Page 43 of Pretty Poisoned

"Of course they did."

"So, I'm going to wrap this up as fast as I can. A few things happened. The first was that I left a journal with some of the letters and…details about what I had been doing in English class, and someone made photocopies and posted them all over the school. They made videos of me crying; they went viral. The teachers called my parents. School, for the next couple of days, was torture—they literally tortured me—and then the administration decided that the best thing to do was expel me for the rest of the year because I'd become too much of a distraction. Nothing ever happened to the other kids who did that to me, though.

"My parents enrolled me in this alternative school and ended up selling the house to stop the letters because they were afraid, and I wasn't allowed to go anywhere or do anything. And the last thing that happened was that one of those people got out ofprison, found me, and abducted me. The police found us the next day and shot him dead in front of me."

"Jesus. I wasn't expecting that."

"You want to know the worst part? The fucked up part I've never told anyone before?"

"Yeah…"

"He didn't really abduct me. I went with him…willingly."

He removes his hands from his face and turns to face me, his green eyes lighting up."Really?"

"I never told anyone, though. There wasn't any point. And…I never flew under the radar again. When I realized people were always going to be paying attention now, I started dressing differently, started doing my hair and makeup, and started making a fucking scene. When I went back to regular school my senior year, the popular girls made a game out of trying to make me cry on camera, and I never fucking cried again. They did, though. When I fucked all of their boyfriends."

"Teagan," he says, reaching out and caressing my cheek with the back of his hand. "I think we might be soulmates. I'll tell you my thing now."

"Okay."

"A few months ago, I met this girl," he starts. "And this is going to sound worse than it actually is, okay? I mean, did your boyfriend ever kill anyone? I wasn't going to kill her—"

"Hey! Dumbass!"

I look over Luca's shoulder and spot Declan standing with his arms folded, no jacket of course, because he probably isn't human, with Rhett at his side.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing? Are you a fucking idiot?" he asks.

His tone drips with rage, his eyes hard. Luca pulls himself to his feet and I do the same, my eyes darting between the twobrothers as I start to worry one of them might swing on the other.

"I'm not—"

"I heard you," he says. "Do you want to go to jail?"

"I…" I start. "He didn't tell me anything. I won't tell anyone."

"See?" Luca says. "Teagan's cool. She'll probably find out anyway if she hangs around long enough."

"God, you really are fucking stupid. Teagan's cool until you piss her off, too. Then what?" he asks. "And she won't be sticking around. Two-stop rule—we're leaving her in Seattle with the skanks Eli brought home."

"Fuck this," I say. "I'll just leave right now. I'll get a cab or something. Luca, why do you let him tell you who you can talk to and who you can fuck? I thought my relationship with my family was messed up, but it is nothing like this."

I stuff my hands into my pockets and storm off toward the house, but I only make it a few steps away before Luca grabs me by the collar of my jacket and turns me around.

"You have no fucking idea what you're talking about," he growls. "So just shut the fuck up. You don't know shit about me or my brother. Got it?"

"Yeah," I say weakly. "Yeah, I'm sorry, Luca. I got it."

He smirks, his tone, again, changing completely. "That's better. I warned you about that mouth, didn't I?"

"Y-yes."

He releases my collar and gently cups my cheeks with his hands before kissing me on the mouth. It's soft, sensual. I wait for Declan to stop the interaction, but he doesn't.

When he pulls away, he rests his forehead on mine and says, "I'm sorry about that. But…thank you for telling me your secret, Teagan. I think we understand each other a lot better now, don't you?"

I swallow hard, my heart pounding. "Yeah, I think so."

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