The Oath We Give (The Hollow Boys Book 5)

coraline

My hands shake as I press the power button on the side of my phone, watching the screen turn pitch-black. The unanswered text messages disappear as I calmly drop the iPhone into the trash next to me, listening to it thud as it hits the bottom of the metal can.

Both hands grab the sink, head dropped between my shoulders as I breathe.

Did you miss me?

Have you forgotten what my love feels like?

You wore my favorite color today.

Do you remember what happens when you ignore me, Circe girl?

Even locked inside this restaurant bathroom with four corners I can see, I still want to check over my shoulder.

I shake my head, gritting my teeth as I feel a tear drop from my eye.

The nights are long.

I can’t remember the last time I had a full night’s sleep, but now, the hours trickle by so slowly. My eyes won’t shut, and I spend the time sitting in my living room, staring at the front door with a small handgun in my lap, waiting.

The texts were never a prank. Not a joke.

It was him.

I’ve been waiting for this moment since I left the basement. Nothing feels any different, maybe except the fact I don’t feel insane anymore, knowing that twist in my gut was right. I knew he’d come back for me.

Stephen Sinclair being free changes nothing for me.

Behind bars, he held me prisoner, and he’ll do the same now.

I’m ready for him, and when he shows up, because I know he will, I’ll put a bullet in his skull.

I told Silas the truth two nights ago. I don’t want revenge. I don’t want to kill him as payback. There is no urge in me to starve him for months, feed him only raw meat for a week as punishment for not saying the right things. I don’t need to break his right ankle or dislocate one of his shoulders to feel vindicated.

I want him dead.

No longer existing on this rotten planet. Out of my life. Out of my fucking head.

I’m not afraid of him. I’m tired of the games.

I release a breath, looking at myself in the bathroom mirror. Quickly, I touch up the concealer beneath my eyes, covering the purple bags there. Giving my body a little shake, I practice a smile a few times.

When I’m satisfied that it looks believable, I head outside, greeted by the smell of frying oil. The bustle of conversation gets louder the closer I get to the main dining room.

Tillie’s Diner is a hub in Ponderosa Springs, one of the only establishments that hasn’t gotten an upgrade since the seventies and looks like it would fit better in a small hick town than here.

It’s young high school kids and college students who frequent, but what do they expect? They are the only place open twenty-four hours. Where else are the stoners and insomniacs going to get food?

Tonight, Lilac and I are neither.

I return to our corner booth next to the large window. The darkness of pine trees stretches for miles just beyond the neon-illuminated gravel parking lot.

Lilac is grinning as she takes another bite of her chili cheeseburger, the remnants of her food dripping down her forearms, and it makes a genuine smile tug at my lips as I pick up a french fry.

“I can’t believe you’re a vegetarian,” she grumbles around a mouthful of cardiac arrest. “Feels illegal.”

“You’re going to throw that up everywhere in five hours,” I say.

She has training at eight in the morning. If I was a parent, I might’ve told her to go back to sleep when she came into my living room wearing pajamas and sneakers, asking to go for food. However, I’m not her mother. I’m her sister.

Her slicked-back high ponytail bounces as she shakes her head, taking another bite to prove her point. Lilac is an incredible tennis player. The best Ponderosa High has seen probably ever, and it’s not because it’s a natural gift.

She’s disciplined beyond measure, focused and determined to be the best.

It’s a trait we got from our father. However, she’s able to balance her desire for success and love of life much better than myself or our paternal parent.

On the occasions that she’s craving burgers, I oblige. Even though it’s three in the morning and I hate Tillie’s. She deserves brief moments of happiness like these.

“Your backhand looked good yesterday.”

“Thanks.” She grins, swallowing her food. “Coach says if I keep up this pace, I’ll make nationals again.”

School just ended, but her training didn’t. April is the start of her off-season, and she has all summer to work before games start back up. The routine she follows during the off-season is strict, but she likes it.

I make sure I’m there to pick her up, get her fed. Sometimes I take her back to the glass mansion where her parents live, but most of the time, she’s with me, living comfortably in my spare bedroom.

Regina and James only want her home when there is company over, anyway.

“Of course you will. You’re the best tennis player I know.”

She rolls her eyes, sitting down her burger and wiping her hands so she can pick up her phone, slammed with a million notifications. What is it about being a teenager and having so many people to talk to?

Do you grow up and just crave quiet?

Or do we grow apart from people out of survival?

“I’m the only tennis player you know, Cora.”

Lilac grins at her screen, biting at her bottom lip before her fingers fly across the keys. Determined to text back as quickly as possible, it seems. There is only one reason you look at a phone like that, and it’s not cat memes.

“Who’s the boy?” I question, lifting an eyebrow playfully.

A sly smile spreads across her lips. “Girl.”

I pick up another fry, dipping it into a glass of vanilla milkshake in front of me.

“Oh? I thought you swore off girls after what happened with Brit?”

She waves me off. “That was three months ago. I’m over it. We weren’t exclusive, anyway.”

