Page 101 of His Pretty Little Duet

My heart picks up pace at the startling strain in his voice. “I’m telling Clay you’re back,” I say, turning.

“Wait!” he calls, and my foot stops mid-step when he says, “I have a message from your father.”

The blood in my veins chill to a frosty stream at the mention of my dad, at the inference that a message from the man I have been waiting for is a secret affair, a secret that needs to be kept from the people in this house. A secret that is whispered through trees between strangers. I don’t like how I feel. Cold shivers run up my spine.

Slowly turning back to the hedge, I narrow my eyes on the dark figure between the lightly swaying leaves. “I call bullshit.”

“Just turn your back to the house and look at the flowers, pick them, act like you’re counting them.”

My breathing becomes shallow, air drawn in through my nose, my mouth purses, teeth clench—discomfort like a literal entity winding itself around me while intrigue keeps me rootedto the grass. I don’t speak. Can’t. I squat down and pick a small grass flower, my eyes losing focus as he talks.

“He’s coming for you.”

I don’t understand.

“He’s coming to get you out.”

I’m not trapped.

Swallowing hard, I fight against the knot in my throat. I pick another flower and whisper, “But I’m not trapped, Lee.”

“Really?”

No.I pick another flower.

“Look around... You couldn’t leave if you tried.”

I pick another flower.

“Clay and Dustin are enemies, Fawn. You’re fucking bait! He’s using you to get to Dustin.”

No.“I’m not.”

“You are!”

I stand with a handful of flowers that I don’t want and will my knees to cease shaking. “He wouldn’t lie to me.” I dump the flowers on the ground, a pile of white, yellow, and green, creating a tatted mound by my new strappy shoes.

“Really?”

I rub my chest, feeling pin pricks hit my heart, deflating it. His words creep into me like demons spawning, seeping out with long black claws to change things forever. Infect my feelings. Ruin the first good thing in my life. My neweverything.I trust him. I trust him, goddamn it. That isn’t something I do easily. It isn’t...

What is Lee saying? That Clay is using me to get to my father? Like the girls used me to get to my brothers, like Benji used me to make them jealous, like Jasmine used me to make herself feel better... “No. I trust him.”

“I didn’t want to have to do this, but if you don’t believe me, then, fine”—he throws something at me, the small black rectangle hitting my left shoe—“take this.”

It rests vertically on the lip of my leather sole. I don’t lean down. I don’t pick it up because I know what it is, but I don’t want to touch it in case it is what I know it is.Fuck.“What is it?” I say, my voice wobbling with my encroaching despair.

“The recording you have been looking for. Your father acquired it for you. He wants to look after you, Fawn. He wants to be your father. And he thinks you deserve the truth.”

I know the truth.“I know the truth,” I mutter with curt adamance, but my voice sounds fucking awful and obvious and... breaks on the following exhale.

“Do you? Where are your brothers?”

With that, my heart lurches into my throat, shuddering within the column, making it hard to breathe or swallow orthink.“I’m leaving.” I whirl around.

“Listen, just watch the recording!” he pleads, and I still with my back to the garden. “Then, if you still think Mr Butcher wouldn’t lie to you, fine. But if you want the truth, more answers, answers you deserve, Fawn. To be in control of your own decisions in life, then meet me between the left hedge and the tennis court netting. There is a blind spot, and at 2:47 a.m. they switch guards. They talk and catch up for several minutes before they sit down. So, they won’t see you running through the house or even get to that spot. You’ll have maybe five minutes to get there. Then we won’t be in view. I made sure of it. I used to smoke there. I made a tree barrier, and if we stay low, they’ll never see us. And then I’ll take you to your father... You’ll be safe with him.”

I close my eyes, focusing on the ominous humid air filling my lungs. Gritting my teeth and cursing myself with every step,I walk to the black SD card and snatch it from beside the pile of ruined grass flowers.

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