The Oath We Give (The Hollow Boys Book 5)

coraline

The thud of a paint can spilling across the floor echoes behind me.

Sticky, acrylic liquid stains the bottom of my feet as I scramble to find my keys, shoving my feet into the first pair of shoes I spot near my front door. There is a candle burning on the stove I don’t bother blowing out.

Let it burn.

Ten minutes ago, I was home alone, heavy music playing over the speakers in my apartment, lost in what was going to be my new favorite painting.

Ten minutes ago, everything was fine.

My feet slap against the stairs to the parking garage, and I unlock my car before I even hit the landing. A man presses himself against the door leading to the garage, holding it open for me with a bewildered look on his face.

I’m a shock, I’m sure.

Someone in my state sprinting out of a historic apartment complex with higher rent than a mortgage payment: natural waves riddled with flyaways, tight black T-shirt with more holes than material, no bra, and jeans that fit so loosely I’m having to hold them up as I run.

This man, maybe my neighbor or someone who lives on the same floor, at least, is getting an eyeful of the waistband of my Calvin Klein underwear. I’m hoping this will distract him enough that he won’t call the police for witnessing what he probably thinks is attempted burglary.

My chest surges, breaths coming out in quick puffs as I slide into the front seat of my car, forgoing the seat belt and sticking my new phone to the mount stuck in the vents. Tears stick to my cheeks, slippery and wet. The hum of the engine coming to life makes my hands shake.

I quickly pull up Lilac’s text thread, willing myself to ignore the most recent message so I can find her location, but my eyes can’t help themselves. They drift to the little blue bubble, and the fear the words had elicited earlier hits me hard once again.

Lilac: Dragon fruit.

It’s a stupid, silly fucking fruit, one that Lilac hates and threw up once when she was young. It’s stupid, but it’s our code word. I made her come up with one, and she thought it would be funny. This was supposed to be in case anything bad happened while we were apart to let me know she needed help, that she was in trouble.

She’s reckless and wild, thinks the world’s rules don’t apply to her at times, but…she wouldn’t use this as a joke. Lilac knows better, knows it’s only to be used when her life is in danger. I taught her better.

Nasty, vile fucking emotions chew away at my insides.

Fear, guilt, shame.

I taught her how to defend herself. How to use the pepper spray on her key chain and the Taser beneath her seat. I taught her to get away from trouble, to run. All the things I’d wish someone had shown me, and fear is telling me it won’t be enough.

I didn’t do enough to protect her.

My teeth grind together, allowing the adrenaline coursing through my veins to numb everything else. My foot slams onto the gas, peeling out of the parking garage.

“Siri.” I wait for her robotic reply before speaking again. “Call Lilac.”

The voice repeats the command before the dreaded dial tone echoes inside the car.

Ring.

I fly through a blatant red light. The screaming of a horn comes from my left as I speed through traffic, escaping an accident by mere seconds, I’m sure.

Ring.

My tears blur the map on my phone screen, my knuckles turning white as they tighten on the wheel, jerking sharply to the right in order to avoid missing a turn.

Ring.

Her last location is twenty minutes away from me. Twenty minutes.

Ring.

It took less than five for me to go missing. One moment, I was walking home. The next, I was unconscious. Stolen. Drugged. Naked. I was gone for two years in less than five minutes. What could happen to her in twenty?

Ring.

“Hi, this is Lilac! I’m here, but I’m not answering the phone, obviously. If—”

“Fuck!” I shout, breaking off her prerecorded voicemail message. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

My hands slam into the steering wheel until the palms of my hands turn a violent shade of red. I’m stuck behind another car, the red light dangling above us taunting me.

I drop my head to the wheel, shaking my head as hot tears slide down my face. They are not tears of sorrow but anger, frustration tinged with panic. My body is so overwhelmed with emotion it has no choice but to leak.

It’s a morbid, awful thing I’m doing.

