Page 149 of Burning Embers

“Gotcha, fucker,” I murmur with a grin as the phone opens.

I click on his messaging app first and find a slew of messages from Sydney. I click on her name instinctively…and then instantly dry-heave when I see a half-naked photo of my sister sent a day ago. It doesn’t appear as if he responded.

“Fuck no. Ugh.” I back out of that text thread and will myself not to vomit. “I need goddamn bleach for my eyes.”

The only other conversation is with—you guessed it—Gracie. However, when I click on it, I realize that the messages must’ve recently been deleted. There's only a single message from the girl in question.

Gracie

Fine. We can talk. Tonight.

Does his talk with Gracie have anything to do with the strange call he took just before he left the apartment?

I navigate to the photo app.

And instantly feel my blood go cold.

“No,” I breathe in horror, the phone shaking in my hand.

Just like on the flip phone, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures. All of them seem to have been taken when the subject wasn’t paying any attention. In one, she’s turned away, talking to someone just off camera. In another, her head is bent over a book, and a pane of glass separates her fromthe photographer. In a third, she’s on the opposite side of the street, staring at her phone, utterly oblivious to her stalker.

Izzy.

My Izzy.

“Fuck.” The phone drops from my hand and hits the ground with an audible thump.

But that barely registers.

The last time Grayson took pictures of girls, they ended up dead.

Bile scorches my throat like fingers of fire.

Izzy is Grayson’s next target.

And if I don’t do something soon, she’ll end up like Larissa and Alixandra.

Dead.

Fifty

IZZY

Icheck my phone for the fiftieth time, my heart thundering rampant in my chest.

Grayson is coming over.

Frowning, I study my reflection in the mirror yet again. What do I wear around the man who claimed to be in love with me while having a girlfriend? The best friend I’ve secretly been crushing on for years now, with no hope of it ever being reciprocated?

I chose to dress casually in an off-the-shoulder, beige sweater paired with blue jeans. I’ve left my blonde curls down but applied just a little bit of product so they bounce.

Am I trying to impress him? Maybe.

Am I trying to show him what he’s missing? Most definitely.

I won’t be the other woman. I refuse to. I’m a lot of things, but a home-wrecker isn’t one of them. If he wants to continue to date Sydney, then he can’t make false promises and confessions to me.

Does Grayson even know what love is? I’m not sure. He hasn’t really received a lot of it in his life. His parents were abusive assholes, and his foster parents weren’t much better. I’mone of the only people who opened my heart to him—and look where that got me.

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