Page 95 of Rebel

“No!” I scramble back, holding my hand up to ward him off. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” He arches a brow. “Love you? It’s too late, pretty girl, sorry,” he replies with a wicked grin. “I love you.”

“Don’t, please,” I plead, my eyes burning.

“Beck, I love you—” Trav starts.

I cover my ears and shake my head as I step back. “Stop, stop, please,” I sob.

“Beck—”

“No!” I yank my hands away. “You can’t love me!” I scream. “You can’t because I’m not real. This is all a fucking lie. Don’t you see that?”

“What?” Kolton frowns. “Look, let’s sit down?—”

“We can talk through this. We aren’t going anywhere,” Trav promises. “It will be okay.” He reaches for me, but I wrap my arms around myself.

“You can’t love me,” I state seriously, my heart skipping and then stopping as the truth pours out. “Willa is—was my sister.”

They all gape at me.

“And I came here to find out what you guys did to her to make her kill herself, and then I was going to destroy you. I gave up my entire life and wormed my way into yours to find your secrets and expose them, so you were as alone and as hurt as her, so I could get revenge for my sister. None of this is real. Don’t you see?”

The silence is loud and filled with horror as they continue to stare at me.

“I loved my sister more than anything in the world. We hadn’t spoken in years because of a stupid fight, but when she . . . when she killed herself, she left me tapes. I know she didn’t do it because of her mental health. Someone helped her there . . . pushed her there. I thought it was you guys, and that hate blinded me. I would do anything to go back and change how this happened, but I can’t. Don’t you see? You can’t love me because I’m not real. Beck Danvers doesn’t exist. She’s someone I made up to trick you guys so I could get revenge.” The words blurt out of me. “I thought I could do it. I thought I could be ruthless and not care about what happened as long as my sister gets justice, but I can’t. I can’t fucking do this?—”

“You’re her sister?” Kolt whispers.

“And you thought . . . You thought it was our fault she did what she did?” Chase asks carefully.

I nod, glancing at Trav who is pale, silent, and gaping at me in dawning horror.

“And you thought the only way to get justice for her was to become our lead singer and expose all of our darkest secrets and destroy us the way you think we destroyed her?” Chase carries on.

I jerk my head in a yes. “But you have to know I didn’t—I wasn’t going to. I had second thoughts from the moment I met you. I didn’t think you could do it, but I had to know?—”

“You could have just asked,” Chase sneers harshly. “Instead, you had to climb into our beds and use our feelings for you against us all while lying to us. You gave us hope for a future for our band and a future where we could be happy with you, Beck—whatever the fuck your name is.”

“Summer,” I tell him. “That’s my name.” I don’t know why it seems so important that they know that, but it is.

“Please, let’s just talk,” I croak, my eyes burning with tears as my lips tremble.

I was such a fool, an indignant fool, and now, faced with the thought of losing them, I would do anything to take it back and make this right, because they might have fallen in love with a lie, but I didn’t.

“I think you’ve done enough talking,” Chase snaps.

I swallow down my pain. I deserve this. I deserve everything they’ll throw at me because as I meet their devastated, angry eyes, I realize the truth I was too blind to see.

They didn’t do this.

My sister threw herself off that bridge.

That isn’t their fault, and maybe they have been hurting just as much as I have.

“You really think we would do something to hurt her?” Kolton asks, his voice small as he watches me.

“I had to be sure,” I reply. “You have to understand. She’s my sister?—”

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