Hoping my sister was in a car accident or hurt herself while hiking. I’ve told her multiple times to always go with friends when she explores trails, but right now? I’m hoping she didn’t listen.

I will take her being stubborn over the alternative. I want to be a person who is optimistic, to believe in accidents. But deep in my gut, I know she’s in trouble, and he’s involved.

Stephen has always had little patience with me, especially when I refuse to speak to him.

The first few months in the basement, I refused to open my mouth. Not a word to him.

That was until he dislocated my shoulder.

For hours at a time, he would string me up. Heavy chains bolted into the concrete ceiling that locked around my wrist. I’d hang there, hovering just above the ground, my toes grazing the floor, teasing me, letting me know relief was just inches beneath me and all I had to do was talk.

He kept me there with a dislocated shoulder for two days until I learned to speak once spoken to.

This is what I get for ignoring his texts.

I thought he would come straight for me, but I was fucking stupid to think that. It’s never that easy with him.

Stephen wants me broken. You see, he wants me to need him. He will destroy everything, starve and torture me until the only light I see is the one he gives.

There can be nothing else but him for me.

So even though I want to be optimistic, to be the girl who hopes for the best, I know he’s done something to her because he knows Lilac is the only thing I care about.

Someone honks behind me, making me jump, and I press on the gas and roll through the traffic light. I try to follow the directions on the map, body shaking as I glance at my phone screen, watching the distance between us grow shorter and shorter.

Lilac won’t make it, my mind tells me, and I know that to be undoubtedly true.

She will not survive Stephen.

There has always been a depravity in my bones, darkness in my soul. I’m the byproduct of an affair, born cursed, and killed my mother before she even knew me to prove that.

That wickedness, both gifted and stolen? It helped me endure Stephen Sinclair.

Lilac is not me. She is good, overflowing with light. She will not make it.

“Hey, Siri. Call…”

I’ll need help, right?

Call who?

The local police? They will do nothing—half of them are probably still working with Stephen.

Our father? I’m not even sure if he’d answer the phone.

I have no one because I’ve made myself an island. Looked in the mirror one day and said it’s better to be alone. When you’re alone, no one can hurt you.

But that’s the thing.

When you’re alone, no one can help you either.

I bite the inside of my cheek, knowing I need to calm down. I need help, and there is only one person I can think of right now.

“Call Silas Hawthorne.”

My hands turn the wheel as I go around a curve, blinking numbly while the phone rings. I’m beginning to hate dial tones.

My teeth sink into my bottom lip. Despite what happened at Vervain, my bitchy fucking behavior at Tillie’s and outside the art gala, I need him to answer this phone call.

I’m selfish, fully aware of how undeserving of his kindness I am, but I still need him to pick up.

To my relief, he answers on the second ring. That calm, steady voice, like crackling embers, bounces off the windows of my car, wrapping me in the smell of cigar smoke and expensive cologne.

“Coraline.”

The way he tastes each syllable of my name as he speaks makes a shiver roll through me. He says it like he already knows I’m in trouble, like he was expecting my call.

“Silas.” I release a breath. “I need—”

I need help. I need help.

I need it, but I don’t know how to ask. How to rely on someone.

“Whatever you need, it’s already yours.”

In my darkest moments, when panic claws at my chest and threatens to consume me, it has been his voice, the memory of it, that has pulled me back from the edge time and time again.

And I have no idea why.

There is something in it, a note or a hum, something that soothes. It sings lullabies to my racing heart until it returns to a normal beat. Despite everything, I can’t deny what it does for me.

I’m nothing to him. I’ve treated him poorly, and yet, he answers. I want nothing to do with him, don’t want to get close enough to possibly hurt him, yet I keep finding it harder to stay away.

His devout willingness to help me I want to take as it is, but I can’t. Everyone wants something from you, and I want to know his angle. What does he want from me? Why help me?

