Page 50 of Voracious

“I lied to you too.”

“I thought he was just possessive of you because he always wanted a little sister. I had no idea he was… doing that. Mum needs to know the truth. I’ll call her and make her understand.”

Tylar takes my other hand. “You have us, Stacey. You have us.”

“There’s something else.” I hesitate for a second, my chest tightening. “I was pregnant,” I blurt out, and everyone looks at me. Aria just lowers her head. “A daughter. I was sixteen weeks pregnant, and when Chris found the ultrasound picture, he beat me so badly, I lost her.” I shake, my eyes burning. “I lost our daughter, and then—” I stop, unable to keep going.I lostKadeand then my father.

Tylar hugs me, and Luciella swipes under her eyes with her sleeve then walks around the desk, and I let out a sob as she wraps her arms around me from behind. “I wish you’d told me. I’m so sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t. No one should go through that alone.”

“I couldn’t even tell Kade the truth,” I cry. “I said I fell down the studio stairs. I lied to him too. I always lie. Always.”

Everyone holds me, and the room is filled with sniffs, shaky breaths and whispers of “Sorry” and “We have you” and “We love you”.

Tylar, Kyle, Barry and Aria leave us, because I still have to tell Luciella the rest of me and Kade’s story. She needs to know all of it – I want to tell her.

She cries when I tell her how we found out we were going to have a baby, that we nearly got to the halfway point before disaster struck. She sobs when I tell her how me and Kade split up, and she declares war on Chris when I tell her the real reason for Kade’s strained relationship with everyone.

“When was the last time you werewithwith him?”

I chew my lip. “When we went to America.”

Her eyes widen. “That recent?”

I nod. “We didn’t speak for two years, but… It just happened again.” I leave out the part about Kade rushing me out of the country, or any information about the Sawyers. Barry gave me strict commands that I’d be risking all their lives by telling them, and since Barry has told me some of the ways Kade had been punished, I do as I’m told.

I’m the best friend ever, aren’t I? All I can ever do is lie and keep secrets.

Maybe I should disappear.

“Please promise me you won’t go to him again.” Lu takes my hand. “And I’m not saying that because he’s my brother. He’s not emotionally stable – he’s in such a bad place right now. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s so different, and I need you to promise me that you and Kade are done. He can’t give you what you need. He’ll break your heart all over again.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Kade doesn’t even know how to love properly. He’s… so like my dad it’s scary.”

“He knows how to love,” I say, starting to get annoyed. “He might have some of your dad’s traits, but he’s his own person, and he loved me.”

“It’s not real. It’s a learned emotion. He taught himself how to feel things he couldn’t, but it’s not the same.”

“I’d take any type of love from him,” I snap, pulling my hand from hers and pushing my chair back. “You can’t make me stop loving him either.”

“If you love him, truly love him, then let him go. Please,” she begs me, and my anger ebbs. She’s genuinely worried about him. “He needs to come to his senses and work on himself. He won’t make you happy. I’m saying this as your best friend, he willnotmake you happy, and I need you to heal.”

I manage a nod, but my heart eats away at itself.

“Please don’t lie to me again, Stacey.”

Barry’s offer to make me vanish is becoming more and more appealing as the hours tick forward.

Kade is in France, Chris is a ghost, and when Tylar and Luciella aren’t around me, all I can think about is Barry’s offer.

If I disappeared, could I live a normal life?

It’s been five weeks and four days of constant worrying, feeling sick with anxiety that Chris will appear and blow everything up.

I’m sitting at the dining table with Ty and Luciella while Aria goes through her list of things that need to be done while she’s away. Tobias passed his evaluation after his prolonged stay in solitary confinement, meaning he’s allowed to have visitors again. So Aria and Ewan will fly over for the weekend so she can log a huge-ass complaint about him being put there in the first place for no good reason.

“How many people did you invite to the party tonight?” Aria asks her daughter, who shrugs a shoulder. “Tylar?”

---