Page 57 of Overdose

I glance down then everything in me stops.

Brynn.

And Noir.

Mouths smashed together. Her fingers twisted in his shirt. His hand on her throat like he owned her.

“You fucking knew her,” Blair spits.

My head snaps up.

Her eyes blaze. Not the usual bratty gleam, no, this is betrayal. This is the kind of rage that doesn’t scream. It carves. Cold and surgical.

Link’s standing nearby. The moment those words leave Blair’s mouth, he shifts like someone pressed a blade to his spine.

“Ah shit,” he mutters under his breath, already turning. “I’ll go settle the Uber.”

“Blair—” I start, but she’s already moving.

“Don’t you fucking Blair me,” she snaps. “You knew. This whole time, you fucking knew, and you didn’t say a goddamn thing.”

“Keep your voice down,” I growl.

“Why? Embarrassed? Or you just don’t want your little crew to know how deep your lies go?”

I grab her wrist—not hard, but firm. Grounding. Controlling.

“We’re not doing this out here.”

She yanks against my grip.

“Fuck you! I don’t want to go anywhere you with!”

“Too fucking bad.”

I pull her with me, not giving her the chance to bolt. My boots hammer down the hallway. I don’t care who sees. I don’t care who hears. My pulse is pounding, my blood’s on fire, and everything I didn’t want to face is suddenly exploding in my goddamn hands.

I shove open the door to my room and drag her inside.

She stumbles, glares, yanks her arm back. “You don’t get to manhandle me like I’m some fucking problem to put away in a closet?—”

“Sit the fuck down.”

“No.”

I step forward, and she lifts her chin like she’s daring me to try her. God, she’s so fucking defiant it kills me. She’s not just mad, she’s wounded. Raw. She looks like she clawed her way through hell just to scream in my face.

I run a hand through my hair, then shove it into my pocket, pulling out the Polaroid.

I should’ve burned this shit the second it happened. But that wouldn’t have fixed anything.

Because this? This is the truth. The one I tried to keep from her.

But now?

Now it’s time she knew.

I exhale hard handing her the polaroid before dragging a chair out from the small table in the middle of the room, the legs scraping across the concrete floor. I sit, steadying myself. Not because I’m calm. But because I need to say this straight, without pacing or punching a wall.