“My sister is in trouble, and I don’t know how to explain it, but I think Stephen is involved. I didn’t…” I swallow the knot forming in my throat. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

This thing between us? It can’t have anything to do with Lilac. This isn’t about us or the lack thereof; it’s about her. Silas and I share a common enemy. Calling him helps him with Stephen too.

It’s nothing but a transition between the two of us.

That is all it can be.

“Where are you.”

The sun is starting to set when I pull into Black Sands Cove. It’s about a mile trek from the asphalt parking lot to the sandy beach.

My chest aches as I see the empty parking spaces, Lilac’s car sitting all alone. I quickly get out of my vehicle, jogging to the driver-side window of the BMW and finding her phone in the passenger seat.

From this lot are three different trailheads that can take you up and down the coast, hikes that range from two miles to ten.

She could be anywhere.

I bite down on my tongue as fury heats my insides.

If Stephen took her, it will be his ruin.

I will rip him to shreds with my teeth, pick his bones one by one until he’s a pathetic meat sack. There will be nothing left of him when I’m done. I will not rest until his blood paints my palms.

My fingers tighten on my keys. Making a fist around them, I make sure one of them is striking out from the grip before I slam the side of my hand into the corner of the window. Metal colliding with glass shattering echoes in my ears.

There is a dull throb along my wrist, but I ignore it as I reach in and unlock her car from the inside. When I get the door open, I’m careful not to touch the cubes of glass scattered inside before plucking her phone from the passenger seat.

Relief pours over me when the screen lights up.

I don’t know what I’m looking for when I search it. I’m invading her privacy with no remorse, scrolling through recent text messages to see if she was supposed to meet someone here today, but find nothing.

I’m working my way through her social media apps, trying to glimpse anything that can help me figure out where she might be or who is at fault when the roar of a motorcycle rumbles in the distance.

Headlights appear as the bike pulls into the parking lot, followed by Silas’s iconic 1970 slate-gray Dodge Challenger. I’m not surprised he brought his friends with him, considering the circumstances.

If Stephen has something to do with this, it’s best if they are all here.

The slamming of car doors makes me flinch. The four of them move in sync, looming shadows that glide in unison. A part of me had always been jealous of them, their bond. How they were never alone, always in a pack.

I’d been fascinated by the idea that something more than their family’s legacy tethered them together so tightly. You don’t just connect with a person over history. What they do for each other? There is trauma and secrets binding them.

As enigmatic as they all are, I find myself only looking at Silas. Those deep-set brown eyes speak words his mouth doesn’t. When dealing with someone like him, someone who doesn’t speak or show any emotion, you quickly learn to pick up on the micromovements.

Like right now, with his eyebrows lowered, eyes squinted just a little as they look me up and down? He’s concerned for me, checking me for injuries, making sure I’m alright.

When he stops his gaze on my hand, I instinctively glance down at it, looking at the small pool of blood gathering on the ground below. As if my brain just now reminded me of my injury, a dull throb radiates from my wrist.

I lift my hand, looking at the wicked cut that stretches from the corner of my wrist to my knuckle, leaking blood.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” I reply curtly, rubbing my wrist across my jeans to wipe away some of the blood. “Just a cut from the car window.”

I am not weak.

Not on the outside.

I will not show them just how broken I really am.

Even if one of them already knows.

Regardless of my indifference toward him, my internal struggle with my attraction and need for distance, I know Silas will keep that secret. He won’t tell them just how broken and scared I am.

Silas Hawthorne is the keeper of secrets. The unstoppable force and immovable object. Silent water, with unknown depths filled with mysteries he will take to his grave.

“I found her phone but can’t find any mention of where she might have been going, if she even made it out of this parking lot. I think we should split up.”

Rook, Alistair, and Thatcher watch me, the three of them conjuring up their assessments of me, drawing conclusions about what they know and what they see. Eyes on me have never made me uncomfortable, just fucking annoyed. I can deal with the stares; it’s the judgment that bothers me.

“What?” I snap. “What are you looking at?”

