The Truths we Burn (The Hollow Boys Book 2)

Rook

I knew her coming back would be nothing but a hazard.

It would do nothing but distract us and put us more at risk. Sage had always been a wild card. A slow poison that corrupted you before you even knew you were infected.

Trouble.

“Alistair, wait, Alistair, please, I’m fine—” Briar begs, trying with no luck to slow him down. Blood drips from his hands, his knuckles split and oozing. The damage he’d done to that dude’s face will be permanent.

Sage is sitting on the pavement, a jacket wrapped around her shoulders as she tries to fight the cold. Her wet hair brushes her chin as she lifts her head to the freight train headed in her direction.

Alistair pulls Sage up by the front of her jacket, hands squeezing the material tightly as he presses her into the side of his car aggressively.

“What the hell were you thinking,” he growls, shaking her body as she speaks. “You’re nothing but fucking selfish. You almost got her killed.”

Her blue eyes are so washed-out, lips the same color. She probably doesn’t even understand what’s happening right now, still dizzy from the lack of oxygen. And now she has an out-of-control monster in her face.

When Briar wasn’t in her dorm like she’d told Alistair, he went into warfare mode.

After everything that happened last semester with his brother Dorian and Briar being kidnapped, he assumed the worst. Alistair is never afraid, ever, unless it has to do with losing Briar. That’s the only thing he fears in life. Not even death takes precedence over her.

Thankfully Silas put a tracker on her phone for Alistair’s peace of mind, and when he saw where they were, there was nothing stopping him from finding her.

We’d shown up just after Briar took a hockey stick to the back of her legs and a right hook to the mouth. It had been brutal to watch, not only for myself but for my friend. I was planning on grabbing one of the assholes who’d hit her to help him, but I’d gotten distracted.

By a girl with torn wings.

She’d fallen hard, so quickly I wasn’t even sure I’d seen it.

I watched, my fist clenched, waiting for her to resurface, and when she didn’t, I went after her.

She looked so pale when we broke the surface, so broken. Like she’d already given in to death when she’d sunk into the water. And that pissed me off—she’s not allowed to die. Not like that, not without a fight.

I couldn’t watch her die, not at that moment. Because all I saw were false moments.

All I could see was the girl she’d pretended to be when she was with me, underneath me, all around me, and not who she actually was. I gave in to that weakness, to her weakness. I gave in to the temptation of her all over again and stupidly dove in after her.

I’d given in just like I did when I found out she was committed. When I drove haphazardly to Monarch Mental Health Institution and made sure she was there. That she was alive and wasn’t dead.

I was pathetic.

A pitiful excuse for a man, because I couldn’t let go of the lie. Even when she’d shown me her truths, every nasty, ugly truth, I still wanted those lies. All those pretty poisonous lies—I wanted them, and I couldn’t let them die.

And fuck did I hate myself for that.

“I’m sorry. I-I didn’t expect—”

“You didn’t expect what? My girlfriend to get the shit beat out of her while you worried about winning a game?”

“Alistair!” Briar yells, pulling at his leather jacket. “Put her down! It was my fault. I was the one who wanted to go! It was me, it wasn’t Sage.”

His jaw goes solid, the muscle ticking a few times. His dark eyes bore into Sage’s empty blue ones.

“If you ever put her in danger again, I’ll kill you.”

My feet move before my brain can really catch up, and I step closer to them. The threat isn’t a light one—Alistair never says anything he doesn’t mean.

And I don’t like the way it makes me feel right now.

Making me feel something other than respect for my best friend.

Making me feel hostile towards him.

I step to the side of him, placing a hand on his chest. “Chill out. Briar is fine. Focus on your girl.”

He looks at me, tilting his head suspiciously. I hold my ground, pressing into his chest so he gets the message that he needs to let her go.

With one last heated glare at Sage, he releases his grip and immediately turns to Briar, stepping away from the car and scooping her face in his hands. There is still so much anger rolling off him that I can practically see steam coming from his ears, but he softens just a little when he looks at her. Lifting his bloody thumb, he swipes at her swollen bottom lip.

“This is not over, Little Thief.”

