Page 1 of Liar

Chapter 1

Ember

Savannah Merricourt returns today.

Winthorpe Academy operates at a low hum this morning, whispers and theories floating through the cavernous hallways as students filter inside with the iced-over, frigid air tickling the backs of their necks.

I don’t listen to the rumors—or accusations—as I shoulder through the meandering crowd, breaking up tight clusters of hushed mouths and flapping hands.

It’s all rhetoric, anyway. Nothing that hasn’t been picked apart, over and over, during winter break when conspiracies about her reappearance were flying through Raven’s Bluff like their own restricted airspace.

Senator Merricourt paid a seven-figure ransom to get her back.

Savannah ran away to Boston but couldn’t hack it.

She met a boyfriend online, but it turned out he was a 40-year-old pedophile who tied her up in his basement for twelve months.

She was in witness protection because she saw something she wasn’t supposed to.

Savannah doesn’t have her pinky finger anymore—it was cut off as proof of life.

Thorne Briar’s known where she is this entire time and locked her up as his sex slave.

The gossip and rumors formed lives of their own, getting worse the longer Savannah refused to enter the public eye. No one’s seen her since news of her resurfacing hit social media, and her family’s kept her well protected, only allowing the Briars entry into their safe house.

I pass two girls huddled against the lockers, their lips moving rapidly as they ruminate on Savannah’s return and what she’ll look like. The same? A skeletal version of herself? Seven fingers instead of eight? I can’t blame them or anyone else I walk by. Headmistress Dupris’s mass email to everyone before the start of the new semester announcing Savannah Merricourt’s re-enrollment and that all must treat her with courtesy and respect lit a fire the entire town was just waiting to surround.

Even the Societies stayed quiet, canceling all secret meetings and challenges until further notice. That wasn’t through an email but murmured by the prince and princess of the Nobles and Virtues and down the chain of command on the last day of school before break.

I have no idea if I passed my last challenge or if I’m still a Virtue after Damion Briar’s instructions to almost kill myself on the cliffs. In all honesty, I spent the entire winter break not caring. All I could think of is Thorne’s brutal, scathing kiss, inking my lips with his brand before he ripped us apart and spoke his last words to me: Savannah’s back.

I spent Christmas with his face rippling behind my vision, his ice-chip eyes spreading frost over my retinas as I tried to appreciate Malcolm’s gift of a trip to Purdue University to explore their technology sector. I should’ve jumped at it. It’s the first time he’s offered me even an ounce of freedom, stepping foot out of the state of Massachusetts no less. Malcolm handed me an olive branch I couldn’t fully grasp because of him.

Thorne.

Unlike the rest of the student body, I’m not thinking about Savannah. I’m plagued by the phantom touch of his hands. My thighs itch to be in his grip, spreading me open for his feast. My dreams are consumed by his weight, his body on top of mine, his breath tickling my ears and licking the corner of my jaw…

Then the fantasy morphs into how he was when I last saw him. Bowed over, bloody, and torn open.

Have Thorne’s wounds healed? What do the scars look like? Will he ever bare his back to Winthorpe Academy again?

Is he thinking of me?

We haven’t exchanged a word since that night on the cliffs. I’m worried about him and what his father will do to him next. Savannah returning alive won’t derail Damion’s plans for long. He tried to get me out of the way once. But trying to kill me showed his weakness. I was convinced that I was on the right track in nailing the Briars to a wall. But Savannah being alive changes things. I’m terrified my theories were wrong.

Savannah might not be part of Damion Briar’s drug trade. He’d never allow her to return if he’s the one who made her go missing in the first place. Maybe she really was ransomed by an unrelated kidnapper. If so, that would mean I lost Aiko’s friendship for nothing.

The conflict must be written over my entire face as I navigate through Winthorpe’s halls, but nobody casts their curious gaze in my direction.

I’m not the target anymore, and I should be thankful.

Instead, I feel uneasy at the shift in tide.

A flurry of activity draws my head up, footsteps of increasing speed passing by me, skirts flapping and pants creasing as everybody scampers back to the entrance.

“She’s here!”

“The car just pulled into the driveway.”

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