Page 188 of Hunting Pretty

I zipped up my backpack and placed the envelope marked Ebony on my dresser.

I didn’t want her worrying.

That pebble of uneasiness scraped against my soul. I tried to shake it off but it remained there, feeling like it was poking me, trying to get my attention.

I was missing something.

Something didn’t make sense.

I just had been too in shock to really think about it until now.

Like… if Dr. Vale had been the one abusing Liath, if he’d been the one to suppress her memories and the one to kill her when she got too close to the truth… then why was he suppressingmymemories?

Why did he givemememory suppressors as well?

I’d only met Dr. Vale a few years ago when I started seeing him weekly.

But I didn’t have missing time or bruises since I’d lived with Ebony.

Those were things that happened in a previous life. My abuse remained buried in the missing years between the orphanage and Ebony.

Dr. Vale couldn’t have been the abuser that I had buried in the recesses of my mind.

So why was Dr. Vale repressing memories that couldn’t have been ofhim?

I thought that Liath’s experiences had triggered my own dark but unconnected past.

But my abuse years ago and Liath’s abuse… could they be connected?

A movement outside my window caught my eye. I froze.

There was someone out there. Someone watching me.

I crept to my curtain, my heart hammering against my rib cage, and peeked out.

Relief washed over me as I spotted Scáth lurking among the trees, his familiar broad shoulders in his all-black outfit, his skeleton mask over his lower face again.

I waved at Scáth—I think he saw me—and turned to leave.

But a dark figure in my doorway startled me.

I let out a scream.

Cormac stepped into my bedroom and into the light, the black eyepatch over his right eye making him look almost sinister.

“Jesus Christ, Cormac.” I placed a hand on my heart, trying to stop it from banging out of my chest. “You scared me.”

He walked into the bedroom, hands in the pockets of his pressed cream-colored pants, and stared at my backpack. “You going somewhere, Ava?”

Shit. No one was supposed to know.

I scrambled for a lie to cover up my departure. “I, um, I had an invite to spend the summer holidays with a friend. In, eh, Paris.”

Cormac’s eyebrows furrowed. “Hols don’t start for another two weeks.”

I shrugged. “Going early. So sue me.”

I grabbed my backpack handle.

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