Page 174 of Redeemed

Athelia smiles. “I am, yeah. Are you hungry? Cal is making waffles.”

“I already ate, but thanks.”

“How’s your family?” she asks, and at the concern in her voice, guilt gnaws away at my insides. “Is everything okay?”

“Um, yeah. It took a lot longer to deal with than I expected, but it was nice to catch up with them. We can talk about that later, though. Tell me about you.”

Athelia hesitates. “Maybe… let’s take a walk.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Real quick, Athelia runs upstairs to grab a hat, and Wes follows her. I can hear them talking in hushed tones, but I can’t make out any individual words.

That is, until I hear Wes mention Professor Kammes. I don’t know why he brought him up, and I can’t hear Athelia’s reply, but it brings my suspicions to the surface again. Athelia’s relationship with her advisor has always struck me as odd. Maybe she’ll finally tell me the truth about him today.

When Athelia comes back down, she grabs my hand and pulls me out of the house. It’s not until we’re in the open and I realize Lucas is gone that I realize this may be a bad idea. We have no one to protect us if, somehow, Isaiah finds us.

But the boys said it would be fine, didn’t they? Why would Isaiah look for me this far off campus?

“Okay, I’m gonna start from Halloween night,” Athelia says as she drags me down the sidewalk. “First of all, that Halloween party? They’re the ones who hosted it.”

“What?” I sputter.

“Yep. I think it was a trap. For me, that is. And… well, it worked.”

“Wait.” I freeze, yanking her to a stop. “What did they do to you?”

“A lot.” She grimaces. “The guy who I went with when you headed off with Aaron was actually—wait, how did that go?”

“Fine.” I wave it off. “Keep going.”

“So that was Kellan. I fucked him without realizing it was him. God, I was so pissed, especially when Wes and Cal joined.”

“What?!”

“It’s pretty bad.” Her voice dips, and for a second, I think she might cry. “After that, they dragged me into the woods, tied me to a tree, and left me there for hours. I thought I was going to die out there.”

“Thelia.” My arms come around her, and I squeeze her tight when she sniffles. “Oh my god, Thelia.”

“I don’t—I don’t want to cry. I’ve cried enough.” She wipes at her tears.

“Are they forcing you to stay with them?”

I’m not sure what I’ll do if she says yes. Beg Colton to let her stay with us? It’d mean telling her the truth, which he won’t like, but I can’t leave her with those monsters if they’re hurting her.

“That’s how it started,” Athelia admits, “but now I want to stay.”

“You… you do?”

“That’s getting ahead of the story.” She tugs on my hand, and we start walking again. “I’m sure you heard that Professor Kammes passed away?”

What? Oh my god.

“Y-yeah,” I lie, “although I didn’t really hear much about what happened.”

“No one knows. Police think it was murder, but they don’t really have any suspects.”

I narrow my eyes. I can think of three—if I’m right about Kammes’s treatment of Athelia, that is.

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