I laugh at how very her that answer is.

Since Lilac could talk, she was her own little person, unbothered by the limits and rules the world gave her. When I try to remember things before being kidnapped, the only things I have in my mind are of her.

She took her first steps at ten months because she refused to crawl. I’d just turned six, and she’d taken five steps forward before tumbling into my lanky arms. We both ended up on the floor.

I helped her pull out her first tooth when she was five. I’d seen the string and doorknob trick on the internet. When I tried slamming the door to yank it out, she screamed, demanding to do it herself. Regina was pissed about the blood on her floor. We giggled about it under the covers that night.

Until I was eighteen, I did her hair for every occasion. Covered her knees with Band-Aids when she thought she wanted to be a professional skateboarder. Taught her how to put on makeup and navigate the art of periods. I held her hand through every nightmare, chased away the monster under her bed, and spent hours letting her hit tennis balls at me like a human target.

A reporter once asked me in a cafe what I missed most those two years I was gone.

I threw my iced coffee in his face, and later, when I cooled down, I thought of my answer.

It was Lilac.

I missed two years of her life, and every moment away killed me.

For months in that basement, I sobbed, terrified that she would think I left her willingly. That I had abandoned her without a goodbye. It had been only her I wanted to see when I got to the hospital.

I’d missed two years and swore I’d never miss another second.

“Are you going to tell me about her, or do I have to pry?”

She is silent for only a moment before she explodes with information. It’s never hard getting her to talk about herself—her zodiac sign is a Leo, and she never lets me forget it.

“She is so pretty, Cora. Oh! And she plays soccer. Our conversations go on for hours, and they are so much more meaningful than any of the ones I’ve had with people from Ponderosa Springs. She’s just…deep. We text about things that matter,” she gushes, and I just smile, listening to her talk.

“Does she have a name?”

“Reece.” Her face turns pink when she says it.

I let her blab about her crush, listening to her read conversations between the two of them and give my nod of approval when she shows me selfies of the girl.

I listen, let her be a teenager, and bask in her ability to feel these things. To be hopeful, to know she has her entire life ahead of her, and whatever she does with it, I’ll be there to support her.

“Is Reece practicing safe sex?”

“Oh my fucking God.” A mixture of a groan and a squeak echoes from our booth as she slaps her hands in front of her eyes. “We haven’t even hung out yet—we met on our school district chat. Sex hasn’t come up, Cora!”

“I’m not shaming you. I’m just asking. They don’t teach safe sex for pansexuals in high school. You can still get herpes from—”

“Do not finish that. I will hurl this burger all over you.”

I roll my eyes. “So dramatic.”

The bell rings, the glass front door swinging open. Another late-night patron makes their way inside, but when I look because of my human nature, I silently curse the universe.

The group captures attention like a cloud of darkness. A hushed pause blankets the diner. Even the sound of clicking metal from the cooks in the back halt.

It’s the Hollow Boys effect.

A joke my group of friends used to make when they walked into a room. When you bear the weight of their last names and reputations, there is no flying under the radar.

Whether it’s respect or fear, people stop, stare, and lower their voices when they arrive, no matter where they go or appear. Their eyes scan the diner’s retro interior, gazes finally settling on an empty booth not far from ours.

Time spent away from Ponderosa Springs has not lessened their influence. It’s grown over the years. They are everything the prestigious pricks in Ponderosa Springs are terrified of.

As teenagers, they were anarchy, a vicious wildfire that needed to be snuffed out but couldn’t be contained in time. Now that they are adults with total access to the money and power their legacy offers, there is no hope of deliverance.

They’ll use their power to retaliate against the system that turned them into monsters the second they are tempted.

It’s the rich devouring the rich.

Everyone knows the truth though.

The Hollow Boys have always had sharper teeth.

“You think they braid each other’s hair?” Lilac whispers across the table, glancing over her shoulder at them for a split second before turning back around. Bold enough to make a joke, not quite enough ballsy to let them hear it though.

I snort a laugh in the back of my throat as they walk down the aisle.

Alistair Caldwell leads the line, as always; he knows nothing but first. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Dark fucking heart. If he ever had a problem, he was notorious for solving it with his fists. It was odd for someone who hates this town as much as he does to own so much of it.

In step behind him, fucking with his leather jacket until Alistair shrugs him off, is Rook Van Doren. He radiates rebellion with a single match resting between his teeth, paired with a boyish grin. The whites of his eyes are stained red from weed. I’m sure his munchies are the reason they’re here this late. I wonder when he’ll quit, before or after he follows the men of his family by becoming a judge.

“As if Thatcher Pierson would let anyone touch him,” I say, making her giggle into her milkshake.

Thatcher doesn’t walk; he glides, floating on his massive ego. His history is everyone’s favorite scary story, being not only a founding family legacy but the son of Ponderosa Springs’ one and only serial killer. He wears fear on his pale complexion almost as well as his freshly pressed suit.

