Page 53 of Risky Passion

But I couldn’t. I was here for Alice. Again.

The Edwardian façade loomed like a decaying carcass, it made my stomach churn at the sight of it. No amount of time or distance could ever erase the memories of this place.

Somehow, I’d survived this hellhole. A miracle, really, considering how many kids didn’t. When the system spat me out on my eighteenth birthday, I could have left. Should have left. But I didn’t. While every other kid ran like hell the second they could, I stayed.

But I’d traded one prison sentence for another . . . from "child in care" to "underpaid housekeeper." The only difference was theythrew me five dollars a week to scrub the same floors, serve the same slop, and endure the same misery I’d been forced to handle since I was a baby. The day I turned eighteen changed nothing except the label they stuck on me.

I stayed because of Alice.

Sweet Alice.

She needed me, and I needed her. She’d been too fragile to fend for herself in a place like this. And as she was two years younger than me, she couldn’t leave until she was eighteen. So I cared for her, protected her, fought for her when no one else would. We had our secret . . . our sweet, hidden secret.

Back then, love like ours was dangerous. Illegal. Lesbians didn’t get to exist. They were punished, outlawed, flogged . . . murdered.

No one could know about us.

And no onedid.

Two cars were parked in front of the main building. One was a cop car, and it pissed me off that Cooper had driven his cruiser here, like he was on actual police business. The other car was a white Tesla, which I assumed belonged to one of the Foster triplets. Those bastard brothers had abandoned Alice’s body to chase after that bitch pilot, Tory.

They were going to die for that.

I parked my bike next to the cruiser and its engine cut out with a guttural cough. The sudden silence pressed against my ears like I was underwater. I tapped the screen on my phone to check for any missed calls from Eddie Walsh. Nothing.

Does that mean he hasn’t found Tory and Jaxson yet? Or that he has, and he’s failed to kill them?

I’m surrounded by complete fucking idiots.

My jaw ached from clenching as I swung my leg over the bike, ripped off my helmet and jacket, and let them both drop to the cracked ground. I wouldn’t need them or the bike again.

The crumbling entrance of the building seemed to greet me like an old enemy. In the silvery glow of the half-moon, the jagged edges of its stonework cast long shadows, and the shattered windows stared down at me like empty eye sockets. Long-dead ivy clung to the walls like veins,creeping over the cracks as if nature had tried to eradicate this wretched place, but evil had won out again.

I slid my phone into my pocket and tucked the Glock into my waistband, making sure my shirt fell loose enough to hide the telltale bulge of steel. Every step toward the building felt like I was dragging myself through quicksand.

I forced myself up the stone steps to the entrance, where the doors had been ripped away, leaving only splintered frames. Above the doorway, the angel statue still clung to the archway, except its head was missing.

Alice and I laughed ourselves stupid after hacking that thing off. A reckless act that could have earned us a flogging that would turn us black and blue, but we'd pulled it off anyway. She'd balanced on my shoulders, sawing through stone with the gardener's dull hacksaw while I steadied her and watched for the guard. Not that we needed to worry. He was always too busy screwing either the nurse or the deputy principal.

I never did figure out if those women knew about each other.

After we’d chopped off the head and buried it behind the dormitory, Alice had clung to me and both of us had shaken with laughter until tears streaked our faces. For one perfect moment, we'd felt invincible. Two kids raging quietly against a world that had stolen everything from us, except each other.

I stepped over the threshold with her laugh ringing faintly in my mind, a rare, precious sound in this wretched place. But the stench of dust and old stone smothered the memory.

My boots echoed through narrow halls lined with cracked tiles. The checkerboard floor that I used to scrub until it was pristine white and black had yellowed to jaundiced patches, and in some sections, entire rows were missing, showing the stained concrete beneath like rotted teeth.

At the back of the building, I entered the massive food hall. The long tables were still there, warped and splintered with time. A few were overturned, legs jutting upward like broken limbs.

Six o’clock every morning, we had to be dressed and seated at these tables. Boys on one side of the hall, girls on the other. Silent. Obedient. Forced to choke down whatever slop they dumped on our plates.

I could still see Alice trembling as she clutched a glass of milk in her tiny hands, trying to steady it. We didn’t know it back then, but she was allergic to dairy. I’d tried to drink those milks for her each morning, until the bastards caught on.

After that, they made her drink it. Forced her.

Her face would go ghostly pale, her tiny body convulsing as she tried to hold the milk in, terrified of the punishment that would come if she didn’t.

I pushed through the hall and out the rear door. The evening air hit me like a balm, cleansing my mind of the horrible images as I trudged through knee-high weeds toward the angel fountain Alice had loved so much.

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