Page 98 of Cup of Lies

LuLu is going to drown, though. I can’t worry about them right now. I start tugging her back to the surface, keenly aware she’s no longer struggling. I’m unable to get her to the surface, but then suddenly, she’s jerked out of the water, chair and all.

I, however, am dragged back under, an iron grip on my ankle.

Screaming and losing what little air in my lungs I have left, I turn to face my attacker. Theo floats beside me, blood curling out of a wound in his abdomen. Orion, having lost his gun, grabs my throat.

My struggle is only for a second because I’m out of air and everything is turning black.

Another shot cracks underwater, and I open my eyes one last time. Orion stares at me with a wide, unfocused stare as blood oozes out of his temple. Someone jerks me from behind.

I wake on the side of the pool, someone pumping my chest. Water gushes out of my throat and I’m turned on my side. Then I’m dragged into Caius’s familiar arms.

“Thank God you’re still alive,” he hisses, voice hoarse. “Fuck, love, you scared the shit out of me.”

“LuLu,” I whimper.

“DeLuLu’s gonna be fine,” Nees calls out.

“Theo?”

Caius starts to sob.

No.

Caius

Ican’t stop shivering.

Or panicking.

Or fucking crying.

Romy tries again to cover my shoulders with a blanket. The hospital is cold. Why do they keep it so damn cold?

“You have to either change or let me warm you up,” she says, voice firm. “Let me put this around you.”

Defeated, I let her care for me. I’m not sure how long we’ve been sitting in the waiting room, but it feels like an eternity. But my clothes are damp, not dry, which means it can’t have been too long.

He’s dead.

I can’t believe my father is dead.

Worse, I killed him. I didn’t want to, but he made me. When I found him with his hands around Romy’s throat, submerged in the bloody water, I lost it. The gun he stole from me was at the bottom of the pool, and there was a bullet with his name on it.

“Why won’t they give us an update?” I croak out. “That’s bad. That means it’s bad.”

“Shhh,” she whispers, hugging me to her. “That’s not true. If it were bad, we’d have news already. It’s taking so long because they’re trying to save him.”

I think about Theo when he was just a goofy preteen. That kid adored me. He always wanted to do what I wanted to do. I’m pretty sure I was the brother he always wanted.

Then somewhere along the way, everything got all fucked up.

He chose Dad’s side, kissed Romy, and tricked us into our forced separation. I want to hate him for those things. And yet I keep seeing those innocent green eyes asking if I can play another game of dominoes with him or watch an action movie together.

He hurt me and I gave up on him.

My chest aches and I rub at it through my damp shirt. “He tried to make things right. I never let him. I was never going to forgive him.”

“I know,” Romy whispers. “I know.”

---