Page 69 of The Truths We Burn

“If you want out of here, then you’re going to go back to Hollow Heights and work for us. You’re going get them to trust you and figure out their plan. You’ll be providing us the evidence we need to convict them, and then you’re done. You’re free to do whatever you want with your life. We can help each other here,” he offers, bribing me with freedom that I no longer want.

“I’m not helping you. I’ve accepted my fate of staying here.”

The pressure becomes too much. He stands abruptly, the chair squealing and nurses looking at him oddly. He tries to smile at them, but he’s too annoyed to do damage control.

He walks to me, wrapping his arms around my body and pulling me into his chest, a one-sided hug that makes me want to puke all over his shirt.

“Then we will pull you out, and I put you up for auction,” he grits out, tone low and dangerous. “Either way you will cooperate. Aid us in our investigation, or I’ll sell you dirt cheap to the ones who don’t care about what the girls look like. Ones that only care for the torture. The choice is yours.”

This could be it.

My path for avenging Rose.

All I have to do is act, pretend, fool them into believing I’m cooperating.

When in reality, I have the chance to work with four people just as resentful. I have the opportunity to help them, to help Rosie.

The only problem is…

“He’s not going to trust me. He is never going to trust me.”

“You’re a clever girl, Sage. Figure it out.”

Rook

Patience has never been my virtue.

I’ve never actively had a virtue, if I’m being honest. I relate more towards the opposing side that includes things such as lust, wrath, and pride.

Waiting is something I loathe. I’m an animal that works on instinct and adrenaline. Someone who doesn’t pause to think about the action, just operates on the primal urge to destroy things.

However, my first semester at college has taught me less about chemical equations and more about when planning a string of murders and assaults, waiting is key.

Especially now.

We all knew once this started, there was no stopping until every single person who was involved in Rosie’s death was bleeding out or ripped to pieces. We also knew the danger, the consequences that came with that.

The FBI has been sniffing around hard as of late, asking questions, gathering intel. They’d yet to interview or pull any of us in, but we aren’t stupid. We know what this town thinks of us, and when asked the question,“Who do you think is capable of murder?”everyone’s answer would be us. It’s the reputation we’ve built up over the years that both helps and hurts us.

Even with the rise in police awareness, I still don’t care.

For almost a year, I’d watched my best friend become more and more like a corpse. Silas was never super lively to begin with, but we all knew there was something inside, more to him than he let on.

Now, all of it is gone.

Wrenched straight from his soul and shredded in a blender.

I bite the inside of my raw cheek, trying not to remember what those first few months were like. The ones where he refused to leave his room and I spent days lying on the floor outside his door.

When I could hear his mother crying, terrified of losing her oldest son to suicide because the light inside of him had died.

I didn’t even have time to mourn Rose.

Not in the way I wanted to.

I was so busy trying to keep Silas alive that I hadn’t fully accepted the fact she was gone. That she had been taken from him, as well as me. From all of us.

There was no one else to call me RVD and no one’s hair I could ruffle.