Page 100 of Iris' Lying Eyes

Lifting my head, I smile bitterly. “What everyone else does, B. I’m just the tool. I always have been. I always will be.”

He drops into silence, and Jig says quietly, “Fuck me.”

∞∞∞

Later, I turn over and assess my surroundings. Cyn’s leaning against the wall with his head tipped forward. Jig’s on his back, his chest rising in a gentle cadence.

And B? Well, he’s staring right at me. Raising a brow, I rest my head on my arm.

With a grunt, he says, “Why didn’t you just say something all those years ago?”

“About what? John?”

He nods, and I shrug. “I thought I was doing the right thing. As it turns out, the right thing only gets me in more trouble.”

His lip curls, and I blink away the flame igniting my heart. He’s so everything when he’s the Bastion I used to know.

“Remember the bonfires? When we used to get fucked up and just hang out? We were so free,” I say wistfully.

“We weren’t free. It was all a fucking lie we told ourselves. The past is just as shitty as the now.”

“Wow.” Way to ruin a good memory, but I guess it’s true. “Maybe so, but those were the last times I still let hope guide me. Now there’s nothing but a never-ending sense of doom.”

“Why did you go to McCafferty?”

“You know why,” I whisper, closing my eyes. It’s as close to the truth as I’m going to get. “I had to make sure she’s safe.”

He shifts, and I glance at him through my lashes. His granite eyes stare into the distance. His mighty chest rises and falls with a sigh before he rumbles, “Is she safe? Does John know?”

Rubbing my cheek, I say, “Does he know? He’s the one who took her away.” Then, blinking back tears, I say through a swollen throat, “I barely got to say goodbye.”

Bastion makes a sound that’s halfway between a groan and a cry. I’ve had years to come to terms with it, and he’s just now learning pieces of the story.

Despite how he’s acted and the cruelty with which he so easily tore me down, I can’t let him think I took away the only parental figure he cared about. Not after this.

“I didn’t do it, B,” I say quietly. “I didn’t. I . . . didn’t.”

He eyes me for a minute before laying on his back. “I know.”

Exhaling slowly, I close my eyes, allowing a single tear to escape. At least in this I can rest, knowing he doesn’t hate me for it. There are plenty of other reasons, though.

∞∞∞

I’m dozing when Liberty enters, images of Roman standing before me with a wicked glint in his eye dancing over my vision.

The soft whoosh of the door brings me around, and she tiptoes down the corridor, stopping before my cell.

With a yawn, I sit up and eye her skeptically, “What are you doing?”

Glancing back, she puts her finger to her mouth, my phone clenched in her hand and says, “The car is still out front.”

“Liberty,” I whisper, grabbing the bars.

“Sh, I won’t stand back and watch. I won’t. You’ve already done enough. Just go. Don’t come back. Let this go.” Her pretty eyes sparkle with her conviction, and I shake my head.

“You know they’ll come for us.”

Grabbing my hand wrapped around the bars, she says with a glint in her eyes, “Not if I refuse.”

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