Page 58 of Twisted Games (Boys of Briar Hall 3)

“She isn’t dead,” I found myself saying, muscles in my arms and across my upper back tensing. “At least, I don’t think she is.”

AJ squinted at the rough wood roof beneath us, trying to understand. I wondered if she could and a sudden burning urge to come clean seared through me.

“I look her up sometimes,” I admitted. “Type her name into search engines or social media. Just to see…”

She cocked her head, a sadness in her eyes that made my chest ache, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to say any more. If I wanted her to know.

“She starved you,” she said, not a question.

“Left me,” I corrected her. “Alone in my dead stepdad’s house. For weeks at a time.”

“So you were taken away from her, then? That’s how you ended up at Barrett’s Home for Boys with Rook?”

I wasn’t surprised she knew about that. I’d have been lying if I said I hadn’t scoured Corvus’ room for her files last month, trying to understand her. Who she was.

“Yeah. My teacher found me. I was almost dead. She never came back.”

“That’s why you look for her,” AJ mused. “Because you want to see if she’s still out there, living her life, free of you. If she forgot about you.”

I cleared my throat, shifting uncomfortably. “It’s pathetic. I know.”

She grabbed my arm, making me look at her as she shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, it’s not. It’s okay to wonder. To care. You can hate her and still care to know. I’d want to know why, too. Why she couldn’t take care of you.”

That was part of it. The itching need to know how she could do it. But there was another reason I couldn’t help myself from typing her name into the search bar. The other part of me, the darker part, wanted her to suffer. Wanted to see what she would look like with her bones showing through her skin. With her eyes jaundiced and teeth falling from her mouth.

I was afraid of what I would do to her if I did find her. As if the precious few good memories of her somehow made all the fucking brutal ones tolerable.

“This doesn’t make you weak,” AJ continued. “You hear me?”

I smirked. “Yeah, AJ. I hear you.”

I lifted a hand to cup the side of her face, her cheek cold against my palm. She pushed into my touch, offering me a small sad smile before she pulled away.

“So, you draw me. Like, a lot. When did that start?”

She rolled her shoulders, the heavy vibe tumbling off. Forgotten.

“Since the first time I saw you.”

Her cheeks pinkened before she scraped to her feet. “The guys should be here soon, and it’s getting late. I’m going to go pack this shit away.”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

I breathed in the sunset, closing my eyes to feel the last of its dying rays warm my face and tint the back of my eyelids brilliant orange.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I tugged it loose. It was about time Corv answered me. For a guy who always expected an immediate response from us, he sure didn’t seem to feel like he needed to abide by the same.

My thoughts cleared at the sight of the message waiting for me when I unlocked my phone. It wasn’t from Corv. Or Dies or Rook. Not even Julia, though it boasted her trademark Unknown tag.

How the fuck…?

I swallowed, my teeth clenching as I reread the message, my stomach twisting.

Unknown: Hello, Grey. How far would you go to protect your brothers?

Another message came through before the first had a chance to settle in my mind.

Unknown: Let’s find out, shall we?

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