The Truths we Burn (The Hollow Boys Book 2)

Rook

“Where’s Thatcher?”

I walk up to the table tucked away in the corner of the cafeteria, glancing over at Rose, who is sitting down beside me.

“Sup, Rosie,” I say as I ruffle her hair.

She grins up at me, showing me her face. “Hey, RVD.”

The more my fingers and eyes discover her sister’s body, the more different they look from each other.

“Sick or some shit, holed up in his house. He’s pissed about it,” Alistair answers before chomping into an apple like it had talked shit to him earlier.

“He’s just having one of his germaphobe moments. He’ll get over it.” I pull my hood up on my head, sinking into the chair and tossing my feet up on the table, tucking my hands behind my neck.

“Speaking of where people have been, where the hell have you been lately? You weren’t at The Graveyard this weekend.”

I know that I’m going to have to tell them soon what I’ve been up to, why I haven’t been around as much, and I also know it’s going to need to be before graduation, which means telling them while she’s still dating Easton.

What a shitstorm that’s going to be.

However, I’m not going to announce it without Thatcher being around or at school. I’ll tell them when we’re alone; that way, if one of them blows up about it, it’s not a huge deal.

Like I’d told Sage, I’m not afraid of them finding out or their reactions.

Sure, they’re going to be fucking pissed at me for keeping it from them, but they’ll be even worse when they find out why.

“I was going, but then I smoked the wrong strain and passed the fuck out in my bed. Just wasn’t feeling it this weekend, dude.” Lies—I was fucking Rose’s sister in the back of her car outside of my house. “Don’t act like I never see you assholes. I practically live at Silas’s most of the time.”

“Better be glad my dad is immune to you wearing your boxers in the kitchen every morning,” Silas butts in, and I laugh.

“He only tolerates me because your kid brothers love me. Your mom on the other hand.” I suck my teeth. “She hates me.”

“My dad tolerates you because you’re my friend, and my mom doesn’t hate you. She hates cleaning up Nerf bullets around the house after you’ve gone to war with Levi and Caleb.”

I was admittedly jealous of Silas when we first met. I think that’s why when we connected, it made our bond that much closer. He had a great family, which seemed to be this uniting force between myself, Alistair, and Thatch. Could his life really be that bad? I mean, all things considered, he had everything—a loving father who wasn’t ashamed of his mental illness and would fight to give him whatever he needed just to make him happy, a mom who thought he walked on water, and two brothers that looked up to him. Not to mention they were loaded.

Where did he fit with us? How could he possibly relate to what we’d gone through?

I’d found out a few years later when he was diagnosed, officially, with schizophrenia.

It wasn’t that he understood; it was that we were the only people who understood him.

We knew what it was like to have demons eating at our lives, our hope, our flesh. We understood how real his hallucinations felt because we lived it. Even though his were fictional creatures that appeared in his mind and ours were humans wreaking havoc on our lives, we could still relate.

And that was something no one else could do.

Not doctors, not psychologists, not even his parents, who desperately tried.

I’ll never forget the day he told me about what it was like, how sometimes, especially at night, these intangible mist figures appeared. How they would tug at his feet and whisper in his ear. How no matter how many times he would shut his eyes and tell himself it was just a dream, they’d still be there every single time he opened them.

There was no night-light or bedtime story that could keep his nightmares away. They were with him always.

That was the same time I told him the truth about my mom. He was the only one who knew about it or had even heard me speak about it out loud.

We were inseparable after that.

“I wonder if he knows he looks like a douche canoe or if he just doesn’t care,” Alistair announces, looking beyond me. Silas quirks a grin, just enough to change his features.

I turn my head to see behind me, greeted with the sight of Easton walking inside the cafeteria with his arm slung around Sage’s shoulders, holding her as if he’s meant to be there. As if it’s his right to.

“Next time your dad pays his mom a visit, tell him to mention that Easton is too old for his mommy to be dressing him,” Silas adds.

It’s funny to me that Easton still has no idea that we’re aware of his mother’s extracurricular activities. I’m almost tempted to use it against him, just to watch him shake with fear of his perfect family reputation being destroyed.

