Page 133 of Kings & Corruption

“It’s overdue,” Neo said, heading for the front of the house. “We’ve been lazy. And despite what you might think, this isn’t all about you, Jezebel.”

The nickname lacked its usual bite, like he was just going through the motions.

My stomach roiled, bile rising in my throat, and I knew I had about four seconds to get to a bathroom. I pushed back from the island and stood.

“Where are you going?” Oscar asked.

“I'm going to be sick.”

I took two steps toward the stairs and knew it was too late. For a couple minutes all I could do was be sick on the kitchen floor. It was only after I was done, when I’d stopped dry-heaving and my stomach stopped spasming, that I realized Rock was holding back my hair.

“I'm sorry.” It was all I could say. I was mortified, but also too mentally and emotionally exhausted to think too much about it.

”It's okay," Oscar said, rubbing my back gently. "Don't even think about it.”

“I'll clean up this mess,” I said, starting back for the kitchen.

“No, you won’t.” Rock guided me toward the stairs. “We'll take care of this.”

I waited for Neo to make some cutting remark about how I’d soiled the pristine floors in the Kings’ house, but he was silent behind me.

I let Rock guide me up the stairs, but all I saw was Nikki’s scared face the day I'd gone to see her at Bellepoint.

And now she would never be scared again. Because she was dead.

It would be stupid to think I wasn’t next.

Chapter61

Willa

Ibrushed my teeth, scrubbed my tongue, and took a hot shower. Then I put on my softest lounge pants and T-shirt and crawled into bed.

Rock had asked if I wanted him to stay, but I really just wanted to be alone.

And not just alone. I wanted to be asleep.

And not just asleep. For a while at least, I wanted to be dead to the world.

I fell into a fitful sleep with dreams of dark woods, glittering water, and dead girls with tangled hair.

When I woke up hours later, the quality of light in my room had changed, and I knew it was afternoon. I lay in bed for a long time staring at the ceiling, listening to the low, almost inaudible hum of the house around me, thinking about Nikki and what her parents were going through.

I didn't know exactly. We’d never gotten the worst of the worst news. My mom might have been convinced Emma was dead, or so she’d said, but we'd never been confronted with her battered body. We still had a sliver of hope that she was out there somewhere, alive — or I did anyway.

There were people who said that was worse. People who whispered it to each other and some who even said it to our faces. But those were people who'd never had someone they loved disappear from their lives. If they had, they would know that any hope, however excruciating, was better than the finality of knowing you would never see the person you loved again.

Nikki's parents were faced with that finality now, and my whole body ached with it, with the knowledge that I might have been responsible for it.

I thought I should cry. It made sense — I felt absolutely miserable, like I might shrivel up and drift away — but tears wouldn't come. Maybe I'd used them all up over Emma. Maybe I’d never cry again. I didn't know. All I knew was that Nikki was dead, and my mind started turning over what that meant, how someone – probably whoever had taken Emma and the other girls — had been desperate enough to remove Nikki with such finality.

They hadn't packed her things and made it look like she’d left on her own, and they hadn't made her disappear into thin air like Emma. Whoever had killed Nikki had been desperate enough to murder her and leave her in the woods with obvious evidence of that murder.

It meant something. I just didn't know what yet.

A knock sounded at my bedroom door and I lifted my head. “Come in.”

Oscar eased the door open and entered carrying a tray. When he got closer I saw that it held a covered dish, a mug of steaming tea, a plate of little cookies, and a stack of books.

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