Page 77 of Unspoken Truths

Hands clamp down on my forearms, startling me so badly, I let go of the ladder with a scream, looking up into Ignacio’s stormy gray gaze.

“You’re a pain in my ass, you stupid girl,” he snarls, lifting me straight up into the air. “You want to die? Is that what you’re trying to fucking do?”

Tears stream down my face as he tosses me into the air, making me shriek as he makes me believe he’s going to throw me off the roof. Instead, his hands close on my upper arms, pulling me closer to him. How Emil and my mom haven’t heard us screaming, I have no idea, and I half expect them to come running through the French doors to my right.

“I don’t think you’ll like any of my answers,” I rasp. “Do you want me to tell you I don’t hear voices that tell me to let go? Or that it would be easier to not feel as much as I do? You push, and push, and fucking push, Ignacio. You can only break something if it’s not shattered into a million pieces already!”

“Is that what you think?” he asks, his hand moving to rub his thumb across my cheek. Grimacing at the tears on it, he sucks it clean as my jaw drops. “One of the reasons the four of us are drawn to you is because to the outside world you look so damn happy.”

“Fake,” I mutter. “All the world’s a stage and all that jazz. No one needs the sad girl moving through their space, especially when it doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong with me. I live in a mansion, go to a fancy school, and all of my needs are taken care of. What do I have to complain about?”

“That’s the thing,” he says. “You don’t complain. I saw the way you looked when you let yourself glance down. Death is too good for you.”

“That’s sweet,” I say sarcastically, yanking my arms away. Carefully skirting away from the ladder, I drop onto a chair with bright yellow pillows. “I asked to be left alone.”

“Yeah, like I’m going to do that now at the highest point of the house,” Ignacio mutters.

“Moment’s passed for now,” I say honestly, drawing my knees up onto the chair with me to pillow my chin as I look out at the backyard.

Emil has a gorgeous garden here, and everything is blooming. I need to hold onto things that are pretty right now. Taking a deep breath, I try to find a way to center myself.

Not everything is as ugly as I think it is,I whisper to myself.

Closing my eyes, I shake my head as I see Colton’s face. Nope, that’s why that’s a bad idea. It’s why I can’t sleep. Blinking, I gaze out at the world outside.

This is safer.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Ignacio asks, sitting next to me.

I didn’t think I said that out loud. Wonderful.

“Nightmares,” I say softly. “Barrett is going to come looking for me soon.”

“I have more questions than ever,” my stepbrother admits. “Are you going to tell me what any of that means?”

“Nope. Don’t want to be hurt today, thank you,” I tell him, feeling myself starting to drift.

God, I’m having a really bad day. This is wonderful. I’m going to end up locked up.

Rough hands pick me up and drop me into a lap, and I jerk as I try to figure out what happened. Ignacio is glaring at me again, and I don’t know why.

“Focus, Rachelle,” he snarls. “No one is going to lock you up. You’re fucking scaring me.”

My fingers are twitching and I force myself to take a deep breath. If I’m saying things that are supposed to stay inside of my head, then chances are that I’m probably not doing a great job of that thing where you inhale to oxygenate your brain, either.

“I do a really good job of keeping it together,” I rasp. “Colton stole everything from me because he didn’t understand how to stay away. I’m seeing a pattern with the Kings.”

Tears continue to fall, and I ignore them until they hit my lips, at which point my tongue pokes out to collect it. They’re salty, reminding me of what hopelessness looks like.

“Rachelle,” my stepbrother begins, and I shake my head.

“What you did yesterday is no better than what my rapist did to me,” I hiss. “I’ll die on this hill, Ignacio. Go play your games somewhere else, because I want no part of it.”

“You were fine with Jared and Theo,” he insists. “I was fucking around with Lili and almost got my nuts cut off for my efforts, but I saw how you broke apart for him. What was the difference between that and upstairs with me?”

“I think it was because I couldn’t see your face,” I whisper. “My brain started to lie to me. I was convinced I had to get away when you shoved your fingers inside of me and started to talk about fucking my ass. It didn’t matter that you aren’t Colton, in my mind, I was thrown back to when the word no was ignored.”

“We’re a lot of things, even killers, but we aren’t rapists,” Ignacio insists. “My friends and I find a thread of resistance and pull and pull until the whole thing unravels.”

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