Page 5 of Lovely Deceit

Will you help her?

She doesn’t know…

“Get in line,” I grind out. That motherfucker. Stupid, hot…jackass. The scolding I’m giving myself internally is epic, but all it does is make my brain hurt more. “Oliver. Hotel. Now.”

“Eden, I’m not stopping—”

Sitting up, I fish for the door handle behind me. Outside, the morning sun has started peeking through the passing tree branches, allowing slashes of sunshine to filter through. We’re on a two-lane highway, the solid white line on the road laughing at me. We’re not supposed to stop. We’re not supposed to jump out of a moving car, but I’m so damn close.

The catch on the handle releases, and the door swings open. “Jesus. Eden!”

I lean over the roadway…

“Are you fucking mad?”

The seatbelt catches, and good thing, too, because I’m thrown forward in the next instant, the car’s brakes squealing in protest.

Peering over my shoulder, I find Oliver white-knuckling the steering wheel, breaths coming fast and furious, hollowing out his chest in deep spurts. A shudder runs through him. “Just what I needed—your life to flash before my eyes twice within twenty-four hours.”

I blow out my own breath, grab the door, and slam it closed. The only sound inside the car is our uncontrolled breathing. I admit, trying to force my way outside the car was a bad idea, but I’m sick of everyone making decisions for me. Taking me hostage, kidnapping me… I’ve had far too many of those experiences within the last few weeks. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I just want to go someplace and think.”

“There’s nothing to think about.”

A car passes us, the guy in the front seat glaring at our stopped car.

“There is so much to think about,” I tell him, my voice catching. There’s so much that I can’t even voice it all. Leo’s betrayal… If that’s what it even was. The only thing he ever promised was to be an asshole, and he definitely accomplished that and more.

Alaric…

The Knights…

My dad…

Oliver sighs. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I liked it better when you were passed out.”

He starts the car forward again, and I settle back into the front seat, staring at an overpass we’re moving under. “Me too.” Then I could just pretend that none of this ever happened. Not Dee. Not me pledging the Knights. None of it.

Oliver takes the next exit, but he’s driving the car much slower now. Hesitant. I’ll make this right with him but running away from problems never helps. I should know. I spent most of my life doing just that—even when I ran away to college in California. All that did was drive home the fact that I let Dee take care of everything.

Not anymore. It’s my turn.

Oliver takes a right, but when I peer up, I don’t spot the name of a hotel chain. Instead, I see a sign that reads Urgent Care. “What are we doing?”

“You’re getting your ankle checked out.”

Glancing down, I move the blanket to see what the damage is. My mouth drops. My ankle is four times the size it should be, highlighted by dark cherry and purple bruising.

Oliver frowns, hesitating as if he’s going to turn right back around and hightail it out of there just to get me as far away from the Knights as possible, but the injury must win him over. He opens his door, moves around the front of the car while pocketing the keys, and opens my own. “I’ll carry you.”

He scoops me out of the front seat strategically, avoiding touching my foot at all costs. When he pulls me to my feet, I spot the same foreign dress from last night, and I shudder at the memory of the skirt swallowing me up as I hung upside down in that boat house.

Alaric told me once that the Knights were nothing if not dramatic, and he was right. The question I need to ask Oliver burns on the tip of my tongue, but I store it away. One problem at a time, starting with the ankle. It definitely needs looking into.

Luckily, we get an urgent care office with access to x-rays and medical staff who either don’t know who Oliver is or don’t mention it. Then again, it would be difficult to match the royal bad boy to the man carrying the broken girl into an examination room right now.

We avoid the insurance process, Oliver saying he’ll pay by card instead. I have no idea where anything is—my wallet, my phone, my keys. Are they still in my father’s office? Is he wondering what happened to me and where I am?

Or does he know?

---