She nods, accepting his wrath before wrapping her arm around his waist and sinking into his body. “I’m sorry,” I hear her whisper before her voice fades into something only they can hear.

I turn to Sage, who is slumped against the car, looking at the ground.

I shove my hands into my wet jeans, hoping the sticky material will prevent my fingers from doing something I don’t want them to do.

Something idiotic like reach for her.

The way she clung to me in the water, how she was desperately seeking me, stealing my energy. Like she would die if I let her go.

It fucked me in the head.

The months of celibacy I had endured were nothing compared to the pain of that moment.

I just have to keep reminding myself and my birdbrained heart that it’s all a mirage. She had been engaged to another guy the entire time I was fucking her, learning her, inhaling her. I’d been an experiment.

You were a game, Rook.

That was it.

“Looks like you had all the fun without us.” Thatcher slams the door of Silas’s passenger door, walking towards us.

“What happened?” Silas questions, glancing at Briar, then pauses to stare at Sage. Staring for a lot longer than I would say is necessary.

Her coming back was hard on me, but I also know it was hard on him for an entirely different reason.

Sage and Rosemary were twins, so the likeness is there. It had always been there, but when one of them is dead and had been for almost a year now, the similarities are more obvious.

“They played the Gauntlet. Sage fell in the wave pool, and Briar got hit,” I inform them both, grinding my teeth. How naive were they? They had to have known better. Every single year, people leave the Gauntlet injured. It’s not something you play with no experience.

We would know. We’re usually the ones doing the injuring.

“And you?” Thatcher directs towards a sitting Lyra. Tucked away on the asphalt with her head sitting on her knees, she flinches when he speaks to her. His voice yanks her from her own little world she’d been inside of, and his eyes penetrate hers. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing. Uh,” she stutters. “I’m-I’m fine.”

He continues to stare before giving a curt nod and sucking his teeth. “Did we at least win?”

“Thatcher, shut the fuck up.”

“Yes,” Briar and Alistair answer at the same time, proving yet again why they make such a good match.

“Good.” Thatcher walks towards Briar, hovering above her frame. One icy hand moves forward, grabbing her chin and tilting her head to the left and back to the right. “Ice that and you should live…unfortunately,” he adds for good measure.

Their conversation fades into the background because it’s at this moment that Silas walks up to Sage. He looks down at her, staring for a moment too long, and starts to remove his hoodie. Once it’s off his arms, he pauses.

“Lift your arms,” he grunts.

Uneasiness settles into my stomach as she finally lifts her gaze to him.

Why the fuck is he looking at her like that? I know he’s probably doing it out of respect for Rosie, but it’s making me anxious.

It’s making me angry.

At myself. At her. At him.

“I don’t want it,” she responds, staring blankly.

“You’re going to freeze to death. Put it on.” He shoves the hoodie into her chest, insisting. Yet, she refuses to react.

I’m only able to watch this. I can’t say a single word as my best friend speaks more to her than he has to anyone in a year.

Jealously bumbles in my gut.

See what she’s doing to me? Wrecking my life all over again. Turning me against my own goddamn friends. Because of her, I’d been angry with Alistair, I’d lied to Thatcher, and now I’m jealous of Silas.

Envious that they have a connection I’ll never be able to understand, and there’s nothing I could say about it.

What am I supposed to do? Walk up to them and piss all over her like some territorial dog?

Sage Donahue had been a lot of things, but mine was never one of them.

I have no right to speak about what I’m watching, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.

“Why? So you can save me? Make yourself feel better?” she says coldly with no trace of emotion in her tone at all. Here she is, the cruel-hearted bitch I’d come to know so well. The one that could break you just after building you up. “So you can make up for not being there for Rose?”

“I’m just trying to make sure you don’t die,” he replies.

“Yeah? And why didn’t you do the same for my sister?”

I knew what she was capable of when it came to that silver tongue. How reckless she was with her words when she was upset. How easily she could hurt someone with only her voice.

I’m not going to let that happen to him. Not when he doesn’t deserve it.

“Sage, stop,” I warn, making my way closer to their space, standing close behind them.

“No.” She ignores me. “You were supposed to be there, but you let her walk home from the library alone.”

