Page 168 of King Luna

“I know what you believe, but you’re fuckingwrong!”My shout echoes throughout the den. “After all this, all you still care about is that I wouldn’t keep fucking you? Get over yourself! My body is all that will ever be mine, and you scarred it in every way you could, even taking my family from me! I just wanted to love you!”

Steven scoffs.

But I scoff louder. “I wasn’t done.”

Steven freezes. Noah shuffles in the corner, his breath heightening with mine.

“If you couldn’t have me, then no one could, is that right?” I cough, my voice scraping in disgust at the reality of his actions. “Even before breaking in, you shot my dad to get back at me for pulling away from you, didn’t you, Mason?”

If I thought Steven’s eyes were cold, Mason’s ice over. Gritting his teeth, he drops his head. “That wasn’t the plan.”

Horror races through my veins. He didn’t deny it.

“You sick fucker,” Noah hisses.

But does this mean it really was an accident, or was Mason aiming for Ritchie and he hit the wrong target? And who else shot our dads alongside him?

Mason’s eyes sink into his skull, gaping up at us like a skeleton. All I see staring back is honest, soul-destroying guilt.

Worst of all, I know that guilt isn’t for what he did to us. It’s for how he’s destroyed his own life, unable to fathom how he’s let himself down so severely by finally getting caught.

My head spins. “Oh, my God, Steven. You did do it.”

“No, I wasn’t lying to you on the phone!” Mason sputters. “It wasn’t my fault! Jack planned it all out, and your dad wasn’t supposed to be there. I don’t know what happened, I— The rifle went off on its own.”

Shaking my head, I clasp my hand around my mouth, my heartbeat pounding in my skull.

“On itsown?” Noah grits his teeth.

As my blood burns, Mason’s eyes haven’t left mine. I never want to see his twisted face again, yet I can’t stop gaping at him, unable to fathom how I let this monster into my home to help me grieve over the crime he committed.

Mason blubbers on the ground at my feet. “Aliya, I didn’t— Takahiro wasn’t supposed to be there. I knew he was busy, otherwise I would’ve persuaded Jack to pick another time.”

I back away from him, but the second his words register, my eyebrows arch, sorrow striking me in the gut.

“Because I had to skip lunch,” I whisper.

Noah lets out a strangled cry, grasping me as I reel. “Goddess, Aliya... Fuck.”

Meeting Noah’s eyes, I see the same pain reflected. That’s right; Ritchie took over Noah’s perimeter run shift too. But instead of dissolving back into his old guilt pattern, Noah straightens at my side, staring Mason down.

“So it’s his fault? Aliya’s fault? My fault?” Noah’s voice scrapes out, gutting me further.

“No,” Mason croaks. “It’s— It’s Jack’s. It was just supposed to be Ritchie. When the rifle went off, Takahiro came for us, Jack had no choice but to save our lives, and—”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I grip Noah tight as our souls twist in agony at the thought.

“What the fuck? What the fuck,” Noah rasps beneath his breath, gripping his hair.

But as horror shifts into numbness at the sight of the sniveling, fake man beneath me, I can barely mutter out my words. “So even now, it’s everyone else’s fault, huh?”

Mason’s eyebrows furrow. “You’re not listening! I swear, Aliya, I didn’t—”

Noah’s voice deepens into a snarl. “Youbothfucking killed them. Who the fuck cares if the job was accidentally done too early? Do you think that really fucking changes anything? I don’t even care if it turns out you weren’t even holding the gun; you planned it, and that’s that.”

At first, there’s silence, the terrible reality behind Noah’s words echoing through my mind on repeat.

Then it clicks.

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