Page 101 of Reverie
“What? What are you talking about?”
“How many times did they hurt you?” Her voice is thin, choked. “I know I have no right to ask, but the other day it all came together. What you went through. They hurt you after I left, didn’t they? Maybe even before?”
Oh, God.
I surge to my feet, unable to stand the line of questioning.
“He was a monster, and he didn’t know any boundaries, but I never thought he’d go that far. You were too important to him—to The Legion. But then when you said?—”
“Stop,” I grind out, my voice rough and bile sharp in the back of my throat. I spin to look at her, and I’m aware that my breaths saw in and out of my chest as if I’d run a marathon. As if I’d sprinted around the entirety of D.C.
She covers her mouth, her hands shaking with the damaged one over the healthy one.
Sliding her eye shut, she says, “I’m so goddamned sorry, Hunter. I’m sorry for my part in it.”
With my heart thudding in my chest and my brain spinning, spiraling, I rush out of the courtyard, leaving her behind.
THIRTEEN
WINTER
Ilook for Hunter for over an hour. Leo walked through the kitchen where I ate dinner alone sometime around nine p.m., but when I asked him where Hunter went, he shrugged me off and continued walking, distracted.
After checking on August to make sure he ate something other than Cheese-Itz and peeking in on Ella and Veronica where they sat in front of the massive screen in the movie room, I searched all around our wing and even into Misha’s.
Hunter is nowhere.
I make my way back toward the heart of the house—the foyer at the main entrance. Could he have left again? Certainly not, and especially not without bringing someone with him or at least Leo knowing where he went.
I make a circuit around the entryway when a dark shadow shifts on the other side of the frosted glass door.
I open it to find my missing person.
Hunter sits on the front steps with a bottle of liquor in his right hand and his head in his other.
When I move and sit next to him, we’re silent, listening to the cicadas.
After several minutes, he speaks.
“I’m not very good company right now, Sunbeam.”
I inhale, rubbing my hands over my shins.
“Come to bed, baby.” I keep my words light, but he doesn’t acknowledge them. And when I put my hand on his back, he flinches.
He rises from his place on the stone step without saying a word, leaving the door open for me to walk through.
I trail behind him, feeling awkward and off-center, but he moves with confident steps, not appearing at all drunk.
What am I going to do to make this better?
WhatcanI do?
When we enter the room, he drops the bottle on the nightstand and takes off his shirt.
At the movement, I notice his bruised and cracked knuckles and the blood trailing down his wrist.
“H, you’re hurt!” I say, my eyes glued to his hand. When I’m close enough to touch him again, I cradle his palm, looking at the cuts.