Page 17 of Treasured by Them (Rose and Dagger #3)

Edmund

I wonder if that shitshow of a conversation at Rendsell accomplished anything. My grandfather was quietly furious. My father vocally furious.

I’m somewhere in between. How dare Tate Vorsong show up at Vice and touch Danica, much less talk to her.

When I get him alone, I will take great pleasure in plucking every finger from the hand that touched my bride. I’d feed them to Arky, but Arky deserves better than anything associated with the Vorsongs.

Now back at the penthouse, I take a glass of scotch to the balcony and look out over the city. The Salding district is my home, always has been. It’s the best of San Esteban. Maybe not the most polished, maybe not the most coveted neighborhood.

But it’s mine .

The alcohol is sharp yet smooth over my tongue. Faint sounds of traffic float up from the street below. If I squint hard, I can see a star or two above me. They’re more likely airplane lights, but I’d rather think they’re stars.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I hope it’s Danica. I’m a fool for this girl, and I don’t even care.

Sure enough, she texted. Hey, I’m going to bed. I hope your day was good. I did some reading and journaling. Goodnight. ILY.

I stare at the message. It’s a lot more generic than what she usually writes. In fact, it doesn’t sound like her at all.

Still, I might not have noticed. Except for that final part. ILY .

I write back, Where are you? Still at the cabin?

No response.

Maybe she was just messing with me. She is a brat, after all. Would it be like her to complain over me using text shorthand, and then she turns around and does the very same thing?

No. No, it would not.

Panic threatens to choke me. I’ll burn down the whole world, myself in it, if something has happened to her.

My father’s voice echoes in my head. You always feel too goddamn much .

I can’t help it. This is Danica . With her impish smile, her intelligent eyes, her insatiable lust for life, her incredible kindness.

Her endearing hatred of abbreviated text speak.

ILY isn’t her saying she loves me. She’d never write it like that. Especially when she hasn’t said the words out loud to me first.

Something in my gut tells me she isn’t joking around. No—this message is a sign that something is seriously wrong.

Why the fuck did Caleb leave her there?

“Troy!” I cross the living room and head toward his bedroom.

“What is it?” he shouts back.

“It’s Danica. I?—”

He appears in the hallway, sees my face. His gaze hardens. “Tell me on the way.”

* * *

Danica

Malcolm yanks me to my feet and starts shoving me across the lawn, toward the lake. I stumble when he aims us toward the water’s edge, where the dock meets the shore.

“Malcolm, please.” I struggle to sound calm, not hysterical. Inside, I’m screaming. “I don’t remember whatever it is you think I remember. Camp was a blur. That’s why I was looking at the scrapbook.”

“You remember.” His voice is flat, matter-of-fact. “You wrote down my name. I told you to forget. You said you’d forgotten. But you didn’t.”

I stumble again and use the momentum, trying to pull us both down.

He’s too strong. He jerks me harder against him. My wrist aches like a motherfucker.

I was scared. Now I’m pissed off.

“I did forget,” I say. “I don’t know what you think I know?—”

“Stop bullshitting me. You were there that night.” Now he sounds angry.

I followed him that night. I had that little-kid crush on him and I wanted to see where he was going. At eight years old, I didn’t have any plans other than following him. I wanted to know everything about him. Afterward, I probably would have giggled about it to my friends.

Going limp in his arms isn’t working. He just drags me along.

We reach the shore, right next to the dock. Mud squelches against my bare feet and I shudder.

So much mud. It smells wet, dirty, rank. It smells like rotten, decaying things.

Now I know why I’ve avoided the lake, especially at night. In the daytime, I can see what’s around me and I’m distracted by the visuals. As it gets darker, like it is now, the memories rear their ugly heads, like beasts sensing weakness.

This happened before. I remember it now. I saw Malcolm with Britney that night.

These are my nightmares, my panic attacks. Mud covering me as I sink into it. No, as I’m pushed into it.

But first, it happened to Britney. He yelled at her. I couldn’t hear the words, but he was angry. I was mad at her, too—mad that she had his attention, mad that I’d followed him out here only to find him spending time with her again.

Shame threatens to push me out of the memory. I don’t want to think of my own feelings of anger, because I was furious at the wrong person.

Britney pleaded with him. He shoved her into the mud. But her head hit a rock or a log or something—I don’t know what happened, I just know she didn’t get up. He straddled her stomach, shook her shoulders. He began sobbing and shouting at her.

At that point, I started crying.

He heard me. He came over. I thought he was going to comfort me, I thought he would explain what I’d seen, say it was an accident and Britney was okay. Or better, he’d tell me it was all a bad dream.

But he pushed me into the lake. The water was shallow, muddy. He held me down. I flailed, trying to escape his hold.

Just like I’m trying to escape him now.

No point in pretending I don’t remember. He wouldn’t believe me, anyway.

But if I can get him talking…

“Why didn’t you kill me that night?” I ask.

He scoffs. “And break my best friend’s heart? I was going to do it. But you went unconscious. I felt bad. I revived you. Told you over and over that I was saving you, that you were going to be okay as long as you’d forget everything. You promised you would forget.”

“I did,” I whisper. I forgot for years .

“Move, Danica.” He shoves me toward the dock.

He’s going to kill me. Nobody will find me. It doesn’t matter what Malcolm’s plan is—and in fact, I don’t think he has a plan. He’s making this up as he goes along. He didn’t know my memories were coming back until just a few minutes ago.

“Malcolm! Danica? Are you guys out there?” Zora’s voice carries over the yard.

She’s back from her hike. I try to turn around, to see her. Malcolm and I are deep in the shadows at the lake’s edge. Can she see us? If I could just get her attention, maybe she could get help.

“One word,” Malcolm growls in my ear, “and I’ll kill both of you. I’d hate to do it, but I’ve gone fifteen years without getting caught, and that doesn’t fucking change tonight. Stay down, stay quiet.”

Zora stands on the deck for a long moment. Maybe she sees my stuff there, abandoned. Maybe she’ll worry enough to call for help.

After a tense minute, her footsteps echo and I hear the swooshing sound of the sliding glass door opening and closing. She went inside, taking my hope with her.

“Let’s go.” Malcolm pushes me forward on the dock. “Keep quiet.”

I don’t move voluntarily. I won’t make it easy for him. “How do you think you’ll get away with this?”

“Easy. I woke up from my nap, you were gone. I figured you went on that hike with Zora, so I took out the boat for some fishing. I came back late, and Zora was home. We noticed your phone on the deck, started worrying, called the police.” He pauses and shoves me forward again.

“And your body will never be found. No body, no murder.”

Like with Britney. Nobody knew what happened to her. For fifteen years.

We reach the canoe. I struggle at the dock’s edge. If I can get away, I’ll jump in the water and fucking swim. Maybe he won’t be able to find me in the darkness. But he holds me so tight, I can’t escape.

He lifts me into the canoe along with him.

The canoe rocks dangerously under our weight.

If we leave here, I die. Simple as that. Nobody will rescue me. Edmund and Troy, even if they saw my text or thought it was odd, are still at least an hour away.

This is so stupid—I know it’s stupid even as I do it. But this is my last chance.

Instead of struggling to get away from Malcolm, I take a deep breath—and ram myself against him.

He makes an oof sound, loses his balance.

The canoe topples over.

We sink into the night-dark water.