Heath had made my father doubt my mother and then suggested I should be murdered because of my gender! If Liam’s father weren’t already dead, I would’ve found a silver blade and wrenched it inside his black, black heart.
“What’s yourearliest memory?” Liam asked, whisking my mind off my homicidal deliberations.
I racked my brain. When the memory slotted into my mind, I blinked. It couldn’t possibly be my earliest recollection. I hunted through my mind for another but found none.
“Your mother’s funeral.”
He flinched.
I’d been five at the time. I could still remember what I’d worn-a scratchy black wool dress with thick white stockings and black patent mary-janes. The air had smelled of overturned earth and tears, and there hadn’t been a dry cheek.
Except Heath’s.
He didn’t weep, but Liam cried enough for the two of them.
Liam had been a gangly boy with features too large for his face. He’d grown into his body, grown into his features. He didn’t even resemble the narrow-faced sixteen-year-old boy I’d last seen on the winter day I begged the pack to accept me.
“I remembered wondering if you had a hole in your heart,” I said as we crossed the street toward a little park. “But now I know.” Mom’s gaunt face flashed into my mind. “I’m sorry.”
He glanced down at me. “For what?”
“For reminding you of her.”
“Because you think I forget? Not a day goes by where I don’t think about her, Ness.” His voice contained the same shadows that had collected over his face.
We carried around the same pain, he and I.
“You never forget the people you love, but I guess you know this now,” he said softly.
A snare snapped around my heart.
I thought about my mother, about my father-who was most definitelymy father-as we passed by the playground of my youth. It had changed, gotten a shinier swing set, but the monkey bars I spent hours scaling were still there. Dad would swing alongside me sometimes, while Mom looked on, shaking her head and laughing, telling him he looked ridiculous-a gorilla in a hamster cage.
I didn’t realize I’d stopped walking, didn’t realize I’d started crying, until I felt the swipe of a thumb over my cheek.
I drew in a sharp breath when Liam did it again.
Oh, no, no, no.
His face took on such an intent look that I jerked backward. His fingers slid off my cheek and fell slowly, curling into a fist at his side.
My heart whizzed around my chest like a stray bullet. I prayed he couldn’t hear my pulse, prayed he couldn’t see how it made the thin cotton of my shirt quiver.
He shifted his gaze to a plump tree dripping with lilac blooms. “I’m sorry about laying all this on you. I just thought you’d appreciate knowing.”
“I do appreciate it, but it doesn’t make me sorry your father is dead.”
Liam didn’t respond for a such a long time that I hesitated to apologize, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t apologize for saying words I meant. His father was evil.
“Do you want to go home?” he finally asked.
Did he mean to the inn or to Los Angeles?
Probably to the inn… “Yeah, but I’ll call a cab.”
He shifted his gaze to me. His eyes were so dark, as though his pupils had stretched from lid to lid and corner to corner. “I’ll drop you off. It’s on my way.”
Was it really? “Okay.”
In silence, we made our way to his car that was parked across the street from the pool bar. I could see the pack through the glass façade, wielding cue sticks, laughing, and drinking. I prayed they couldn’t see me. I didn’t want new rumors to spread.
Liam pulled my door open, and instead of making a fuss, I got in. The tension inside the car was so thick it was stifling. I cracked my window open, but the brisk air did little to deflate the ripe atmosphere.
I rested my cheek against the headrest and watched the darkness unspool outside the car, the same way it was unspooling inside my mind: Liam wasn’t attracted to me; he pitied me. He thought I was pathetic and sad and way too proud for my own good. Besides, I wasn’t attracted to him. Sure, he was handsome, but plenty of guys were handsome. Just because my body reacted to his didn’t mean I should encourage the feelings swarming through me.
“The elders want to meet on Wednesday.” His voice jolted me out of my deliberations.
I turned to look at him, his profile lacquered by the glow of his dashboard.
“To discuss the next trial.”
“I shouldn’t be part of the next trial.”
His jaw flexed as he slid to a stop in front of the inn. “But you are.”
“But I shouldn’t be.”
“Look, if you don’t want to take part in the contest anymore, go to the meeting and have it out with them.”
I flinched from the harshness of his voice. “Fine. At what time will it be and where?”
“It’ll be at my father’s house at 6:00 p. m.”
A shudder shot down my spine. “Why at your father’s house?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you have a problem with going there?”
I clicked my seatbelt and pumped my door handle. “No.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me for the address?”
“I remember where it is.”
“Of course you do.”
My pulse became a chaotic mess of heartbeats.
I didn’t ask what that was supposed to mean, because I dreaded his answer. Had the agency told him I’d been the girl they’d sent to see Heath, or had Liam figured this out on his own? Or did his father have security cameras? I hadn’t seen any, but that didn’t mean the sleazeball hadn’t installed some.