The Oath We Give (The Hollow Boys Book 5)

silas

The howling breeze whips across my face as I make my way across the barely there path overrun with shrubs and trees. The smell of salt clings to the air, and as I come upon the mouth of the trail, I can see the long stretch of land that fades into the sky’s horizon. 

Three silhouettes outline the darkening sky.

The Peak towers over the rugged Oregon Coast, shadowing Black Sands Cove, a beach only locals know about. I can hear the crashing waves against the jagged rocks, and that sound alone brings on memories. 

My feet haven’t felt this specific piece of ground since we all parted ways. The Peak is secluded, secret, ours. It’s where we grew up, went our separate ways, and now it’s where we are reunited. 

From the moment we found this place, it’d become ours.

Wind howls, echoing from the seaside town we’d called home for far too long. This was our breaking point. We were done living in a place overrun with treachery and secrets lurking around every single cobblestone corner. 

The sun slowly sets, disappearing behind a blanket of clouds as I walk further toward the edge of the cliff. 

“Welcome home,” I greet the three of them, my voice caught by the wind. 

Rook turns to look at me, his light brown hair peeking out from the backward flat bill. He has a grin on his face as he pulls me into a tight hug, as if this is the first time we’ve seen each other since they’ve gotten back. But it’s Rook, and sometimes, you’ve just got to let him do what he wants.

Smoke. He has always smelled like smoke. 

I pat his back, pulling away, and nod toward Thatcher in silent greeting, his hands tucked deep inside of his slacks to avoid physical contact. Alistair is the last to turn around from the cliff, a leather jacket stretched across his shoulders.

I’m pretty sure it’s the same one from high school.

“Are the girls, okay?” I ask.

“Currently taking over my house,” Thatcher grumbles.

“No one is thrilled to be living with you, cactus.” Rook rolls his eyes, “Don’t look so troubled about it.” 

“First night back and Rook’s already killed someone.” Alistair’s jaw twitches as he runs a frustrated hand across his mouth. “This place is a black fucking hole, not a home.”

“I didn’t kill anyone. I drugged someone and helped them off a bridge. Two very different things in the eyes of the law.”

Thatcher rolls his eyes. “You’ve been in law school for all of two seconds. Chill out.”

“Two seconds longer than you,” Rook mutters, filling his hand with Skittles before shoving them into his mouth. “You might even need those seconds one day after you stab the wrong person.”

We’ll all be eighty years old doing this, arguing like children. Or maybe it’ll just be me and Alistair pulling apart geriatric versions of Rook and Thatcher.

Thatcher, who is incapable of not having the last word, just stands there smugly as the wind blows open his suit jacket.

“Unlike you, baby boy, my family actually loved me, and I don’t have to work in the judicial system to access my inheritance.”

Alistair makes a choking sound, a mixture of laugh and shock, but tries to cover it with a cough. I shake my head as I look down at the ground, taking my bottom lip between my teeth and sucking in a breath.

Rook flies off the handle, muttering obscenities, while we stand there watching. But the mention of inheritance reminds me of one of the many reasons we are here.

I’ve never been great with communication, easing into talking points, or starting with small talk. Growing up, I just said what I needed to and moved on. No one really needed more than that.

Except the other night at Vervain.

My memory reminds me of Coraline, her hands clinging to my shirt.

For the first time, someone was desperate for me to talk. Needed it. I’d never known what that felt like, someone needing my voice. But with every word I’d muttered, she’d melted. Lost that wild look in her eyes and started breathing.

“I need to get married.”

The word “fuck” draws short on Rook’s lips. I lift my head, seeing three pairs of eyes on me. Expected, of course. I tug my hood up on my head as a light rain begins to fall from the darkening sky.

“Is this because of your dad?” Alistair asks. “He’s not making you fucking marry someone, is he?”

“No. But the board won’t give me the title of CEO until there is someone legally attached to me.” That persistent headache returns, right behind my eyes. “Dad wants to sell.”

“So let him sell.”

“No.”

I grind my teeth together, pinning Alistair with a haughty glare. He doesn’t understand, and I’d never expect him to. He’d let his family’s last name rot if he was in total control, and I don’t blame him for that.

My family? They aren’t like his.

It was one reason I felt out of place when I met them. Each of my friends had a horrible, brutal childhood brought on by their parents. While mine wasn’t great because of the misdiagnosis, it was never because my mom and dad didn’t love me.

They wouldn’t get it.

How even though they screwed up, believing a doctor over me, they did everything they could to try and save me.

“My father has spent his entire life loving me. This is his last name, my last name. I won’t let him die knowing his company was sold.”

“You’re gonna get married, then? Hire a fake wife?”

“I told my dad I have a girlfriend.”

Not my proudest moment or smartest. But I needed him to give me time, and he wasn’t going to do that unless I gave him some hope I would actually marry for love.

I did what I had to do. I always do.

“Silas, I mean this with love,” Rook says, face the picture of confusion, “but what the fuck?”

He’s going to be the one with the biggest problem. Me marrying someone for convenience. It’ll drive him insane. ’Cause even though two nights ago, I watched him force a man to swallow a bottle of medicine and proceed to push him off a bridge into icy water because he’d attempted to drug his girlfriend, Rook’s heart is gentle.

All he has ever wanted since the moment I lost Rosemary was for me to be happy. I won’t ever be angry at him for that, for how protective he is over me, even if his constant worry about me taking medicine annoys the shit out of me.

Telling him should be easier, but it’s because he’s so protective that it isn’t.

“I’ll figure it out” is all I can say.

I will figure it out, eventually. But right now? I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do.

“Great.” Thatcher claps his hands together. “’Cause there is something more important than your impending nuptials. Stephen Sinclair is out of prison and blackmailing us. What are we doing about that problem?”

“You’re not even in the video, dickhead. You’d probably get off with a warning,” Rook grunts, reaching into his front pocket to pull out a pre-rolled blunt. “How’d he even get out?”

“Help. That’s what the prison informed me when I called to make sure he was the only inmate to escape.”

The sound of a lighter flicking echoes just before a cloud of smoke wraps around Rook’s head.

“Gotta make sure Daddy stays locked up,” he mutters, inhaling deeply.

“We can’t just wait for Silas to track the email. We have to move,” Alistair points out. “If it’s Stephen, we don’t know where he is. If it’s someone else, we are just as fucked.”

My head pounds with building pressure.

The guilt I carry is a relentless companion, a shadow that follows me everywhere I go. It’s the hollow pit of my stomach, a constant reminder that I’ve put these three people and the ones they love at risk.

My anger and desperation for revenge has once again uprooted their lives. If something happens, if we go to jail or someone dies, it’s on me. It’ll be my fault, and it’s a burden that has sat with me.

The selfishness of my grief will be the damnation of them.

“I’m sorry,” I say, not sure how to take it back or say it much better than that.

“For what?”

Rook’s eyebrows twitch together, the whites of his eyes turning pink from the weed.

“This is on me.” I shove my hands into my front pockets, looking up at the leaking sky. “You guys coming back. The blackmail. All of it. It’s on me. I couldn’t let Rosemary’s death go, needed to have revenge. You don’t—”

“Shut the fuck up.” Alistair’s force rumbles with the thunder in the distance. “There wasn’t a gun to my head. We all knew what we signed on for, and I’d do it again. You’re not the only one who wanted this. We all wanted to take a bite out of this place.”

“We started it together. We end it together,” Rook adds. “We’ll finish this and leave this fucking hellhole behind. All of us.”

“That means we have to follow the only trail we have right now,” Thatcher mutters. “And Rook isn’t going to like it.”