Page 66 of Always Knew It Was You

“You don’t.” Nate was considered good-looking before all this happened, but he seems to have aged several years in just a few months. He’s painfully thin now, pale skin a stark contrast to his overgrown dark hair. His eyes have bags underneath them and collarbones jut out of his skin. He looks like he hasn’t slept or eaten much.

Emotion washes through me. It hurts me to see him like this. For all his faults, Nate has always been the only one in our family who actively cared about me. He would babysit me sometimes, and when I was really hungry, I could call him and he would bring food over. I would later find out most of that food was stolen but still. I don’t even blame him for his pilfering ways. At least my parents bothered to feed us most of the time. His mother was usually high out of her mind and his dad was nowhere to be found.

He had to learn from a young age to take care of himself.

Which is why he’s now twenty years old and being held on trial for theft, accessory to kidnapping, and accessory to murder.

“So how have you been?” he asks, trying to look laidback as always. He even attempts a smile as though that would help with the gauntness.

I sigh, steeling my heart. “Why did you call me here, Nate?”

“You’re still mad at me.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course, I’m still mad at you. And more than that, I’m disappointed. I thought… you promised me you wouldn’t do that stuff again. And like an idiot, I believed you.”

To his credit, my cousin looked chagrined.

Once, when I was fifteen, Nate made me lie to the cops on his behalf. I swore to the police that he was with me while he’d been out carjacking, and I lied because he promised me he would never do anything like that again. I cried after, feeling so guilty, and made Nate swear to me that he would go on the straight and narrow from then on.

And for a while, I thought he was keeping to the promise. I defended him to anyone who talked badly about him and told them that he had changed.

Only to once again be made the fool.

“Nate, I’m not having a great day, so just tell me what you want to talk to me about. You said I might be in danger?”

“Yeah, yeah.” His hands fiddled on the table. “But I don’t think you are.”

“What?”

“I don’t know I...” His eyes shift around the whole room before they come back to me again. “Have you noticed anyone watching you? Received any strange calls?”

‘What are you talking about, Nate?”

“If not, then it’s fine,” he says. “Just forget about it. You shouldn’t know. But if you see anyone, especially an old man with a burn scar on his face and neck, then go to the police. No, not the police that’s too dangerous... Declan–”

“Are you messing with me right now?” I say. “Because that’s not even remotely funny.”

He smiles. “I missed you, Carls.”

The nickname and the affectionate gaze are like a punch in the gut.

I can’t do this. Unshed tears push at the back of my eyes.

I hate seeing him like this. I hate that this is how his story ends. That I couldn’t somehow prevent this from happening.

And I hate that I feel that deep down, he’s still the kind Nate I’ve always known.

I have to go before I break down again. The chairs scrape against the floor as I push back and get to my feet.

“Goodbye, Nate,” I croak and hightail it out of there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MICAH

She blocked me.

I stare down at my green text, which was marked as neither sent nor delivered, and laugh in disbelief.

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