Page 37 of Shattered Veil

“God dammit, he texted me that he was swinging by, but I missed it. Bad idea,” she muttered. “This was a bad idea—this,” she waggled her finger between us as she stepped my way, “didn’t happen.”

At those words, crime be damned, my intestines returned to where they belonged. My back straightened. I felt my head cock to the side, and my jaw hung open as I disbelievingly took in what she said because that—erasing what had just occurred from existence—was not on the expected roster for me.

“Didn’t happen?” I repeated slowly.

“It’s forgotten, okay?” she insisted. “Us making out? Rug. Swept under it.”

“Oh, it’s forgotten already?” I asked sardonically, feeling as though a rug had been pulled out from under me rather than having memories hidden beneath it. “That was quick.”

“You know what I mean,” she whined, moving away from me and then turning on her heel to spin right back around. She rushed out, “I just got…carried away. I am not explaining what just happened to Liam.”

“Cassie.”

“If he gets weird about it, this could fuck the whole group dynamic up—”

“Cassie.”

“Oh my God, you dated Zoey!” she exclaimed in a whisper. “What the fuck was I—”

“Cassie, hold up,” my voice turned deep, and her relentless pacing stopped. Once I was certain that I had her attention, I continued, “I wasn’t gonna act on anything because of all of that shit, but when you point blank ask me about my feelings and then kiss the life out of me…” I paused and shook my head. “That shit feels damn near irrelevant to me after that, and now you want to forget it?” My tone rounded the corner from annoyed to frustrated, and her eyes widened as I asked, “You think that’s possible?”

A car door shut from beyond Cassie’s front door—Liam’s car door, no doubt—and her head whipped from the entrance back to me. I eyed my glasses that she must have placed on the table in the midst of everything, and I placed them on my face.

Her shoulders sagged as she exhaled softly. “James.”

I stood, and she watched me as I walked to her. I stopped once I knew that she could hear my hushed voice.

“Didn’t happen,” I repeated her words back, though mine held a sharp edge to them. “It’s forgotten.”

The front door began to creak open, and Liam’s heavy steps thudded on the tile. I reached around Cassie to grab my paper plate behind her and took a large bite of my pizza as I strolled to the other side of the kitchen. I leaned against the counter next to the sink, chewing slowly.

Liam spoke in an upbeat tone, “Cas! How’d you get that bench up? I texted you, but you must not have gotten it…you got company or wha—” He froze at the sight of us, eyebrows raised into his blonde fringe. “Oh…I, uh, thought I knew that car out front.” His dark eyes were speculative as he asked me lightheartedly, “What are you doin’ here?”

Pulling Cassie onto my lap.

Sucking on her lower lip.

Licking the pulse point on her neck.

I covered my mouth as I finished chewing and swallowed my food. “Bench.”

“Aw, Cas.” He redirected his attention to his sister, and I bent down to open the cabinet beneath the sink, throwing away my plate along with the remainder of my pizza in the small trash can there. Liam told her, “I could’ve helped—that’s why I stopped by after class. I was gonna see where you wanted it, I,” he paused, glancing at me. “Thanks, man.”

“It’s all good; I was paid in pizza.”

And the taste of your little sister’s tongue that she requested to be redacted from my memory.

Liam smiled in the same lopsided way that Cassie occasionally does. “How hard was it to hang?”

An anxious lump formed in my throat, and I shrugged, lying, “Quick work. You just caught me on my way out, actually.” Without looking her way, I threw Cassie a casual wave. “Later, Cas.”

I felt her eyes boring into my back as I headed for the door, Liam gave me an appreciative quick pat on the shoulder as I sidled past him that carried an all-too-heavy guilty weight, and I was gone.

Chapter 8

The night just…passed. I drove home in silence. I went straight to bed. I dozed off in a state of teenage-like angst, but the dreams that I sank into stripped me of the feeling completely. The blur of darkness had the occasional glimpse of light, but it still pulled me into the gloom as I slept. Images played before me like an old Hollywood reel, one short clip following the next:

Zoey, shaking from sheer shock, cradled in Liam’s lap as he sat on the grass, mere feet away from a corpse with a mangled skull.

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