“Where’s Penelope?” I ask as I look around the room.
Dylan’s lips tear away from Alistair’s as he turns to look at me. “I think she went to the bathroom. I thought she’d be back by now?”
“No.”
Fuck. Something doesn’t feel right.
I push myself off the couch again. “I’m gonna go check.”
Her buddies are still on that same couch. What’s taking her so long?
Not to mention the fact that I haven’t seen Lana in a while, either. If she’s talking to Penelope behind my back, I’m gonna give her a fucking ear-splitting headache over it.
I’m antsy, and my nerves feel like they’re on fire as I march out the door, ready to beat up whoever’s trying to sneak her away from my sight. If some Phantoms got in, I’ll pummel them into next year.
I make my way through the club, past all the dancing people, but when I spot Lana coming out of the bathroom, I shove my way through. Some people throw me angered glares and frowns, but I don’t give a shit. I’m the owner’s son. They don’t like it? They can leave.
“Get out of my way,” I growl.
When I finally get close enough, I grab her arm and turn her to me. “Where’s Penelope?”
“What? Why should I—”
“She was in that bathroom with you,” I interject.
She frowns. “I don’t know where she is. She ran off.”
“Tell me why.” My grip on her arms tightens. “What happened?”
“Get your hands off me.” She tries to shake me off, but it’s not happening. “I was just talking to her.”
“What did you say to her?” I bark.
She glowers at me. “I told her about you and your boys and Eve, and that you’d been fucking around with her.”
My pupils dilate.
Fuck.
Why the fuck would she tell her that?
“I thought she knew,” she mutters.
I shove her away.
“Jesus Christ, Felix,” she cries, but I’m not listening.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
I don’t even fucking care what Lana is saying anymore. I need to find Penelope. Now.
“Felix!” Dylan calls from the back as I push through the sea of people. “Where are you going?”
“Penelope’s gone!” I yell back.
His eyes widen, and he immediately beckons Alistair, then follows suit. But I’m far too busy trying to get out of this crowded club to care if they’re coming or not. Every second is another one wasted.
She could be halfway across town by now.
If I don’t find her soon, things will go south pretty quick.
“Fuck!” I yell out loud when I finally get to the door.
“Everything okay, sir?” one of the guards asks, popping open his umbrella to hold it over my head because it’s raining.
“Did you see a girl with purple hair run past?” I ask him in a hurry.
“Um … I think so. Maybe,” he mutters.
I grab him by the collar. “Tell me where she went. Now.”
He points in the direction of a one-way street that leads to the outskirts of Crescent Vale City. “That way, sir.”
Fuck. That’s exactly the direction I hoped she wouldn’t take. It has only one remaining point of interest she could possibly go to.
I don’t even thank him before running off directly into the pouring rain. I can’t waste any time.
“Felix, wait!” Dylan yells behind me, but I can’t fucking wait for them. “Where are you going?”
I glance at him over my shoulder. “The cemetery.”
His eyes widen. “What, the one—”
“Where her sister was buried,” Alistair fills in as they finally catch up with me. “But why?”
In front of my car, I stop and look at them both. “She knows about Eve and us.” I unlock it. “Get in.”
Penelope
Raindrops trickle down my face, mixing with the tears as I stare at my sister’s headstone. Her name is carved out onto the slab the same way it’s carved onto my flesh.
I pull away my dress sleeve to look at her name so beautifully drawn in ink.
Beautiful, just like her.
Unlike this sullen grave.
“Eve …” I mutter as my knees begin to buckle. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I can’t believe it. It can’t be fucking true.
My sister … being in a foursome?
With the Skull & Serpent boys?
Imagine her walking around with them on campus, touching each other, kissing, and making out in secret. I shiver at the thought.
That was not the Eve I knew.
My Eve was unwavering in her convictions. She wanted to make the world a better place. She hated people who did others wrong. She was the spitting image of my mother with my father’s soul.
Yet why do I find it hard to dismiss Lana’s words?
Why do they make me obey?
When my knees hit the mud, more tears roll down my cheeks.
“You wouldn’t keep this a secret from me,” I mutter to Eve’s grave. “You’re my sister. Sisters tell each other everything.”
I wish more than anything she could talk back to me. That I could hear her voice one final time, whispering to me that it’s all a lie and that she’s okay.
That she didn’t die, she just slipped away.
I bury my face in my hands, unable to look at her name without feeling destroyed.
All of the clues were right in front of me.
And whatever you do, don’t ever get involved with those boys of the Skull & Serpent Society.
Over and over, the note’s words repeat in my mind.
I should’ve known. It was right there in front of me all this time.
I wish I could read her texts right now. Just one last time.
But my phone’s dead, and I can’t bring myself to leave to go charge it up somewhere.
CRACK!
The sound of twigs breaking puts me on edge.
I swiftly turn to see what it is.
Two, no, three guys emerge from trees that cover the area in the dark of the night.
“Penelope …” Dylan’s voice fluctuates in tone.
I stand, unabashed and unafraid, and fish out my knife. “You lied to me.”
Felix just stands there, staring at me with that same arrogant and stoic look on his face like he doesn’t give a care in the world, and it hurts. It fucking hurts.