Because if the truth came out, the Sinclairs would be the only ones who cared. As if Alistair gives a fuck what his piece-of-shit family did or who they fucked.

My molars grind together, jaw tightening to the point it’s almost painful.

It doesn’t matter how long we’d been together or how many times I’ve watched this exact scenario play out before, the sharp sting of annoyance never dims. Every time, my territorial hunger for Sage only grows stronger, and I had warned her I was done waiting.

I can feel my palms sweating as I look at her, that fake smile dazzling the room, forcing every male to stare and every girl to roll their eyes in jealousy. That plaid skirt number is doing wonders for my imagination.

A schoolgirl coming to confess some more sins, it would seem.

Rolling my tongue and biting harder on my match, I can practically taste her juices dripping into my mouth as I ate her beneath that flimsy material.

Wanting her sexually isn’t abnormal for me. The protective need to keep her to myself is though.

I can’t help but wonder if Easton knows her secrets. If she acts out plays in her underwear for him or eats Skittles until her stomach hurts around him. If he knows her dreams and the things that scare her.

Against my better judgment, I care about her. I want her.

And because life loves reminding me how vicious it can be when you’re not paying attention, all of my worries are absolutely true.

Because as I continue my admiration of the girl I should never have trusted, I see her finger decorated with a shiny diamond ring that promised her forever.

“I wish she could see how much better she deserves, but talking to her about it is like talking to a hungry piranha. I just hate the fact he’s going to be my brother, even if it is by marriage.”

Rosie’s voice is like white noise. It crackles and hisses inside my ear, millions of little needles poking my eardrum over and over again.

“Since when did they get engaged?” I ask, hoping my tone comes off flat and unbothered.

She shrugs, biting into a stick of celery. “My mom said way before Christmas. They’d just wanted to keep it low-key until graduation. Looks like they got tired of waiting.”

I nod to her answer but also make a note to myself.

I’d been right all along. I should never have touched the pretty flower, never allowed her teeth to sink into the flesh of my forbidden fruit.

Everyone says the devil is the corrupt one; no one thinks it could have been Eve tempting trouble.

She had been pretty poison all along, and now I’m invested.

My mind is plagued with memories of her, of who I thought she was, my body infected with the feel of her.

She’s in me, everywhere, and I want her the fuck out, right now.

All of her words, all of her actions, they had all been filthy, fucking lies. Every last one of them.

I’m sweating, fuming beneath my clothes, and the shaking in my hands is the worst it’s ever been. I’m positive fumes could be seen radiating off me.

I’m spinning out of control, a downward spiral heading to nothing but a chaotic end, and I need to get out of here. I need to leave. I need to be punished for trusting someone I know is a liar.

“I forgot my chemistry paper at the house. Gonna run and grab it before next block. Catch up with you all later.” I drop my feet to the ground, pushing away from the table I’d just sat down at only moments ago, and walk right out of there.

I’m going to leave—that’s what I tell myself as my feet thud down the hallway. I need to be hit or I need to blow something up before I combust.

Except, as I walk past the theatre doors, I pause.

I know Sage comes here after lunch every day because of her free period. I’d sat in here many days watching her in the back row of the room without her knowing, just to see her in what I thought was her natural element.

I sat there like a fucking puppy. A fool. A fucking chump. Frothing at the mouth like she was some goddess or angel. I sat and watched, thinking of all the things I would do and say to her later. It was how I got through the day without gutting her boyfriend.

It held me off until I saw her again, because if I’m being truthful with myself, the only real place I’d felt anything close to happy was when I was near her. Not just comfort, like with the boys, but actual happiness.

A feeling I hadn’t felt since my mom died.

Goddammit, how could I have done this to myself. How could I have even thought, for one split second, I was capable of being in love.

Even after what Rose said, even after the ring on her finger, this force inside of me keeps trying to defend her. It’s lost on false hope, begging my brain to listen, to be optimistic. That maybe this is all some huge misunderstanding.

