Page 219 of Boys Who Hunt

But Max doesn’t understand the visceral brutality hiding beneath these layers of endurance I’ve been forced to wear.

Max doesn’t feel the need to blow up and destroy, but Silas does.

“Max is right,” Heath says, stepping in. “What was the point of all this? You could’ve just killed them yourself.”

“No. This was what she needed,” Silas says, tilting his head at me like he’s waiting for me to admit it.

But all I can do is stare at the two bodies like I’m waiting for them to come back to life just so I can kill them again.

He’s right. I did need this.

Desperately.

More than any one of these guys could ever understand.

“She was being chased by a debt, and I took care of it,” Silas adds.

But that’s just it.

Killing these two didn’t change anything.

The second they stopped me from looting the Phantom House, it was already over.

These fuckers know we were hiding at the Skull and Serpent Society.

Ivan knew … because ofthem.

“No,” I mutter, and everyone looks at me. “It only made it worse.” I throw a damning glance at Heath. “You … you know Ivan. You told him about my location.”

“I did not,” Heath growls back. “But you didn’t tell us the truth about Cora.”

What?

My eyes flicker with unseen rage while I glare at Heath, the tension like crackling lightning.

Heath picks up the bloodied bat, gazing at it with intent before his eyes fixate on mine. “She’s not yours, is she?”

Fuck.

That’s it.

That’s the one thing I told myself that would make me want to pull the trigger and blow up the whole thing.

For the first time since I met him, Silas genuinely looks shocked.

“W-What?” Max stutters. “You aren’t her mom?”

“She’s not going to give you the answer, Max,” Heath says.

A kind of darkness that makes me shiver has fallen over Silas’s face. “Once a liar, always a liar.”

Fine.

He wanted me to break?

Force me to reveal the truth?

They can have it … after they pry it from my cold, dead hands.