Page 40 of Rogue’s Promise

“Because another girl has gone missing, and the last place she was seen was at my house.”

“It’s in the central courtyard. My parents want us to both wear a pop of lilac. It’s Laura’s favorite color.”

“How considerate,” Meg drawls sarcastically, rolling her neck. She’s clearly exhausted from her day, the stress of Laura’s disappearance visibly weighing on her. Maybe she feels responsible, since she ordered that Laura should be invited to the party in the first place, but I don’t care about that. Her guilt has no place here.

I’m just selfishly thankful Laura was there to take the fall. Had Meg been taken again…I can’t bear to think about it. With that selfishness comes a silent vow that I’m going to aid the search for Laura in whatever way I can. In a world where I feel completely out of control, bringing her back seems like the least I can do.

Meg watches me closely, her blue eyes trying to decipher what’s happening within my head. The silence between us isn’t uncomfortable as I simply sit there, my hands resting lightly on my thighs, a thousand unanswered questions between us until Meg’s lips part.

“Everest,” she breathes, then clamps her mouth shut and shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s stupid and incredibly vain.”

In an instant, my tiredness is forgotten as my gaze sharpens. A familiar burning awakens in my chest, a desperate need to know what she was going to say. On the outside, I smoothly straighten and lean my forearms on my thighs.

“Ask me,” I insist, quiet but firm. Gathering her pride, Meg’s tongue pokes out to wet her bottom lip, and I shamelessly track the motion.

“Was there…a vigil for me?”

The question guts me more effectively than a knife to the sternum. This is the first time Meg has shown me a shred of apprehension. Although I knew it was there, patched out by pride and stubbornness, hearing it brings back a wash of memories I sought to bury.

All I can do is stare at her, taking in the way she forces herself to hold my gaze despite the vulnerability trembling at the edges of her expression. Meg O’Connor, the girl who snaps, snarls and charges across fields, is completely stripped of the armor she wears each and every day. She’s finally letting me in, just an inch.

The silence stretches between us, the truthful answer lodged in my throat. No, there was no vigil. There were rumors and theories, most of which came from those she considered her closest friends. Teammates she trained alongside and encouraged to be their best selves, the very same ones who were all too quick to spread gossip.

From jilted lovers to rival team captains, including rumors about myself, I heard it all. They whispered that someone as ruthless and hardheaded as Meg must have caused her own plight. Must have pissed off the wrong person or somehow triggered her own kidnapping. That was one reason why I banned them from contacting her. Why I threatened expulsion to anyone who dared reach out and potentially ruin her recovery.

The second reason is far more petty, but still valid in my opinion. I’m secretly furious with each and every one of them. They weren’t with Meg the night she was taken. They didn’t have her back then, and they will just let her down again now. That’s why I haven’t allowed most of them back on the team. Meg needs support, not backstabbers hindering her progress.

Meg’s eyes sink at my tightened expression, the understanding that she wasn’t mourned for drawing her shoulders inwards. Maybe that’s why my mouth moves before I’ve fully decided what I should say, why I feel the need to express how she was missed, by me.

“Do you know that I was the one to find your blood trail?” I ask quietly, and she sucks in a breath. I keep my voice steady, even as the memory rolls through me with sickening clarity. “There was so much of it, streaked all over the grass, so much brighter than I would have expected. I knew it had to be yours before the cops confirmed it. You’re the only one who would have been running drills alone near midnight. You were so damn committed.”

My jaw flexes again, but this time it’s because guilt is threatening to split loose through my own chest. I should have been there. I should have let her know she could call me anytime to run drills with her, and I’d have come. Instead, I was left staring at the smear of red beneath floodlights. The drag marks. I shudder before I can stop myself, catching the misery in Meg’s cerulean gaze.

“There wasn’t a vigil, but no one felt your absence more than me. I can assure you of that.” The confession seems to physically strike her, a flinch causing Meg’s lips to part and her eyes to search mine for sincerity.

I open my mouth, preparing to give her more. More honesty, more truths, more of me, but then I remember the man sleeping next door. The one who’s depending on me to keep him safe until I find a way for us to be together. Every trace of compassion I show Meg is another knife in his back. Why can’t things be simple? Why can’t my heart stop tearing itself in two?

Pushing to standing, I drag my hand through my hair rougher than necessary. I need to get back to Cody. Beaten and bandaged Cody who deserves so much better than I can give. They both do.

“Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a circus.” I leave before Meg can respond. Before I say anymore. Before I do something unforgivable, like pull her into my arms and stroke her hair. The hallway outside her room is dim, the air cooler than it should be, and I close her door behind me with a careful click. For a second, I stand there with one hand still on the handle, breathing through the violent pressure in my chest.

Behind that door is Meg, probably staring at the space I left behind. Picking up the scraps of my fractured self-preservation, I walk silently back to Cody’s room. Yet, all of the cold composure I thought I’d rebuilt deserts me the second I step inside. He’s still asleep, thankfully, curled on his side beneath the blanket, white hair spilling over his bruised cheek and bandaged hand resting carefully against the pillow.

Crossing the room, I toe off my shoes, strip from his clothes and lower onto the mattress. Cody reaches for me, even in his sleep, and I curl myself around his back. Lightly brushing my fingers through his hair, his breathing remains slow and shallow, his body lost to exhaustion and pain.

“I’m here,” I whisper, though he probably doesn’t hear me. But even as I lay beside him, a part of me remains in Meg’s room with her broken question hanging in the air. There wasn’t a vigil for her. There was only me, standing over her blood, and realizing too late that pushing her to hate me was never going to be enough. Her furious attention would never sate the ache she left behind. If I ever got to see her again, I’d find a way to make her love me the way I love her, even if Cody was the ultimate cost.

Chapter Twenty One

Time stops making sense after Nicholas breaks me, the world fading in and out at random intervals. I’m aware enough to know days are passing, but my mind can’t grasp much of what’s happening, like murky paint water that’s too clouded to see through.

Occasionally, I wake to sunlight cutting across my bedroom floor, Everest sitting on the edge of my mattress with a roll of bandages in his lap. Other times, the room is dark, the only light coming from the end of a joint burning between my fingers as I sit on the windowsill, music playing low in the background. Sometimes Everest is there. Sometimes he isn’t. Sometimes I dream he’s there, and when I wake up, the indentation beside me is still warm.

Pain becomes the one constant. My palm throbs where the glass embedded itself beneath my skin, the bandages wrapped so thickly I can barely flex my fingers. My ribs ache, every breath taking considerable effort. Everest tells me they’re not broken, but he could have fooled me.

The swelling around my cheek shifts through shades of violet and yellow, an accidental watercolor Nicholas left behind with his fists. I stare at it in the mirror, long enough to see the outline of his knuckles beneath my skin, then I turn away before the image settles enough to recreate in another medium. There are some pieces of art even I shouldn’t make.

In those fleeting moments of clarity, I start to pick up on a shift within Everest. First, it’s his gym bag tossed against my bedroom wall, one afternoon becoming two as he ditches practice to methodically sort through painkillers and gauze, his mind visibly ticking over. Soon after, it’s the way he looks at me through eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, his golden hair falling into his eyes and his mouth bruised from chewing the inside of his cheek. Then, the lectures start.