Page 113 of Stand: Part One

“Well…after nearly strangling me to death?—”

“That much is obvious,” Sid deadpanned.

My glare shot up at his interruption. Was it really that obvious?

“He took me back into the basement.”

Sid stood silent for a moment, but his eyes were so loud I didn’t even need to look his way. I could feel him studying me up and down for other visible injuries, but the only one that mattered was the one still festering inside my head.

“Why?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and admitted my crime. “I lied to him.”

He cocked a confused brow. “Must have been one hell of a lie to warrant that kind of reaction.”

I nodded.

“Why did you lie?”

I paused, wondering how careful I should be. “To protect a friend.”

Sid frowned. “You don’t have friends, Jaden. You know this.”

I nodded slowly in agreement. I didn’t have friends, not in this world at least. Not anymore. But at that particular moment, I had something worth protecting, friend or not. And I made my choice.

“How long were you down there?”

I shrugged, then grimaced, my back still aching from Darren’s onslaught. “Maybe eighteen hours, give or take.”

It wasn’t like Darren had just automatically released me from my trauma-inducing confinement. The results of his objective had to be cemented in at least two more times before he was convinced that my performance was genuine enough to fall for.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had spent that many hours in his arms like that, reciprocating the tenderness and passion he tried to suffocate me with. And when the last of my energy had been spent on reinforcing his gratification, I woke up to the blissful relief of my dog licking my face in our bedroom.

Sid’s eyes sharpened as he watched me reminisce. “That’s much shorter than I would have expected.”

Apparently, I was a better liar than I thought.

I nodded. “I did what I had to in order to get out.”

“And what was that?”

A kind of liquid fury settled in my veins as I recalled what it felt like to hang myself with those three little words. What it felt like to choke to death on them. And it gave me the strength to finally meet Sid’s gaze.

“A lie got me in there. So Darren thought it fitting that only a lie could get me out,” I said, keeping my eyes trained on him, ignoring the pain in my throat. “But I had to make him believe it.”

His jaw started to clench, his lips folding into a thin line as his brain began firing off potential lies that Darren might favor. But there was only one true conclusion.

“What did you tell him, Jaden?” he asked, his voice suddenly becoming rough and raspy.

My fingers subconsciously glided over the wedding rings on my left finger. Those bands that wrapped tightly around my skin and bones were the catalysts for the entire shitstorm I’d recently endured.

If I hadn’t sent Kayla off with them, would Darren have had the same suspicions? Would he have ever really known? I doubted it, which made the whole situation entirely my fault.

“I told him exactly what he wanted to hear,” I replied, my voice grave. “What he’s always wanted to hear.”

Sid visibly tensed, worry glossing across his eyes.

I lowered my gaze and nodded. “That I loved him.”