Page 94 of The Pawn

With a snarl, I slap Blake across the face so hard that I feel it ring in my teeth and smart in my bones. His head snaps back, but his feet don't move. Those cold brown eyes of his briefly widen in shock, and he stares down at me in naked surprise.

I'm done being careful. Done being quiet. The truth is a living thing, and it demands that I scream its name. Stepping back, I throw my head high, stare them all down, and let the fire out.

"My brother killed himself because of you."

Chapter 49

Once it starts, it doesn't stop. The truth will out. It's a destructive fire, demanding fuel for its flames, and I can't control it now that it's leapt past my lips and out into the storm-filled air.

These things never turn out well.

"He put a rope around his neck, climbed a tree, and hung himself from it!"

I yell the words into a silence that's more than shock. The storm clouds overhead have quieted their rage, as if in silent awe of the fury I'm unleashing, which dwarfs anything nature could produce.

"There was blood on his chin where he bit his tongue. Blood on the ground we laid him down on. I had to cut him down with my own hands!"

As if to show them, I throw my hands out, hysterical sobs leaving my body like poison from an open wound.Excise me,the anger demands, and I obey, tongue and lips turning breath to truth.

Let them have this load I've carried. Let them see what it feels like to bow beneath its weight.

"Silas didn't fuckingdrop outand go home. He didn't even make it to seventeen. He died! Heisn't even here anymore, but you just can't shut up about him, can you? Calling him out like what he did was worse than what you did to him."

I shove Blake back again. Then, because the anger is wild, I throw a poorly thought-out kick at Cole's shin, my bare foot smarting.

"You fucking killed him," I scream at their wide eyes, their teenage boy faces, their shocked mouths. "We were born together, and we should'vediedtogether."

I throw a punch at Tanner's chest, and he just takes it, hands wrapping around my fist as if to comfort me. But I bare my imperfect white trash teeth at him and rip my hand from his grip.

"It isn't fair." My voice is ragged. I'm so angry at the sky for clearing, at the storm for leaving me just as my tears are falling harder and faster than I can control. It seems cruel that they can see me cry. I feel absurdly naked and vulnerable even as I throw my hands, feet, and words at them. "It shouldn't have happened!"

Lukas says, "It shouldn't have. And I'm so sorry. But that's not our fault."

"We can't control what he did," Blake says, sounding indignant. "It's not like wewantedthat. That wasn't the plan."

"He was just supposed to go home." Cole sounds bewildered and confused. "I don't understand. Why would he..."

"I'm sorry, Brenna." Lukas tries to approach me, but I stumble back, shaking my head. "Clearly you're in pain."

It hurts to hear sympathy in his words. Telling them that Silas died shouldn't feel like this. The pain of seeing them look shocked, bewildered, and even grieving, just like me, doesn't match what I want to believe of them: that they went after Silas without a second thought. That they would celebrate discovering his death.

So I reel on them again, searching for a target to let the pain out on.

"You think it sucked foryouto be accused," I yell at Lukas, knowing I'm red in the face and not caring. "Silas didn't haveanyonehere. He was all alone—you made sure of that! And nothing I can do to you will ever bring him back."

My words hit me, because I've told a truth I didn't want to hear myself.

Silas isn't coming back.

He'll never be beside me again.

I don't get to tell him how proud I am of myself for actually getting better at schoolwork.

I'll never be able to share my secret, joyful hope: that I might actually graduate school—even this cursed, terrible, wolf-filled school—and go to a college somewhere.

He won't be by my side when I pursue my dreams.

He'll never get to see me fall in love. Get married. Have kids. Grow old.

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