colt.

She needs you to help her right now, so you're not going to spiral like this, okay?

You're going to get your ass out of this car, you're gonna go to her, and you're going to be exactly the person she needs right now.

You can do that, after what we did to her, what we let happen. "

His eyes scan mine, but he's quiet, so I prompt him. "Got it?"

"Yeah." He swallows, and the doubt that was on his face seconds before disappears, replaced with determination. "I've got this."

He gets out of the car and ducks down to look back at us. "Keep your phone close. I'll keep you updated."

But he doesn't have to say as much. I'm not stepping away from my phone, just in case she decides she needs me too. And even if she doesn't, I'll be here... waiting until she does.