Here she comes dragging up broken memories, ones that Silas doesn’t need to be reminded of because he never forgets it. When Sage hurts, she has to make everyone else hurt around her.

“You were supposed to be there!” Her voice has upgraded to a shout as she pokes him in the chest. Yet, he stands hard like a statue, unmoving, letting her words pellet his hard exterior.

“We were supposed to protect her!” The first tear streams down her face, pain leaking from her eyes that no one can heal.

And if anyone understands that, it’s Silas.

They could find common ground in their grief, having lost the same person. They would be able to comprehend each other’s emotions, something I’ll never be able to do for either of them. Especially Silas.

It doesn’t matter how close I was to Rose; I didn’t have a bond with her like he did. I can’t help him the way I want to. I can’t make this better for him, no matter how many times a day I check-in.

There is nothing I can do to help him heal from her, but what I can do is make sure he gets his revenge for it.

“And now look, she’s dead! She died, Silas, all alone! Why didn’t you protect her? Why couldn’t we save her?”

His armor breaks—one of the harsh bullets penetrates through the metal and sinks through the bone. I see it in the way he cringes like it’s more than emotional trauma. It’s a physical discomfort that circulates across him.

Closing his eyes for a brief second before reopening them, he reaches forward to touch Sage.

“Rosie, I—”

“What?” She flinches, struck by his words. “Did you just call me Rosie?”

A distress signal is sent to my brain. A universal panic.

I try to push the dread down. Try to tell myself it was an honest mistake, a mix-up. He’s been taking his meds—I’ve watched him every single day.

He is fine. It was just a fuck up. That’s it.

But with his diagnosis, it’s hard to brush things like that off when I’m constantly aware of his symptoms and when things are getting worse. I want this to be a coincidence. I want to believe it was a mistake.

“That’s enough,” I interrupt, striding between the two of them. I’m just not sure who I’m protecting. Am I blocking Sage? Or am I shielding Silas?

All I know is that Sage is in the mood to hurt someone. When she’s in distress, she takes it out on those around her. She never wants to hurt alone.

So if she wants to hurt someone, she can do that to me, not Silas.

Never Silas.

“Screw you,” she spits, looking up at me. “Screw all of you. Acting like you deserve payback more than me. As if she meant nothing to me. Like she wasn’t my goddamn twin!”

“It has nothing to do with that. We know we don’t deserve it, but we also know we don’t fucking trust you,” I argue, not backing down from her outrage.

If she wants to be nasty, then fine, we can get nasty.

“No, you”—she pokes my chest with her pointer finger—“don’t trust me, Rook. Which is rich coming from someone who lies to his friends.” She looks me dead in the eyes, warning me. Cautioning me that if I’m not careful, she could do some heavy damage.

She could out us right here, right now. I wouldn’t put it past her either—she doesn’t care how deep she has to dig to ruin someone.

She’s playing with fire coming back here and trying to fuck my life up all over again.

But I’m not letting that happen again.

This time, it won’t be a lake house I burn. It’ll be her pasty skin left in a pile of ashes.

I breathe through my nose, my jaw tightening. “I knew saving you was a waste of fucking time. I should have just let you drown.”

“If you knew that, then why did you? Huh?” She turns her nose up at me, hands balled up in tight fists by her sides. “For a guy who acts like the villain, you sure do love playing the hero, don’t you? That’s what you like, right, Rook? Saving the broken ones? You wanna be the hero?”

“Do I look like a goddamn hero?” I grab her waist with both of my hands, pressing her flesh tightly as I haul her up the length of my body, then sling her damp frame across my shoulder so she is dangling down my back.

“This is over,” I tell her while she fights me the entire way like I knew she would.

She needs to shut her pink mouth, to learn that her comments have consequences.

I let her beat into my back, pushing to get away from my hold, making the raw marks beneath my shirt sore.

With one arm hooked around her, I use the other to grab the handle of her car door, jerking it open and tossing her roughly into the back seat. Her body sprawls out across the plush material, her chest rising and falling with unbridled emotion that I’m ready to absorb.

I’ll take her anger, her irrational feelings—I would take them all.

I place both of my hands on the doorframe, bracing myself, trying desperately to ignore the memory of the last time I saw her like this. Laid out in her back seat, naked. Smoking my blunt, staring up at me with those fuck-me eyes.

