Page 132 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)

She giggles and takes my hand, pulling me to my bed. My comment doesn’t distract her as long as I hope. We both sit, angled toward each other. Slowly, the happiness drops from her face.

“Are you okay?” she asks me.

I pause, brows lowering. “What? Yes, of course.”

“I—”

“There you are,” Liam says, skidding into the room. Like my initial reaction, he’s all smiles.

But then he sees my expression.

“What did you say to her?” he demands of Riley.

She stands, scowling at him. “Nothing.”

I rub my eyes. “Can you give us a moment, Liam?”

His eyebrows lift, but then he nods.

I get what he’s feeling, I do. He’s been fighting the urge to be protective for years, and now that he’s suddenly allowed, it’s like an all-out sprint of emotions. Okay, maybe I don’t fully understand it: not the emotional side of things. But the ability to read him has been coming back to me, to take everything in with just a glance at his body language.

He was happy, and now he’s tense.

“Go be with your friends,” I urge.

Riley and I wait in silence for his footsteps on the creaking stairs. My friend eventually sits back down.

I blow out a breath. “Not fine,” I say without preamble. “My life is a mess. I need to figure out my past, you know? I just…”

Riley takes my hands. “Maybe Margo is the right person to talk to. Her and Caleb went through some shit as kids, but they both made it out on the other side.”

I frown at my fingers. “My trauma didn’t include Liam, though. Not that I know of. He… he was there after. He found me.”

She leans in. “Found you?”

“I keep having these nightmares of running through the woods, hitting a tree, falling. Liam finds me and shouts for help. And there are other things, too, but not how I remember them.”

She nods, squinting, then retrieves her phone. “Hold on.”

A minute later, my door cracks open, and Margo Wolfe—well, now Margo Asher—slips inside. She was the girl the popular crowd never saw coming. I don’t think Caleb could’ve known what he was in for when he set eyes on her, either.

“Hi,” I murmur.

“Hey. Do you mind if I sit?” She gestures to my desk chair and waits for my okay before sinking into it. “So, what’s up?”

I shift, suddenly dry-mouthed. “I…”

“Nightmares,” Riley supplies. “And you said you’re remembering things differently?”

I swallow. “Yeah, just little things. Like, there was a party our junior year, and Amelie had left me. I got a ride back with Jake and Liam.”

“Which part doesn’t match up to your memory?” Margo asks.

“My courage.” I rub my eyes again. “Oh god, here we go. I dreamt that I held Liam’s hand on the way back.”

Margo hums. “Maybe you did, and you wrote it off as impossible after the fact.”

“There are worse dreams to have,” Riley says.

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