Page 158 of Priest and his Anarchist

“We set the bait, plant a couple of detours, and give the participants one hour to find it. If they do, they keep it. If they don’t, we kill it. It was a simpler way to unleash each other’s anger on one another without jeopardizing the treaty.”

I pause, wiping the sweat from my thighs. “First lie.”

River shuffles forward, almost protectively. “He never killed me. Obviously.”

“Yes—” Halen interrupts. “Very obviously.”

He takes a moment to look between me and Priest. “Games and tricks. Maybe you are like your father after all.”

“I said I kill them after. Not fall in love with them.” Priest takes the spot beside his grandfather and from this angle, it’s eerie. Not that they look oddly similar, because truthfully, they don’t. It’s that they’re two sides of the same coin. Both equally and morally challenging.

“And the why?” Hector flashes his wrist. “Or is it purely for fun?”

Priest turns to him, and from this side, I can see the newest tattoo crawl over his shoulder blade. I hadn’t seen it. Mainly because since being here, he and I can’t seem to stand being near each other long enough to do it.

“Well, and it allows us entrance into the enemies’ turf. We know there’s an entrance somewhere there, we haven’t found it yet.”

“Hold up!” War rounds the table, his eyes on Priest, who’s tracing my spine behind me. “What is an entrance?”

Hector’s eyes brighten before landing back to me. “Ah, of course. Speaking of, I had no luck in Rome. I truly thought I’d find something there, but I didn’t.” His head tilts. “Do you remember anything else?”

I shake my head. “No. Everything I remember from before Aspen, I’ve said. Trust me. I’ve wanted to be found so this can be over with.”

“My second lie.” My eyes burn from not blinking, the trail on my spine pausing.

“Luna…” It’s the second time Nate has said my name in warning.

A glass is placed on a table and Bishop stands to his height. “That’s enough about the history.”

The words get stuck in my throat. I don’t want to say it out loud, but it rolls off my tongue anyway.

“Her name was Darling, at least that’s what she went by, and she wasn’t a personality that lived inside me.” I swallow. “She was my twin sister.”

Mumbled voices move around the room like thunder, but I’m too lost in my own thoughts to hear them. Priest and I hadn’t spoken since he found me hiding in an abandoned house yesterday and brought me back here. I haven’t thought about it since. He knew that I was a twin before he killed her—he had to, right?—my emotions begin to spiral once again, an endless spin of turmoil.

Fingers are on my chin, forcing my head around to him. “Yes, I fucking knew, and yes, I have already told your parents. Though I had to tell them in less than ten seconds, but they’re on their way.”

I relax, but not enough to lower my guard. “This isn’t the time to be saying this, and I wouldn’t if it wasn’t relevant to Madison, but it is—” Priest’s grip around my stomach tightens, almost enough to force the air out from me, the muscles in his thighs stiffening beneath my ass. Because he knows. He knows that me telling everyone about my connection with Madison being taken, risks someone, well, killing me.

“The girl Priest killed was Darling.” A single teardrop. “I need to tell you what really happened for all of this to make sense, but I’ll try to.”

The front door opens and closes before Mom and my Dads fill the space. Not much shakes Lilith Patience, but when her legs dissolve from under her weight, I know that what I’ve done was probably selfish.

That not telling them, or anyone—my eyes land on River. Except for her—was probably selfish.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

priest

the birth of a darling

past

The wind catches the side of her face, keeping her eyes bright on mine. “Well…” she says, and I love how anytime she’s here, it makes everything seem different. She’s seven years old—barely old enough to be as smart as she is, but it is something else.

Something worse.

She is like me. I know it.

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