It wants to believe in her.

In whatever we were.

I shove the doors open to the theatre, cursing myself. “You pathetic fucking idiot.” My hands pull at my hair, tugging at the strands painfully hard.

Even when I have no reason to believe her, I still wait. I lean against the wall in the darkness, and I continue being the guy who believes in her. I believe in the Sage I saw that night at The Graveyard.

There’s no way she could fake the way her eyes cried out for help.

She could not have forged all those conversations, all those late-night rambles and laughs.

There’s no way.

I stand here waiting as the minutes tick by, going to war with myself, never realizing until this very moment that I’d actually started hoping for something good for once.

Something that doesn’t hurt.

Tricked into thinking I deserve more.

The door opens again, the sound of students outside canceled once it shuts behind her.

I’m not going to drag this out. I want answers.

I need the truth.

“I’ll give it to you, Sage. You’re a hell of an actress.” I push off the wall, stepping closer to her. My body towers over hers even in those strappy heels.

“Rook—”

“Let’s go back to pyro, yeah? Rook is for people who don’t blatantly lie to my goddamn face.” My internal war spews from my mouth, my words not even giving my mind a second to hear her out.

I stare down at those blue-flame-colored eyes and search for something, anything. A flicker of emotion that could kindle my hope so that it doesn’t burn out.

Maybe anger because I’m doubting her. Sadness because she’s in some sort of trouble.

I would have taken regret. I would have accepted her lying to me about Easton and regretting it because she had learned to care about me.

Instead, I’m met with nothing.

A passive face with an unreadable expression.

I look up at the ceiling, my chest expanding with a deep breath. “Just how long were you going to keep this up? Were you planning on keeping me around till just after the reception or when you had to figure out who the baby daddy was?”

She just stands there, looking at me with zero reaction. Normally, she’d yell back, fight back with me, because that was her. That was who she was with me.

I’m fueled with so much energy, my hands want to reach out and shake her. I want to scream at her to say something, to say anything.

“Tell me it’s a lie, Sage,” I say with a harsh tone, but my chest is aching.

She told me I could keep her. That she was mine to keep, and here I am doing the exact opposite.

I’d never been able to keep anything I cared about.

I just want this one godforsaken thing.

“Please fucking tell me the engagement is a hoax, that it’s not true. That this is what your parents wanted for you. Tell me the truth, and I swear I’ll shred the world in half to save you from it, to protect you.” I keep going. “Tell me the you that clings to my hoodie when she sleeps is the real you. Tell me I got the real Sage.”

Hoping this will be the straw to break her from her trance, I step forward, placing my hands on either side of her head.

“Just tell me it’s a lie, baby,” I whisper.

In three short movements, she obliterates all the trust I had for her. She steps back, out of my touch.

“This isn’t how I wanted this to go, but I suppose it’s best to rip this Band-Aid off.” She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear casually, as if I’m not ready to explode. “I just, I needed a little…” She trails off as she thinks of the right word, looking rigid and calculated.

“Danger before graduation, ya know? You get that, right?” Her eyebrows lift at the rhetorical question, sounding more like a robot than a human. The attitude that soaks every single word rocks me.

The girl I had started letting in is gone. This is the old Sage, and she is back with even sharper claws.

The sad part is I don’t think she ever went anywhere.

“I didn’t really get the full wild high school experience everyone always talks about—trying to keep up images, cheer, school—and when Easton proposed…” She sighs, looking away from me for a moment as if she’s picturing him, then returning her gaze to mine. “Well, I just wanted to check off all my life experience boxes, and you seemed like you would get the job done.”

My chest constricts. A large knife had been dug into my back, filling my lungs with blood.

The only words I can manage through gritted teeth are “Is that right?”

She nods, showing her teeth with a condescending smile. “I’ll admit, I had my doubts when he popped the question.” As if to rub it in worse, as if to pour gasoline over my sliced wrists, she absentmindedly twirls the ring on her finger. “But! I think you made it more than obvious Easton Sinclair is everything I need for my future. I mean, we were practically made for each other. Don’t you think?”