“No introduction?” Rook asks, lifting an eyebrow. “You pay for our meal the other night, and that makes you think you can start giving orders?”

They don’t understand me. They don’t get it, and that’s fine. I don’t need them to, but I didn’t come here to make friends with them. I’m not here to bond or talk about our sad stories.

I want to find my sister.

I didn’t call them. I called Silas. If they have a problem with that, they need to take it up with him.

“I’m not interested in introductions between us. Not when you know my name and I know yours. Right now? That’s all we need to know about each other,” I retort harshly. “The temperature is dropping. If she is somewhere on Black Sands Cove, she will not survive the elements through the night.”

“No offense, but why should we help you?” This question comes from Thatcher, hands tucked in his slacks, watching me like he can see my skeleton. “The only reason we are here is because you claim this has to do with Stephen. Why would he get out of prison just to go after your sister? If you’re taking advantage of the situation, you won’t like the outcome.”

My molars grind together, jaw twitching as I slip Lilac’s phone into my back pocket. From the corner of my eye, I watch Silas step a little closer to me before speaking.

“She isn’t the enemy here. Watch your fucking step.” Silas’s voice is harsh, slicing through my skin with heat, shocking his friend, it would seem by the look on his face.

However, I don’t need anyone to defend me.

I make direct eye contact with the man they call death. The one who’s rumored to fillet people alive for fun and falls asleep to the sounds of screams. His harsh blue eyes dig into my own, but I refuse to flinch, to look away.

“You think I’m afraid of you, Pierson?” A cruel smile pulls at the corner of my mouth. “I withstood torture that would make you shit your Brioni slacks. Don’t embarrass yourself by trying to intimidate me.”

I take a moment to look at all of them, and then I grab the bottom of my shirt and tear off a long piece of fabric, feeling the fabric give way beneath my fingers.

“At least she knows her brands,” I hear him mutter beneath his breath.

“You want Stephen dead, right? That’s great. Me too.” I wrap the black material around my bleeding wrist as I speak. “You need to find him, and I’m your best shot at it. So either we help each other, or you get the fuck out of my way.”

Thatcher tilts his head a bit, and I swear I see a flash of respect in his gaze. “I don’t care how sad your story is. We’re doing you the favor by being here.”

I can’t help but scoff.

“So you know where he’s hiding, then? What his plan is?” I shake my head at their cluelessness. “There is no one who knows him better than me. I know how he moves, how he thinks. If you’re near me? You’re ten steps closer to him.”

“And we are supposed to take your word on that?”

I take a threatening step forward. What’s the worst this dude is going to do? Kill me? He’ll have to do a lot more than that to scare me.

The Hollow Boys are child’s play compared to what I’ve seen.

“Let him lock you in a basement for two years, then you can ask me that fucking question again.”

Thatcher’s cold eyes slit, chin lifting as he looks down at me.

“Help or don’t.” I shrug, dismissing him with my eyes before looking away. “I’m going to find my sister.”

We are running out of daylight, and I don’t have the time or patience to argue with Thatcher Pierson. He has his reasons for being wary of me, I’m sure, but I don’t give a fuck.

I didn’t call him.

I called Silas.

And right now, I’m starting to regret that decision.

I leave them to decide what their next move is without me, heading toward the wooden dock that leads to the beach. There are caves on the far end of Black Sands Cove.

Teenagers go there to smoke pot and fuck like rabbits. Lilac is smart. If she needed to hide, it’s where she would go. I force my heart to slow, breathing through my nose and out through my mouth.

The howling wind from the ocean whirls in my ears, a salt-water-dusted breeze caressing my face as the wood turns into malleable sand. I grip the waistband of my jeans, knowing I didn’t have time to change them but wishing I had. I’m one second away from taking them off and doing this hunt in my underwear.

The roaring ocean is turbulent, rushing and crashing together, dark blues and deep oranges swatched across the darkening sky. Black Sands Cove has always held an untouchable beauty, especially when it’s empty.

