Page 8 of Carved in Ice (Made of Steel 3)

“You’d know I gave up more than that if you bothered to talk to me!”

“And what, Liza? You’d be able to tell me what true loss feels like? Everything was taken from me. Everything I’ve ever cared about!” I struggled against my restraints.

“That. That right there. How is that supposed to make us feel? Because I thought we all cared about each other.” She glanced at V.

All she cared about was V. She was probably only sitting there pretending to care because he had asked her to be a part of whatever the hell this was. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. It was getting hard to breathe. “I need to go outside,” I said. “Will someone please untie me?”

They didn’t respond. The silence was so unnerving.

“Look, I’m not seeing the whack-job therapist that V uses who is clearly terrible at his job. And I’m not going to go find one on my own. Conversation over. Now untie me please.”

“My therapist doesn’t know I’m the vigilante,” V said. His voice rumbled lower than usual. “He’s good at what he does, it’s not his fault that I’ve been lying to him. And you’ll be using a fake name so he won’t connect the dots.”

I wanted to keep arguing with them. I wanted to prove that I wasn’t insane. But there was a benefit to meeting V’s ridiculous therapist. Maybe I could finally figure out who V was. “Okay, I’ll meet him.”

“That was easier than I expected,” Liza said.

“Well, you guys are right. I’ve been hard to live with.” As if they hadn’t.

“Or you could just talk to us,” V said. “Tell us what’s really bothering you. We’re your friends.”

Friends. I swallowed down the lump in my throat. Wasn’t that one of the problems? That we were once so much and now we were just friends? “No, I want to talk to your therapist.”

“But if you…”

Eli cleared his throat. “Perfect. He should be here in about twenty minutes. We thought you’d need more convincing.” He smiled at me.

I let my eyes focus on his lips. I barely remembered what it was like to kiss him. Why couldn’t I remember? God, maybe I was crazy. It felt like I couldn?

?t focus on anything.

“Fine,” V said as he stood up. “I’ll be in my room so he doesn’t see me.”

“Or you could stay and take off your mask.”

“Goodnight, Sadie,” he said without turning around.

The name Sadie hurt even more than the word friends. Whatever we had was dead. Why had they suddenly decided I needed therapy now? Was it because of my question for V this morning? I hoped he hadn’t talked to Liza and Eli about that. It was embarrassing enough hearing him say he didn’t love me to my face. I didn’t want anyone else to know and whisper about it behind my back. “Can you untie me now?” I asked no one in particular. I didn’t want to go outside anymore, but I still wanted to be free. Really, I just wanted to curl up in a ball in my bed and dream. My dreams were the only place I could truly be happy.

Eli sat down beside me and started untying the ropes.

I looked up at him. “You really think I need therapy?”

“I don’t know, Summer. Maybe it would help.” He pulled the rope away from my feet.

“I’m the same girl I was when I lived with Don. The only difference is that I’m stronger now.”

“That’s not the only difference.” He pulled the final rope away.

I rubbed my wrists as soon as they were free. “Yes, it is.”

“The Summer I fell in love with had hope.”

His words from earlier today came back to me. He said he didn’t even recognize me anymore. “I do have hope. I’m just hoping for something different.”

“Don’s death instead of the hope to live your life?”

I shook my head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

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