Page 75 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)
“You look like you haven’t slept.”
The barista calls his name, and he leaps up. It gives me a moment to exhale shakily and come up with a better excuse as to why I don’t want to talk about it. When I think about it, it’s sort of like a dream. Like I’m not really here.
If it wasn’t all anyone could talk about, I would be able to convince myself I made it up.
There’s a missing poster with Natalie’s face on it attached to the corkboard over Liam’s shoulder. The news is talking about the missing girls from Ashburn on the television, the same as every other morning. The Breaking News scrolls along the bottom. There’s a video on the upper left corner showing the police tape across the entrance to the reservoir’s hiking trail.
I’m not sure of the appropriate reaction. My life hasn’t been drastically altered, not split into Before and After. I know for a fact that Taryn probably would’ve handled it differently. She’d be right along with Whitney, packing a bag and heading home.
But me? Hell, I’m fighting to stay.
Why?
“Earth to Sky,” Liam says, waving his hand in front of my face. “Where’d you go?”
“Back to the woods,” I murmur without thinking.
He grunts. “Even more reason to talk about it.”
“So, um, Howl started back up again?”
His eyes immediately darken. “Who told you that?”
I shrug and glance away. It was a guess, but his reaction…
If I thought I might be safe from him in public, I was mistaken.
He reaches across the table and grabs my jaw, pulling me toward him. His fingers dig into my skin, parting my lips. I brace myself on the table.
“Who. Told. You. That?”
And no one around us does a damn thing.
A tremor goes through me. I contemplate lying, that I was just guessing, but I don’t think he’d believe me. And now that I have to live with the jerk…
“Your face,” I whisper. “You had bruises when you broke into my apartment the first time. Then I saw you with Colt and RJ…”
He smirks, possibly enamored at the idea that I was watching him. Of course he’d get off on that kind of shit. “Spying on me?”
“Not intentionally.”
The cocky smile is still on his face, so I gently pull back.
“You want to know where those bruises came from?”
I freeze.
His hold softens, and his thumb brushes over my lips. “I’d tell you, but we all know how you are at keeping secrets.”
I can’t move.
Blood rushes to my face, and it’s painfully hot with embarrassment.
He releases me entirely, and I fall back into my seat.
You know what? Fuck him. I’m a great secret keeper. I’ve kept plenty of my own, and other people’s, too. No one asks me about them because they assume I don’t know. It’s the worst sort of agony to have a piece of information and be unable to tell anyone.
I lift my cup to my mouth, take a large swallow, and try not to panic.