Now they’re just fuck-you eyes.

It’s hard to tell which one I like more.

Like a feral cat, she moves quickly, sitting up on her knees and using her palms to shove into my chest, using mild-level strength to try and move me.

“Let me the hell out,” she shouts, only becoming more and more agitated with my unmoving frame.

Yeah, that’s it. Let it out, Sage.

Make it hurt.

“No,” I rasp, only making things worse. I look down at her wet hair as it sways back and forth with her movements.

Her pressing turns into beating, her tiny fists doing nothing to me as she thumps on my chest, willing me to move. She only succeeds in tiring herself out and making me crave more. This is a breeze compared to what I need. A preview of what it takes to mend my hunger.

“Is that the best you got? You really are all bark and no fucking bite, aren’t you?” I edge her on. “Come on, hit me.”

I say exactly what I would if I were Alistair, pushing her further into her own rage, drawing out more violent punches. They start to generate more force, and she drops lower, hitting me in the soft flesh of my gut a few times, seizing the wind from my lungs. It’s nothing I can’t handle. It’s not enough to make me move.

“Hit me!” I yell in her face, full of toxic madness and pent-up emotions I haven’t fully dealt with. Things I’ve buried deep, deep down when we ended. They’re all being dug up, making me want to do the one thing I haven’t stopped thinking about since she came back.

Ruining her.

Breaking her.

Make her question who she is just like she’d done to me.

“Fucking hit me!”

The dam breaks. It’s the match in the powder barrel. The final straw for her.

She sends one solid punch across my jaw, snagging my lip in the process. My head is sent to the right with the force, and I feel the blood leak into my mouth immediately. The tangy metallic taste coats my taste buds, and the bite of the cut has my lip aching.

I snap my head back, locking onto her eyes, seeing them wide and full of tears as her hands cover her mouth. She’s shocked that she was capable of something like that, of being pushed to that point.

Everyone is capable of something despicable. It’s all about the right time, the right motivation and emotions.

“What is wrong with you,” she murmurs. “Why did you let me do that?”

I don’t anticipate that question to draw a reaction out of me.

I don’t expect it to slice my throat like razor blades and burn everything inside my soul, leaving nothing but unfiltered honesty.

There are a lot of things wrong with me.

But right now, there’s only one thing that’s really fucking me up.

My fingers snatch the back of her head, gathering a chunk of hair in my grip and yanking her face close to mine. Our noses clash bitterly, so close that I have no choice but to smell her, inhale her for the first time in months.

“You,” I bite out, hating the taste of that truth on my tongue. “You are what’s wrong with me. You being back here. You walking around campus, showing up at the cliff. You fucking existing.”

My breath fans across her face, making her gasp. A charge of friction snaps between our mouths.

“You don’t get to do this. You are done,” I tell her, “You want to be sad? You want to mourn your sister? You do that, but you don’t get to wreak havoc on everyone else, Sage. You don’t get to hurt Silas or anyone because you’re angry and damaged. We lost her too. We all lost her.”

I leave her no time or room to reply to me. I want her to sit with that, to feel this, so that the next time she is missing Rose, she won’t take it out on people who don’t deserve it.

Because she’s better than that.

I know what it’s like to be the target of someone’s grief and mourning. I know what it feels like to be the scapegoat, to be the punching bag for someone who lost a piece of themselves.

I refuse to let her turn into my father because she’s better.

She drops into the seat when I release her, extracting myself from her space. I glance down at Silas’s sweatshirt in her lap, her hands nervously fiddling with it.

“And you’re not fucking putting this on,” I add for nothing other than to aid my irrational jealously, capturing the material from her hands and slamming the door closed.

I’m pissed, I’m cold, and I want to get the fuck out of this place. I need to get away from her, from the crazy shit she makes me want to do and the way she makes me feel. Taking a deep breath of air away from her, I rub the back of my head roughly.

I know what I need. I need to let out some aggression. I wanted to spar with Alistair. Go for a ride. Get cut up by Thatcher. Anything that would make her go away, even if it’s just for a second.

