Page 29 of Pretty Girls Never Lie (St. Mary’s)

Nausea grips my stomach, and I can’t tell if it’s because of Zachary’s erratic driving or if it’s because of Brantley’s departing words to me.

“Is it true?” I grip the door handle. I know I can’t open the door and make it out without serious injury, but it grounds me for a moment. “Is Thomas being placed with a different family?”

I hate how they toss foster kids around like they’re a sack of potatoes. He needs stability.

“No. You’ve seen him with your own eyes, Isla. He’s comfortably sleeping in his bed, and that is where he’ll stay.”

“I want to talk to him.”

Zachary slaps the steering wheel, and I jump. “Isla, I can’t do that. He will tell Jess.”

I’m on edge, and he can tell. “You’ve found a way to hide things from her before. Find a way to hide this.”

“Or what, sweetheart? Gonna go back to that boy who would fumble in the dark with your body if ever given the chance?”

I almost laugh, but the thought of Brantley takes the sting of amusement away almost instantly. I press back into the leather seat and level my voice. “Or I’ll tell Jess you’ve been fucking me again behind her back.”

He taps the brakes, but I expect it, so I don’t jerk forward. I turn toward him. “Take me to see my brother right now!”

He shakes his head, but he knows I’ve got him in a chokehold. The drive takes less time than it should, and when we pull up to the house, he turns the engine off and stares at me long and hard. “I know that you know I orchestrated Thomas being in our care so I could have an excuse to see you again.”

I nod.

“I’m sure you see me as nothing but a manipulator who has an unhealthy infatuation with you.”

I swallow. Zachary leans forward and places his hand on my thigh. “You’ve never told me no when I’ve gone to touch you, though.”I want to.“Which makes you just as much of a manipulator as me, sweetheart.”

My teeth clank together, and I flare my nostrils with unshed emotions.He’s right.

“Stay here. I’ll get Thomas.”

Something bright sparks in my belly, and he laughs lightly. “Didn’t think I’d actually do it, did you?” His lip tips. “You can thank me after.”

I exhale out my held breath when he softly shuts his car door and heads through the garage. The house I thought was a home disappears when I close my eyes, but the only thing I see behind my eyelids are Brantley’s green eyes.

“Fuck.” I pull on the ends of my hair and stare at the garage door, waiting to see Zachary holding my little brother in his arms. After several minutes pass and no one comes, I start to feel panicky.

Zachary’s phone is in the center console, so I pick it up and enter his password, remembering it from a year prior when I lived with him. I keep the screen on for light as I open the door and step onto the cobblestone driveway.

My toes tingle with anticipation, and I tread softly through the garage to the door that leads into the expansive kitchen. The house is entirely too quiet for my liking.

I stare at the stairs that lead to the bedrooms and listen intently for movement. It isn’t until I’m halfway up the steps that I hear Jess. “Tell me now, or I swear to God, I will shoot.”

“Wh…what’s going on?”

I choke on a gasp and rush up the stairs, straight to the little voice that I know belongs to my brother. He’s in my arms before he stumbles down the hallway in his sleepy state, and my first reaction is to put him in the closet to hide, but a grip on my hair has me flying backward.

I scream, and the phone goes flying forward into Thomas’s room as I fiddle with the buttons on the screen, praying they call someone.Anyone.

“Are you kidding me? You again?” Jess is near hysterics, and the fear on Thomas’s face sends instant tears to my eyes.

“Closet,” I mouth to Thomas.

He runs, and the slightest feeling of relief hits me.

If he has to watch me die, he’ll turn out justlike me.

Alone and untrusting of anyone who is willing to help.

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