Lilac’s laugh grabs the attention of the last member of their group. As if I needed another encounter with Silas Hawthorne. The quiet mystery that clings to his person like a shadow casts across our table as he slides into the booth beside Rook.

I’m human, with eyes, and I don’t fault myself for checking him out.

He looks too big to even fit in the booth, biceps flexing as he slings an arm across the back of the booth. Muscles threaten to tear the threads of his fitted gray graphic tee to pieces.

Tattoos from the tips of his long fingers to his throat adorn his light brown skin. Several designs that, as an artist, I’m too far away to really appreciate. His hair, which is normally shaved close to his skull, is covered with a black beanie.

Quiet, calm, steadfast, with this unshakeable confidence. His presence is a demand without words, an order with no voice. He’s an unstoppable force, unchanged since high school. 

I knew Silas before any of this—the call, Vervain, the art gala. Everyone did. What he looked like, his reputation, the story Ponderosa Springs built for him. The oldest son of the Hawthorne family with the stony gaze, intimidating demeanor, and diagnosed schizophrenic. 

My eyes trace his face.

Artists who paint faces or sculpt bodies are always looking for the perfect balance of symmetry. Portions of excellence, without flaw. Silas, without knowing, is probably the world’s greatest reference for this exact dilemma. 

It’s striking how balanced it all is. Sharp, well-defined cheekbones, creating subtle shadows that play across his face, accentuating his strong jawline, which is currently taut. A rugged, hardened beauty that makes it impossible not to notice him in a room. 

“The Schizo” people called him was both unfair and unoriginal. But if this town needs anything, it’s labels. I think even back then, I related to being given a name that never fit my narrative.

We’d spent years in the same schools, our entire childhood basically, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’d passed him in the halls or ran into him. We ran in different circles, and even at a young age, once you find a group of people? You stick there, never daring to break out of it. 

The universe is making up for lost time, it would seem, throwing us back into each other’s space once again.

“Ohh…” Lilac hums, a knowing grin on her face. “Which one are you eye fucking?”

I snap my gaze to her, furrowing my eyebrows. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You haven’t stopped staring at the booth since they sat down, so spill. Which one are you into?”

I have to physically keep my eyes on hers so that they don’t stray back to Silas. Biting the inside of my cheek, I shake my head.

“Finish your food so we can get home. You have to be up in four hours.”

Lilac huffs but listens, quietly devouring her cheeseburger with one hand while absent-mindedly scrolling through her phone with the other. I try to ignore the tension from my booth to his.

Which is proving difficult, considering our last conversation revolved around me being his fake wife after trying to do him a simple favor of playing girlfriend. That’s what I get for trying to be nice. I get screwed and end up getting in much deeper than I planned.

I felt like shit leaving him to deal with the aftermath of that. Hopefully he can come up with a lie about me cheating or leaving him, something believable. I don’t care what he says about me, just as long as I’m not tethered to him romantically. Even if it’s fake.

I’m the last thing he needs to add to his plate.

I glance toward him for a quick second, wondering what’s going through his mind. How he’s able to handle everything. I mean, his father is dying, and he’s out with his friends, the picture of unbothered.

Stop, I tell myself abruptly. Do not get involved. Do not think about what Silas is thinking about or how he is. Stay far away.

I’m sure he’ll be able to find someone nice. Pretty, more suited for what he’s looking for. It won’t be hard—he’s handsome and has more money than God. That’s best for the both of us. Better for him, if I’m honest. Men can’t get close to me and make it out.

Dead men tell no tales.

Lilac lets out a loud burp, rubbing her hands together. “Ready to go?”

I nod, grabbing my purse and pulling it up on my shoulder as I slide out of the booth and keep my head forward. I refuse to look in their direction as I walk toward the cashier at the front.

When I reach into my wallet to grab my card, the waitress appears behind the counter.

“Your meal was taken care of.” She grins like this is a good thing. A nice thing. 

“That’s so nice—” 

“By who?” I interrupt my sister, hand tightening around the cash in my hand. 

Not expecting my reaction, the server’s eyebrows pull together in confusion as she silently points toward where Silas sits with his friends, unaware of our conversation. 

Irritation heats my veins. 

I pull out a twenty-dollar bill and hand it to her for a tip before turning on the heel of my foot. 

“Cora, where are you going?” 

My sweatpants slip low on my hips as I stalk toward their booth, not bothering to fix them when I make it to the edge of the table. My teeth feel like they are going to break if I grind them together any harder. 

Four sets of eyes land on me. 

Thud. 

My palm slams onto the red surface, money sitting beneath it. I ignore the rest of them, meeting a pair of brown eyes that are much darker than my own, hiding secrets and unknown intentions. 

“Since this wasn’t clear enough the other night, let me be frank,” I mutter, hair falling over my shoulder as I push the money toward him.

I reach into my bag, pulling out several more twenties and letting them fall to the table.

“I can’t be bought, and this makes us even,” I say. “Dinner’s on me tonight, boys.”