Briar and Lyra say their goodbyes, driving themselves and Sage back to the dorms and leaving us here to take in everything that had just happened.

“What the hell was that about, Van Doren?” Alistair accuses as I start my bike, letting the engine heat up in this cold weather.

“It was me protecting Silas, what else would it be?” I snap back, too on edge to add his attitude to the list of things I have to deal with.

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

“Yeah? Just like you don’t need me to make sure you take your meds? Or are you okay calling someone your dead girlfriend’s name?” My eyes zero in on Silas as I toss his sweatshirt back.

Does he not realize that all I’ve been doing since Rose died is protect him? Watch him? Spend every single second I’m awake making sure he’s alright, that he’s alive?

“Everyone calm down,” Thatcher interjects. “It’s been a long night, and everyone just needs to relax, alright?”

He’s right. Like always. The only voice of reason when our tempers start to flare.

But it’s impossible to control myself when it comes to her. It’s like every feeling, every emotion I have is heightened when she is around, when she is mentioned. No matter how many times I try to rip her out of my system, she just finds a way to crawl back, turning me into someone I don’t recognize, someone who gets pissy with his friends because they look at her a certain way or threaten her.

It was supposed to be a game for me, to break the pretty, little cheerleader. And I was the one who got screwed in the end.

Fuck feelings.

Fuck all this.

“Here.” Alistair tosses me a pack of cigarettes. “We all need one.”

I pull one of the white sticks from inside, placing it on my lips before handing it over to Silas. I light the end with my Zippo and inhale the stress-relieving smoke into my lungs.

“Six minutes,” Thatcher says. “Each cigarette takes six minutes off your life, did you know that?”

I can’t help but laugh a little. “Six minutes closer to the goal.”

The smoke comes out in rings, swirling around in the night. My head is stuffy from the light head buzz from the rush of nicotine. There are times I think about when we were younger, fourteen and smoking at the cliff, thinking of all the chaotic things we wanted to do to Ponderosa Springs before we left.

Thinking, how the hell did we end up here?

All of us are even more tormented and twisted than we once were, spending every single day getting closer and closer to the grave.

“A little late for the game tonight, boys. The only thing you guys were good at, and look, we can win it without you now. Seems like it’s this place’s way of telling you it’s time to get the fuck out.”

Just when I thought the evening was starting to settle down, the king of stirring the pot decides to rear his prestigious head.

The last person who needs to talk shit to me tonight.

Our history is a lengthy, messy one, going all the way back to elementary school, and yes, he was just as annoying then as he is now.

I look over my shoulder to see Easton waltzing into the parking lot as if he owns this as well. He walks like that everywhere, as if everything he steps on is his for the taking, as if he already owns it.

The sense of entitlement he carries reeks from miles away.

“It would seem the only reason you won was because of a girl. Not only do you need your daddy to back you up, you now need ladies to fight your battles? If you’re going for the look of pathetic waste of space, you’re nailing it, Sinclair,” Thatcher comments, leaning against Silas’s car and tucking his hands inside of his slacks.

Easton sneers, not enjoying someone threatening his ego. “That’s right, I forgot to ask, how is Sage? Did we get lucky and she did us all a favor by drowning? Or is what I’ve heard true—Rook jumped in to save his damsel in distress?”

And that’s when the twitching in my hand starts.

The persistent and irresistible urge to do something reckless. Something violent.

It stirs in my gut, taking me over, the impulse to do severe damage to his spinal cord or record his screams while I burn him alive for my new ringtone.

That evil I’d been cursed with as a child starts to blend with my unsettled temper, turning into a scary concoction.

Dynamite just waiting for the fuse to light.

He’s not the main target of our retaliation—he never had been—but somehow, he always finds himself right in the fucking middle of it, sticking his nose in a place it doesn’t belong, talking shit about things he shouldn’t.

I look at him, unsure if he knows about Sage and me. Knowing if the boys found out from a scumbag like him, Thatcher would be right again—they wouldn’t trust me. Which means I’m going to have to tell them soon or keep hoping those who knew would keep their mouth shut.

But that’s the thing with Ponderosa Springs—nothing stays buried. Not a goddamn thing.

