Page 137 of Hunting Pretty

Aisling slapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes filling with tears.

She shook her head again.

She didn’t need to say it. I knew.

It was too terrible to say aloud what befell her best friend, too terrible to face what Liath faced. It was easier to keep silent, to repress everything, to bury it all down in the depths of yourself.

But some things would not stay buried.

A memory slammed into me.

The air in the room was stale, unmoving. I had little sense of the time as I pushed myself stiffly up onto my elbow in my four-poster bed. A sliver of pale light quivered between my heavy pink drapes—but was it dawn or dusk?

I awoke sure that I was somewhere foreign, somewhere strange. So it was unsettling to realize that the sheets beneath my numb fingers were my own and that the dark furniture that surrounded my bed was mine.

A bitter taste in my mouth made me gag and I reached for the glass of water on my dark wood bedside table.

Even my body as I slowly assessed it with suspicious, uncertain eyes didn’t feel the way it should. I was like a foreigner in my own skin.

It should have been a relief to find myself fully clothed in my nightgown, one I wore often and must have pulled out all on my own from my wardrobe, but I was sure there was something not right.

I checked my arms beneath the long, lacy sleeves and my breath caught in my chest at the sight of bruises around my upper arms.

I tested one with a delicate touch and winced at the pain.

Fear gripped me—the bruise was fresh.

Not again.

I hastily pulled the hem of my gown up to my hip. All along my upper thighs were bruises.

Something had happened to me. But I couldn’t remember what.

“Ava?” Aisling’s voice broke through the haze, her eyes full of concern as she leaned across the booth. “Are you okay?”

My throat felt parched, the bitter taste of the memory lingering on my tongue like ash.

I reached for my tea, my hand trembling slightly as I brought the cup to my lips and drained it, desperate to push down the rising dread.

The cup hit the saucer with a loud clatter, the sound sharper than I intended.

“I’m grand,” I lied, forcing the words out, but the edge in my voice betrayed me.

I wasn’t grand. I wasn’t okay. And as the weight ofeverything settled over me, I wasn’t sure I ever would be again.

When I had lived with Scáth, I’d also experienced missing time. I’d wake up with strange bruises that I couldn’t explain, along with a sore throat and the lingering bitterness on my tongue.

At the time, I forced myself to brush it off, convincing myself it was nothing, something I could ignore.

I hid my bruises even from Scáth. Because I liked living there. I liked having him as my foster brother—he made me feel safe. Like I was protected. Cared for.

I didn’t want to complain, to ask too many questions, to give them any reason to send me back to the orphanage.

But now, it all came rushing back, sharp and undeniable.

That’s why the drug from Liath’s room had smelled so familiar. I had smelled it before.

I had just buried it, buried the memories, buried the fear. But now, standing on the edge of that realization, I knew without a shadow of a doubt.

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