Page 1 of Crush

1

Ember

“You should keep the dress.”

Aiko shoves Savannah’s black satin gown in my hands, wrinkled and creased. I can’t help but feel it was worn in all the wrong ways tonight. Ill-fitting and pointless.

“Why?” My voice cracks on the question.

“I don’t know. I…” After a breath, Aiko’s hesitant expression clears. “To keep you motivated and angry. Don’t even wash it. Just hang it up on the door in your closet, and—”

She breaks off when I collapse to my knees, Savannah’s dress now catching my silent tears. She should’ve filled it out tonight. Not me, the girl who lost the only thing holding her together after losing her parents, her life. That fellowship was meant to solve my problems and make the losses worth it.

“They took everything from me,” I whisper. “These people. Thorne.”

Aiko’s arms come around my shoulders in a thin drapery of warmth. She props her chin on the top of my head, murmuring, “What happened to you tonight was vicious. I knew these families were awful, but honestly, this makes me sure. I’m positive they have something to do with Savannah’s disappearance. The way the Briars mess with innocent people’s lives, how every family in this town follows them like sheep, it’s terrifying. I mean, look at you. You’ve been here three months, and they’re already out to destroy you.”

Aiko’s words have their intended effect. Sniffling, I gently wriggle out of her embrace. “I won’t let them.”

“Good. Because this puddly version of you has me worried.”

I rub the heels of my hands against my eyes. “I’ve had my woe is me moment. I’m done. Now, I…” I take a breath. “Now, I’m gonna fucking kill him.”

“It’s not giving up if you go home,” Aiko says softly. She rests on her haunches across from me, both of us choosing the floor within the shadow of my bed. “No one would blame you if you packed your bags and returned to Boston, where you’re safe.”

An image of my parents surrounded by police cars fills my head. Perhaps the showdown at the Society party was enough to make Malcolm change his mind about keeping me here, but I’m not banking on it. Witnessing his meltdown in front of his wife—Damion’s wife—as well as the sheer agony on his face when it was revealed I was becoming a Virtue could be enough to make him want to wash his hands of me.

Most of me rationalizes, however, that it won’t do a damned thing. The Societies’ plans were in play well before I enrolled at Winthorpe. I was the only clueless, stupid one in this game of power and control.

Besides, I don’t want to leave. Not after what Thorne did and his undisguised joy at sinking his teeth into my dreams. A guy like that doesn’t deserve to sit back and chew on his winnings while I limp out of his territory, wounded and bleeding.

No, the bastard deserves equal violence.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say to Aiko. “Why would I? He can’t win.”

“But—”

My bedroom door slams open, the heavy wood cracking against the wall. Both Aiko and I duck and cover until a roar brings my head up and above the bed.

“What in God’s name were you doing tonight?” Malcolm shouts, his ice-blue eyes drawing upon his inner storm. “How dare you go against my wishes! Need I remind you, you are in my home, under my rules, and if you can’t abide by them—”

“You’ll kick me out?” I cut in quietly. I don’t let him see my trembling as I rise on quaking limbs.

He snarls, whirls, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides like he’s looking for something to destroy. Malcolm’s pacing brings him closer, and while I internally buckle under the incoming blizzard, I don’t flinch.

“The opposite,” he growls. “I will lock you in this bedroom until further notice. You can do all your lessons remotely. The only time your door will be open is when Dash brings you food. Is that how you want it?”

Inadvertently, my gaze flicks over his shoulder to the wall behind him. “Do it.”

Malcolm smiles, but it’s a lifting of lips I’ve never seen before. Cruel, twisted, and manic in its pull, I can almost believe how easily he deployed it before Damion Briar crushed him.

“Thank you for making me aware of the passage to your room tonight when you snuck out,” he says in a tone so quiet and mild, my spine stiffens at the implications. “It will be sealed by morning.”

Pure outrage pulses into my blood. “You can’t trap me here. What kind of father would you be to lock your child in a room for days on end? I thought you weren’t like him.”

Malcolm jolts, shock rippling through his features.

“Until this moment, I was convinced you were different from Damion Briar and that you didn’t deserve to have your entire life molded and twisted to meet his needs. Hilarious, considering that’s exactly what you’ve done to me. Yet I still pitied you in that ballroom. Empathized with your pain. And now here you are, threatening to treat me like an animal as if that will make any difference to me. You lost your wife? Well, I lost my future. How about we call it even, and you leave me the hell alone?”

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