“All alone tonight, East? No meatheads to back you up?” I ask, unconvinced how he can be confident in his safety when he’s stepping straight into a lion’s den. A group of lions that haven’t eaten in months and are ready to feed on just about anything.

Even preppy assholes in sneakers.

“I don’t need to travel in a constant group like teenage girls going to the bathroom, you know. Unlike you.” He starts to walk past us, clicking the unlock button on his car that happens to be parked near my bike, but decides to add another smart-ass remark for good measure, “Soon enough, I’ll be cleaning this town of you. All of you. Taking out the trash, just like we did with your slut of a girlfriend. Rose.”

My toes are tingling, my tremble getting worse. I bite down on the cigarette in my mouth as my thumb rapidly taps my thigh. My impulsive desires are starting to takeover, starting to win.

Hearing him say her name, hearing him allude to some type of involvement, makes our plan of waiting fly out the door for me. I can only control myself for so long before I snap.

Silas moves in his direction silently, carrying the weight of his unfinished business and guilt on his shoulders. I follow, not because he needs backup, but because I want a piece of whatever flesh Si rips from him.

They stand toe-to-toe. “If I find out you had something to do with Rose, Easton, I will make you beg on your knees for me to kill you.”

Easton’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows, his mouth not matching his nervous stature. “Empty fucking threats. You all are fucking full of them. Always have been. When are you going to do something other than talk out of your asses?” He leans in close to Silas’s face, making the flint inside of me strike. There’s no putting it out now, not until I get what I need.

“You know, if I did have something to do with little Rosie’s death,” he whispers, “I would’ve at least tasted the product first to make sure she was worth the heat.”

Tick, tick, boom.

There isn’t much thought of consequence or repercussion for my actions when I snatch the back of Easton’s neck, holding him like a rabbit caught in a trap, feeling his heartbeat spike through the pads of my fingers.

All I can see are bright orange flames and captivating darkness, controlled by nothing but primal instinct.

A film reel of everything crooked he’d ever said or done to me, to my friends, flashes inside my mind. The cruelty towards Rose, the asshole remarks, the times I watched him grope Sage right in front of me.

They are gasoline to my blaze.

Now, the world will see him for what he truly is. He’ll be just as disgusting on the outside as he is on the inside. No more hiding behind his golden boy image.

It’s time for Easton to be punished.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he shrieks high enough to break glass, trying to push me away, but my grip holds.

“Making good on all those empty fucking threats.”

I send my knee into his gut, making him double over with a grunt of pain. I’m not doing it to hurt him, just enough to get leverage so that I could.

He reaches up to my forearm, his nails digging into my body, his weak attempt at defending himself. I jerk his body closer to my bike, practically dragging him the few inches I need him to go. For someone so tough, he sure is wimpy.

“Rook.”

I’m not sure who says my name, but it’s too late for it. Too late for talking. I’m past that stage, and there’s no stopping me. I won’t be finished until I feed the evil inside. Until I give him what he deserves.

The devil is getting his fix, delivering punishment.

I shove the left side of his face straight onto my exhaust, plastering him to the side of steaming hot metal. My body buzzes with pleasure when I feel him try to pull away and hear him start to yell in despair.

The smell makes me inhale deeply, and I tilt my head up to the sky as I close my eyes, reveling in this feeling of power. Muscle and tissue being consumed by the heat emit a fragrance like no other. Charcoal and seared hair mix together, making this sulfur scent of skin melting.

I can hear the sizzling of meat on a griddle just below his screams of misery as he begs incoherently for any form of mercy, but he isn’t getting any of that here. Not tonight.

I give him another few good seconds before I release my hold, his feet giving out on him so he falls to the asphalt with a hard thud. I watch as his face rips clean from the exhaust, pieces of his flesh still sticking to the shiny metal.

I make a mental note to clean it.

With shaking hands, he reaches up to try and assess the damage. His skin looks like melted, stringy plastic, the bumbling tissue and oozing yellow liquid from fat being broken down. Major third-degree burns cover his entire cheek. Unfixable damage has now been done.

He’ll wear that scar forever, a reminder of just how fucking foul he is below the surface. He’ll see it and know there are no more fucking empty threats.

And just like that…

The twitching stops.