Page 32 of Beautiful Dark Temptation

“Not to bust your bubble, but you aren’tpsychic. Or the best judge of character,” Fox put in.

“Well, he has been spending a lot of timewith Dasher,” River said, poking the bear and knowing it. “And nowthat you’ve been permanently placed in the hate zone, maybe they’reboth conspiring against us.”

Fox practically launched himself out of thechair, but I caught him before he tackled River. “Stop it! Dissentamong us won’t solve anything.”

“I think River is right,” Henry put in. “IfTomás was planted here, he would’ve come across as a friend, notfoe. And as I heard it, he wants to kill you.” Henry pointed atme.

“So what do you think?”

“I think Maddox Brennan is hiding Tomáshere.” Henry looked at all of us in turn with that creepy look hegets when he has a morbid idea and people will die. “I think liesamong family can spark distrust, dissent.” Henry paused as ifwaiting for one of us to get a clue. When we didn’t, he rolled hiseyes. “We should look into a link between Tomás and Maddox. Wealready know Tomás has no blood ties to you,” Henry motioned to me.And thank fuck Tomás wasn’t linked to me by blood. “But is TomásMaddox’s lover? Is Maddox even a Brennan? Whatever the case may be,we should find out. This is something we can use as leverage whenand if the time comes.”

The thought of Tomás being Maddox’s loverleft a foul taste in my mouth. Cillian Brennan was distrustful asfuck. If he found out Maddox was hiding something this big, he’dquestion his loyalty. I didn’t know what Cillian would do to Tomás.Nothing good. Fox didn’t have to tell me that Tomás was my Achillesheel. My actions regarding Tomás made no sense. Not even to me. Icouldn’t trust my thoughts where he was concerned. I couldn’t tellany of them this. They relied on me to keep them alive after weshowed our cards. We’d revel in the billions and plan our nextattack on the next family. “Do it. But I want to know whatever youfind when you find it.”

Henry nodded.

Now all we had to do was wait.

“You haven’t been yourself lately and I knowwhat you need,” Wren said giving me a look he reserved whenever hewas ready to bust out with something unexpected, usually true, butno one would ever believe until verified.

Did he know?

“We need a night out of this shithole.”

Fox pushed himself off the wall he’d beenstanding against for the past thirty minutes and lowered himselfinto the recliner, leaning back, legs outstretched like always.“He’s right,” he said. “We need to get out of here. Party. Drink.Have a meaningless fuckfest.Something.” Fox had alreadystarted to drink and fuck his way through the school. I could tellby Wren’s expression he wanted to call Fox out on it, but Fox hadbeen edgy since the hazing.

Wren nodded enthusiastically.

River looked between us. “Fine. I’ll callRickard and make sure he knows to expect us tonight.”

Slipping out of Arcadia was as easy as a fewthousand dollars. And Renew gave the guys a release I could nevershare. I hung out in the loft and waited and thought about Tomás.What we did to him, how I had hurt him. Almost losing him. And forthe first time since my grandfather took me away, I felt the stingof guilt.

Chapter Sixteen

Tomás

Early fall turned to late fall and thetemperatures dropped. Hell freezing over a real thing in themountains. I’d healed from the injuries and have been ignored byThe Ark Boys. After everything went down, I processed the shit thathappened. First the hazing. Taking off my clothes and making mefeel as if they were really going to kill me had been a coward,shit move. What they did to Charity and Dasher was way worse. Thethought that I had pissed myself when whoever placed that frozenspoon on my back making me think it'd been a torch still had meburning in shame. But the worst of my real injuries had beenattributed to almost drowning. And that had been my fault. Nothingbut my indecision had kept me under. My own shame, my cowardice.Yeah, cowardice was a word I learned too. And according to Dasher,Kieran had saved my life. He’d dove into the cold waters and pulledme to the surface. He’d shouted at his friends to help get me upand out and then shoved everyone away so he could perform CPR onme. According to Dasher, he’d never seen Kieran so worried aboutanother human life that wasn’t his crew. Everything sort of hazedout after that. I tried not to think too much about shit. It wasn’tthe first time I thought I was going to die. Dad had always calledme a resilient fucker. I just shrugged it off, burrowed itsomewhere never to see the light of day, and kept going. Only whenthe shit hit me in my nightmares did I realize those bad memorieswere still there. But that was something I had to deal withalone.

I still felt unsettled about losing Daniel’sring. I’d gone to Casera’s to report the so-called theft, but hesimply looked at me with resignation and said that I should try toplay nice. He didn’t say it like that, but that’s the gist of whatI got out of our conversation. Casera hadn’t had sparkly eyes forme.

Dasher had been distant. The smile I’d seenat the games, gone, replaced by pain he tried to hide. The leggetting worse. And like everyone in this damn school, he felt hehad to hide it. Even from me. I didn’t get it. I was his friend andhe kept me in the dark about the important things. Then Iremembered he’d said we weren’t best friends. Maybe I had readeverything wrong. Maybe, we weren’t friends at all.

That hurt my chest. I missed him.

But I still had Jack and weed.

Jack rubbed his nose as if fightingsomething inside it, the guy more than a little stoned. “You shouldease up on the shit,” I said as we walked to the theatrebuilding.

“Mind your business. Not like you’re notsmoking.”

Yeah, I had a stash in my room I’d boughtfrom him. Whatever.

Cora slid into step beside me, and Jack tookoff faster into the building. “Are you going to the Halloweenparty?” she asked.

No one talked about what happened at thelake. I knew some of the students were there, I just didn’t have aclue to who witnessed the shit. No one talked about it to my face,but I had heard whispers.

“They cheated.”

“Exiled.”

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