Page 11 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
I tugged at his ear until he stopped and considered ignoring the question but didn’t. He would ask and ask until I spilled.
The Prescotts were a relentless bunch.
Betty could interrogate a terrorist armed with nothing but a gap-toothed grin and homemade apple pie.
Hank’s kind eyes doubled as weapons of mass confessions.
Reed had never heard the word “no” in his life.
And Nash… Well, Nash was Nash. All he had to do was breathe, and people tripped over their feet to please him. He possessed a presence money couldn’t buy.
“Sheep gravitate to likable people. Likability is not a quality you can learn, but one you are born with,” Mother once informed me after Basil had invited everyone in our grade to her tenth birthday party except me. She looked down her nose at me, disappointment staining her voice. “I am likable; you are not. I lead the Junior Society; you are an outcast. Perhaps you should learn to be like sheep.”
Nash’s existence poked holes in Mother’s theory. He was simultaneously unlikeable and magnetic. Fuck the sheep. When I grew up, I wanted to be like him.
“Are you okay?” Reed repeated.
No.
Yes.
I didn’t know. Physically, fine. Mentally? A little shaken and a whole lot of bloodthirsty. But Reed was a pacifist at heart, and I had no clue what he would say if he knew what I would do if I ever got my hands on Able.
The adrenaline had pacified me in front of the office, but now that I was home, my body demanded I fight or I would shake and never stop.
“Yes,” I finally spit out. When Reed continued to study me, I shoved my hair out of my face and sat up. “I promise. I’m okay. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
But a lie of omission…
It occurred to me that my lies had piled up like an intersection crash. One after the other after the other. I needed to stop, but the alternative—a.k.a. the truth—appealed to me less.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Stop asking, Reed.” I shot him an exaggerated eye roll, glanced at the clock, and slipped under the covers, hoping he would drop the subject.
After a minute of staring at me pretend-sleeping, he did. Truthfully, Able Cartwright didn’t bother me. I had fought him off. I had stopped him. I had won.
Able Cartwright was a cockroach. It might take a ridiculous amount of attempts to crush him, but make no mistake—life will crush him.
Cockroaches die eventually.
This crush, on the other hand?
I’d tried everything from dating other boys to kissing Stella Copeland in her closet during seven minutes in heaven.
And still, it had a heartbeat.
Vibrant. Loud. Pulsing with life.
And I didn’t want to kill it.
“I don’t understand!”
“What is happening?”
“Stop, please! I’m begging y’all.”
An argument pervaded my dreams. I reached out, my hands finding empty sheets in the starless dark. Reed had left. I crossed my fingers and hoped Dad hadn’t found him sneaking out of my room. I would sooner lunge on a blade than let Reed take the fall for making me happy.