“Lilac!” I scream her name in hopes her ears are close by to hear it. “Lilac!”

I’m answered only by the echoes bouncing between the pine trees to my left. There is only silence for several seconds before her name is shouted again from deep in the trees, by a deeper voice this time, followed by another, then another.

I feel bad for being so harsh, knowing they are helping, but I shake it off.

They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t getting something out of it. Remember that, Coraline. Everything comes at a price.

My throat aches as I shout her name again, chest tightening as what little hope I had starts to flutter away, leaving me to rot with panic.

I remember the pain of his strikes, how some nights I’d beg for him to hit me with his fists just so he wouldn’t hang me by the chains. I lived with a constant gnawing emptiness for food and physical connection. As if a tiny creature inhabited my insides, clawing, reminding me of what I lacked.

He’d feed me only the bare minimum to keep me alive but reliant on him, desperate for his return, even if it meant being hurt in the process.

I picture my little sister in that scenario in my head, unable to keep it out. Her blonde hair tainted with blood and dirt. Athletic, healthy body ripped away by the hands of starvation. My eyes shut, hand holding my stomach as nausea sways my body.

Her screams are all around me, shrieking, rattling my eardrums as she begs for her life. Did she scream for me when he took her? Did she wonder where I was? Was she angry I wasn’t there to protect her?

Hands are on my back, large, warm palms skating across my spine as the person who owns them circles to the front of my body. Fingers slide around my hips, not gripping, just resting on my skin.

The breeze catches the smell of tobacco and oak. The calming scent of fog-soaked earth in the forest, touched with something almost feminine. It’s so intense, so consuming, I can practically see the drops of rain slipping from pine needles.

“Breathe for me, Hex. Breathe,” Silas murmurs in a low whisper, concealing his voice from the wind as if she is listening, waiting to tell secrets to the sea. “We are going to find her.”

There is a clicking sound, a shuffle of fabric moving to be heard behind my shut eyes, before I feel his fingers tug, pulling my pants up on my hips. Strong hands that feel so powerful yet so fucking gentle with me.

Like I’m fragile. Like I’m not dangerous for someone like him.

“She’s the last good thing I have left. I can’t lose her.”

“I promise you,” he says as his fingers thread something through each loop, encircling my waist entirely. “When you open your eyes, we are going to keep searching, and you’re not going to think about what happened with Stephen. You are safe.”

A belt.

I feel it when he tightens it around my waist, the leather keeping my jeans up as he latches it in place.

I’m mixed between thankful and irritated.

My entire life, especially after my return to Ponderosa Springs, people have looked at me like this jigsaw puzzle, broken and unworthy of being put back together, too much work for them.

Yet, for Silas, I’m like glass.

The way he sees clear through me, able to see what I need without me saying it. As if when he looks at me, he can hear every thought that passes through my brain.

“Relax and open your eyes,” he coaxes, dragging his thumb across my cheekbone. “Come on, open your eyes for me, Hex.”

I bite down on my bottom lip, feeling my eyelids flutter open.

Silas Hawthorne owns the term dead eyes.

They hold an unsettling stillness, like the windows into his world are devoid of emotion. Hardened beauty and sheer masculinity that he wears almost better than his fitted black tee.

What did he look like when he was alive?

“Hex,” I breathe. “Why do you call me—”

“Coraline!”

My body jolts, electrified by the sound of Lilac’s voice screaming for me. I jerk my head toward where it came from, striding away from Silas’s touch and toward my sister’s voice.

“Lilac, I’m here! Where are you!” I shout above the howling wind, eyes frantically searching the tree line.

I think my mind is playing tricks on me, that it was only my imagination, but I see her tumble from the trees, catching her footing in the tall weeds as she turns her head to look for me.

When she finds me, the world seems to slow down for a second.

Our feet pound against the ground as we sprint toward one another. We don’t stop, not until her body slams into mine. My arms wrap around her neck, palms holding the back of her head, holding her a little too tightly to my chest.