“You told me she was a friend,” I growl.
“That wasn’t a lie,” Felix says.
“You fucked her!” I scream.
My voice is unhinged, just as my heart, but I don’t care who hears.
These fuckers destroyed me. Used me. Played with me.
And for what?
Just so I could find the one who bullied Eve to death.
Yet the more I look at them, the more I realize they may have been lying to me all this time to cover up their tracks.
“Did you bully her into selling her body?” I ask. “Is that what it is?”
Alistair shakes his head, but I don’t believe him.
“Stop lying to me!” I yell. “You’re the reason she died!”
“No,” Felix barks sternly.
And I hate the way he looks at me, so full of contempt like he hates what I’m saying.
But he knows as well as I do what they’re capable of.
He just can’t look at the man in the mirror.
And I hate how he continues to lie, even now.
Felix pulls those other two with him and makes them do what he wants. He was the start of all my misery … of my sister’s downfall.
So I point my knife right at him as I go straight for the heart. But the second the tip of my knife hits Felix’s chest, I pause. My hand begins to shake.
He’s not stopping me.
His arms are still in his pocket, even when confronted with a blade.
Like he’s accepting death with open arms.
And I can’t fucking push myself to puncture his skin, no matter how badly I want to.
“Did you enjoy seeing me get hurt? Is that why you seduced me too? Just to torture me like you tortured her?” I ask, my voice breaking as much as my spirit. My face contorts as the tears begin to stream down my face. “You killed her.”
“No,” Felix reiterates.
“Yes! Stop lying!” I yell right up in his face. “She jumped because of what you guys did to her. The same thing you did to me! What did she ask you to do, huh? Did you try to help her too? Find some fake enemies to hurt?”
“No,” he says again like it comes easy to him. “But I wish we would have.”
I grimace. “I should cut out your fucking heart. She deserved better than you.”
“She did,” Alistair chimes in. “She did deserve better than us.”
“No one chooses who they fall in love with,” Dylan adds, stepping closer.
“Don’t get close, or I’ll fucking do it!” I yell, pushing the blade farther into Felix’s chest.
“Do it then,” he says, locking eyes with me alone. “Kill me.”
His hand snakes around mine, pushing the knife farther and farther into his chest.
“So you admit you hurt her,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I admit …” he mutters, eyes stone-cold. Deadly. “We loved her.”
My pupils dilate. “What?” I shake my head. “No.”
When his lips part again, I break even more than I thought I could. “And she loved us too.”
I shudder in place as my hand tremors. “No …”
“It’s true,” Dylan says. “We all loved her.”
“To the point of obsession,” Alistair adds. “Something I never truly understood until I met you.”
“No, you’re all lying,” I say, slowly stepping back as they all back up Felix. “She was a good girl.”
“Like you?” Felix quips.
“That’s different. I’m trying to get revenge,” I quip.
“And she was trying to find acceptance in the way she was,” Dylan rebukes, smirking. “A spicy little pepper just like you.”
“Bullshit,” I spit.
“I wish it was. With us together,” Alistair says, rubbing the back of his neck, “it felt like we had something special.”
“But it was taken from us as much as it was taken from you,” Felix says, his sanpaku eyes even more chilling now that I know the truth.
“Don’t you dare,” I grit. “You didn’t even come to her fucking funeral.”
“Oh no?” Felix tilts his head. “I remember locking eyes with you.”
“You didn’t come to say goodbye. You weren’t at the service!”
“Because my father told us not to,” Dylan says. “To avoid anyone thinking we had any relations.”
I frown and glare at him. “Your father knew?”
Dylan rubs his lips together, sucking up the raindrops. “He found us naked in a classroom.”
“If everyone knew we were a thing, people would blame us for her death,” Alistair says, throwing his curly, wet hair back.
I can’t wrap my mind around all of this. I really can’t.
And when Felix takes a step toward me, I keep the knife pointed at him in defense. “Don’t.”
“After all this, you still don’t believe us?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. She warned me about you. She knew you were trouble.”
“She was right about that.” Dylan snorts. “That’s what you get for being a kinky fucker.”
“No. She still thinks we bullied her sister,” Felix says.
“Damn right you did. You were there too that night, on the cliff, when she jumped. You didn’t fucking stop her,” I growl.
He steps even closer, raindrops rolling down his forehead. “Neither did you.”
“I tried!”
“I would have jumped after her if I knew what she was about to do,” he growls back.
When I keep shaking my head, he shows me the palm of his hand. There’s a particularly weird tattoo on there, a circular line that moves from the outside of his hand to his knuckle. I’ve always wondered what it meant but never thought it mattered.
Until now.
“Dylan,” he barks. “Show her.”
Dylan moves his fist in line with Felix, but ninety degrees turned so Felix’s knuckles point at the side of his hand. And right there, an overlapping circular tattoo line makes a half circle.
Alistair is next, pointing his fist to an empty space while pushing the side of his hand into Dylan’s knuckles, making the tattoo three-quarters of a circle.
And my breath begins to falter.
It’s the same tattoo as my sister had.