Is she fucking serious right now?

I step closer to her, furrowing my eyebrows into an angry V.

“You’re joking. Your future is fake orgasms and people who treat you like a blow-up doll? That’s bullshit, Sage. This is bullshit. You mean to tell me that all the scripts, all the tears, LA, that was all, what? An act?” I’d never heard my voice so full of emotional intensity.

I could sound threatening. I could sound funny or sarcastic, sure. But this is different. Every word feels like razor blades against the soles of my feet, because she barely flinches at them.

As if they don’t bother her, as if she couldn’t care less.

“I told you what you needed to hear, Rook.” She adjusts the strap on her book bag, bored of this conversation apparently. “I gave you a girl you thought you could save. And you were just the pool boy I wanted some dirt on. I just—”

She stops, and fuck me if I thought she was going to crack and take it all back.

Her laughter resonates, biting into my skin like close-range bullets. One after the other, I take hit after hit until I look like Swiss cheese.

Left empty and full of holes all over again.

“I just can’t believe you actually fell for it.” She finishes her giggling, wiping tears of joy from underneath her eyes.

Fresh hatred pumps into my veins like adrenaline, an appetite for retaliation building. I thought my resentful spirit had dwindled since being around her, and this only throws meat at the starving beasts inside of me.

She’s a liar. A manipulative bitch. A traitor.

The enemy.

There’s no one I hate more than her right now, and I want her to pay.

I want her to fucking hurt the way I’d allowed myself to get hurt.

I suck on my bottom lip, grinning from the animosity filling my body, overflowing in me. “Just know when you’re all alone at the end of this because you’ve used everyone around you that you did this to your fucking self. No one pities the bitch with no heart.”

She scoffs, turning away from me to head towards the stage. “I don’t need pity, pyro. Just like I don’t need this.”

“You’ve been playing this game so long, Sage, you don’t know if you’re playing it or it’s playing you,” I call to her only for her to glance over her shoulder and smile.

“Don’t be upset that you’re the one who ended up being played this time, Van Doren. I’m sure you’ll get over it. After all, tomorrow the birds will sing.”

I let her words soak into my skin. I let them feed my hatred for her, even if the only real person to blame is myself.

She’ll get what’s coming to her. I’ll make sure of that.

I tear out of the school, attempting to rip the doors off the hinges as I do. I know exactly what I’m going to do, but first, there’s something I need taken care of.

I go to the one person who would do as I asked without requiring answers.

Someone who craves the kind of demented torment I need in this moment.

Punches to the gut from Alistair and coarse Bible verses dipped in malice from my father aren’t going to curb my hankering for pain today. It won’t be enough.

I need some to extract this poison.

Now.

With my body shaking with so much self-hatred, I stumble up the stone steps to the front door. The gaunt knocker glares at me as I bang my fist on it, urgency in my movements.

My brain is shouting, screaming, and raging at the useless fucking organ in my chest.

It should have stayed dead. It should not have started beating again after everything it had been through. It knew better—it saw how the world was, and yet it expected Sage to be different.

For her to not be a liar.

It started pumping black sludge through the ducts when she dug her nails into me, the only liquid left filling my veins, fighting to work. It fought to believe it could once again beat normally, transport real blood instead of toxic fluid.

The heavy door groans as it opens, sunlight pouring into the darkened house. His black Oxfords click across the floor as he leans against the frame, looking at me with dull eyes.

He has a voice that’s full of life, sarcastic wit, intelligent banter, and even some humor, yet his eyes let you know it’s all an act.

Inside, he’s twisted. He couldn’t care less.

Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he physically can’t care about others. Not the way normal people do.

He’s loyal, he understands me, but he doesn’t care.

Human emotions are void to him.

While Silas comprehends emotions, how they work, how they affect others, he just doesn’t enjoy them.

Thatcher could never grasp the concept of sentiments because he can’t feel them for himself.

How could he?

However, Thatcher Pierson can do what no one else would for me.

I look at him, my fiery eyes meeting his icy ones.

“I need you to make it hurt.”