Page 35 of Wicked Beasts
“Did he ask about me?” he asks.
I can feel my stomach coiling in guilt.
Yes. My head is screaming at me to say it.Yes. Yes. Yes. I told him. I told him about your email. I told him what I knew of your research and your school projects.
Yes.
He’s your brother. He’s worried about you.
“No.” The lie comes out strong and sharp. His brows furrow slightly as he tries to figure me out. He always looks at me like he’s expecting me to lie, and that’s exactly what I did. I lied. Why was I lying? I chew on the inside of my cheek. “I mean, well, yes. He asked about you, but we didn’t talkaboutyou. Much. I didn’t say anything.”
Oh God—just shut up, Amara.
Tristan tilts his head, the shadows sharpening his features, giving him a charm that feels almost predatory. It reminds me of Dr. Shadow, but not his eyes. His eyes betray him. While dark and steady, they hold mine with a kind of unnerving calm and patience. “What did he say?” His voice is smooth, polite—too polite. It makes me feel small.
I swallow, trying to steady myself. “Well, he wanted to know how you’re doing. That you’re…sick. He’s worried.” I speak the words like a defense, as if they’ll explain everything, as if they’ll make him understand why I said what I did.
Tristan’s smile is fleeting, but it’s not warm. It’s laced with skepticism, disbelief.
I frown. “You don’t believe he’s worried?” The question feels absurd, even to my own ears, but I need to hear his answer, need to understand why his reactions seem so...calculated, so distant.
He chuckles—a low, quiet sound that skitters down my spine, prickling my neck with its unsettling intimacy. It’s not a laugh, not really.
“No,” he says, the word flat and dismissive, coated in a coldness that sends a shiver rippling through me. He shakes his head slowly, the movement deliberate. “I don’t.”
His words and demeanor change stir a horror in me, but I swallow it. He and his brother seem to have that in common. I can definitely see the overlap between the two of them. Despite their striking differences, their reactions seem more or less the same. They pull back and withdraw. Dr. Shadow is just a bit more forward and aggressive with what he wants. His anger is his weakness. Tristan seems intentional about not appearing vulnerable. I wonder if he’s scared to let people in.
“Why not?” I ask, though there’s this feeling in the pit of my stomach that he’s going to shut me out. He lifts his gaze to meet mine, and it feels like my heart is going to burst.
“Because it’s his fault.”
My breath catches in my throat. My lungs tighten.
What didthatmean?
“Mr. Black, your guest is here.”
I jump at the sound of Mortimer’s cold interruption before I have a moment to register what exactly it is he said. Tristan has a guest?
“Excuse me, Miss Amara.”
He gently touches my shoulder, and my heart skips a beat.
My breath catches in my throat as he leaves.
I shut my eyes. He still has the same effect on me, the same effect that makes my knees weak.
Thirty
Because it’s his fault.
His words linger in my mind, haunting me in the days that follow. Each syllable is an echo reverberating through the silence of my thoughts. They coil like smoke around my consciousness, never quite fading, always returning to twist and tighten with each passing hour. The tension between the brothers makes sense if Dr. Shadow is responsible for whatever’s wrong with Tristan. The way Tristan didn’t want to hear about him being back. The way Dr. Shadow would dance around the topic of asking Tristan himself. It all feels like a waltz in the dark, a macabre dance of words and half-truths.
What exactly did hedoto him?
The question claws at the edges of my mind, the unanswered mystery stretching between us like a vast, empty chasm. I wonder, was Dr. Shadow's concern genuine that night? Or was it something else—something darker? Was he truly worried for Tristan's well-being, or was he merely curious, probing for signs of weakness, for cracks in the armor of his brother’s health?
But more troubling still is the question that gnaws at me late into the evening, twisting my thoughts into knots: Is Dr. Shadow still a threat to him?