The relief that washes over me is instant. A balloon deflated.

She smells like sweat and dirt, but the relief that washes over me is instant. I tell myself I’ll never take this for granted, the feeling of her in my arms. Her safety. I vow to myself I’ll never put her at risk like this again.

Nothing will stop me from doing what I need to protect her.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobs, body shaking. “I didn’t know, Cora. I swear I didn’t know.”

Just beneath the sound of waves, I hear Silas’s footsteps, standing just close enough to hear our words but also providing us a moment of privacy.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” I soothe, patting her hair down with my palms as my eyebrows tug together. “What happened, Li? What didn’t you know?”

This question elicits another cry from her throat, more tears and hiccups. I try to prepare for the worst, brace myself for whatever she needs to say, but she just cries, too worked up to speak.

“Lilac, look at me.” I sandwich her head between my palms, lifting her face so that I’m looking down at her. “It’s really important that you tell me the truth, okay? Everything that happened. I promise you I won’t be upset.”

“I’m so stupid, Cora. I should’ve known better. You taught me better, but I thought—” A choked noise steals her breath before she speaks again. “It felt real. It felt so freaking real to me.”

I stay silent, letting her take the time she needs to speak. To get out the words the way she needs to. My teeth sink into my inner cheek, anticipating.

“I was supposed to meet Reece for the first time. We agreed to meet out here since we’re both fans of the beach. I was so excited that I got here thirty minutes early. But the person who showed up wasn’t Reece.”

My blood runs cold, the wind turning icy.

“Who was it?” I urge.

“Stephen.” Big, fat tears drop from her eyes as she looks at me. All I can see is pain. “Reece was never real. It was all a trick to get to you. All the gifts, the late-night conversations. It was a game. It was him.”

I’m feeling so much, yet not at all.

There is a numbness that overtakes me.

“What gifts?”

“Huh?”

“What kind of gifts did he send you?”

“Um, flowers,” she mutters, shoulders stilling as her body stops shaking, “An annotated copy of the book Circe and a couple of charcoal drawings.”

That earlier sickness returns.

He gave her my drawings, the ones that hung on the walls of that concrete cell and watched every vile thing he’d done to me. He gave my little sister my trauma as a gift.

“Did—” I clear my throat. “Did the flowers look like upside-down tulips?”

As if I need more proof that it was actually him luring her. As if I didn’t already believe every word she’d uttered. My mind is still in denial. Maybe it had been since I’d heard the news of his escape. It needed concrete evidence.

That he truly had come back for me.

“Yeah, he said they were called snowdrops. Why?” she asks, looking confused, completely unaware that the gifts she’d been given were tokens for me.

Stephen is mocking me.

My charcoal drawings.

A book with my nickname.

The flowers he used to bring me.

“In Homer’s Odyssey, Hermes gave moly, a magical herb, to Odysseus to protect him from Circe’s magic. A biologist named snowdrop the real-life moly,” I say absent-mindedly, spitting out words he’d spoken to me in the night. “Stephen used to tell me when he tired of me and was ready to let me go, he’d make me choke on them.”

I wasn’t saying it out loud for her to know, for anyone to know. It just fell out like the memory needed to be spoken aloud.

It’s fitting for him.

To see himself as the hero, Odysseus, in our story.

I am the evil, cunning Circe who had tricked him into love, forcing him to stay with me. I gave him no choice, he used to tell me. It was all my fault, he’d say while he stroked my hair.

The curse in my blood, those witchy eyes, made it impossible for him to sell me. He had to keep me. I made him keep me there in that basement. He was a prisoner of my love, my body and soul.

It was because of my curse he couldn’t let me go.

The same will not be said for my sister.

I release Lilac from my hold, turning so that I can see Silas, who is standing just behind me, unmoving, watching me with the same passive look on his face he always has.

There is no sorrow, no sympathy, just dead eyes.

“We need to talk.”