Page 51 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)

“I told you to stay away from him.”

I can’t even find it in me to be sympathetic. If she listened to me, she wouldn’t be here.

“What do you want me to say?” She wipes under her eyes. Mascara is streaked down her cheeks. “That you were right? Fuck you, Morrison.”

“I think you’d like that,” I say glibly.

She narrows her eyes. “I think you’d be the last person I’d fuck, even if we were the only two people on the planet.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, Miss Dramatic.”

“I’m serious. Leave me alone.” She backs up, then whirls on her heel.

I quickly catch up to her, sticking my hands in my pockets. My blood is singing, rushing through me with an odd euphoria. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it.

But if it doesn’t go away soon, I might become addicted.

“Why are you still following me?”

We pause at the street corner.

“Because the last thing I’m going to do is let you walk home alone, Skylar.”

She glares at me, and I know why: I almost never call her Skylar. Buckley, Sky, angel, some other nicknames I’ve come up with on the fly. But never the name everyone else calls her. It sits too heavy on my tongue with a bitter taste.

I strived to be different.

“You gonna tell me what happened? You ran out of there like your ass was on fire.” I’m trying to cover the fact that we’re both unsettled right now. Our pace down the sidewalk is quick, and the unrelenting wind urges us faster.

“I followed your stupid advice,” she says. “But, um, after I found the handcuffs in his drawer, I confronted him about it.”

I snort. “Seriously.”

“Yeah, I wanted to know if he was planning on making a citizen’s arrest, or if he liked to wear them.” She watches me out of the corner of her eye, trying to keep a straight face.

It’s hard to hold back my own smile. “A citizen’s arrest in his own house. He must be expecting a break-in, huh?”

“Hordes of women who can’t control themselves around his display of wealth,” she answers. After another moment, she adds, “He was boring except for that.”

I have a flash to her struggling to get out of my binds. What had I said? Something about fear and truth. They often go hand and hand. Tying her to her bed was an impulsive, dick move. I don’t need to exploit her trauma like that.

Trauma.

How many times had my mother reminded me not to bring it up?

Not to talk about it. With Sky, with anyone. It was her scar to carry, but she held it unknowingly. Cradled this invisible weight alone.

Even as she walks slightly ahead of me now, like she’s trying to outpace me, I wonder if those memories will ever come back.

Or maybe I’ll have to live with it by myself forever.

Part II

The Discovery

15

Sky