Page 66 of Wicked Sins

“This is all you, Josiah!” Her chest pushes against my ribs as she hauls in one furious breath after the other.

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” I murmur, pushing away from the tree, from her, from her lies.

“Youdid this to us!” she yells after me. “Not me. This isallyou, you fucking psycho!”

I walk faster and faster, ignoring when I step on a sharp rock or burn my sole on a root when it slips out from under me.

The Bale men are cursed. What the hell else could explain how we manage to attract crazies one after the other like this?

But what if youhadn’tmentioned the boarding school. What if you hadn’t sent Sean that message, Jo?

I push away that insidious thought.

Someone had to set her straight. Else she’d just have kept on drinking like Diana. Like Mom. She couldn’t keep hiding that—

She was hidingsomething, but it wasn’t her drinking.

Hiding, hiding, and not telling. You wanted to know, but she wouldn’t say. And that was bugging you, wasn’t—?

I yell out, slamming the heel of my hand against my head. Abruptly, I stop walking.

Christ, this place is giving me cabin fever.

Or is it?

I slowly unfurl my fingers, slide my palms over my head to smooth back my hair, and straighten from the Neanderthal-like slouch I’d been stomping around in.

It’s like that song.

I can think clearly now, my darling’s gone.

And, in two weeks,I’llbe gone. Gone for good. Back home where I belong. But Candy? She’sneverleaving this place. I don’t know how, but I’ll make it happen.

She thinksI’mcrazy?

She hasn’t even met me yet.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Candy

Ihate Josiah Bale. Actually, hate isn’t a strong enough word to accurately depict how much I want to chop off his head, douse him with gasoline, and set him on fire.

I let out a quiet huff of a laugh, so I don’t wake my roommates.

Sure, he rescued me when I’d been attacked. And he saved my life out there by the dam.

But he’s just a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Guess he takes after his father more than I’d thought, because that’s exactly how it was with Mr. Bale.

One minute, Joah’s father is literally the father I never had but always wanted. The next, I’m the scum of the earth. It was as if all those evenings we’d spent playing chess, drinking, and talking like old friends meant nothing to him.

If Joah’s father thought I was such a fuck up, then why the hell did he bother trying to be nice to me? Why’d he bother treating me like a grown-up if he was convinced I was just some out-of-control kid who needed a place like Happy Mountain to sort me out?

I massage my temples. My head’s about to explode, and not just from trying to figure out men—I know this ache all too well. It’s the one that made me get up in the middle of the night at the Bale Manor, sneak downstairs, and raid the liquor cabinet. It was the one that had me sneaking vodka into my water bottle before school every morning, and wishing I could drink it straight when it ran out by noon.

Ugh. If I’m not going to be able to sleep, then I might as well go pee.

I slip out of bed as quietly as I can and tiptoe into the bathroom. I close the door nearly all the way before I turn on the light.

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