Page 7 of Lovely Deceit

“It’s okay. We’ll sleep. No big deal.” He trails his hand over my hair. “Do you want out of that dress? I got you some clothes.”

I nod slowly. At least I can take this awful dress off. A dress that’s not even mine, and I certainly didn’t get into willingly. My stomach clenches at the thought. I probably don’t even want to know how I got into it.

Oliver helps me into a seated position, then unzips the back. I pull the skirt out around my butt, and he lifts the fabric away, tossing it onto the bed. While he walks to the shopping bag, I unclasp my bra. My skin is covered in river grime and I’m still a little cold, but at least I’m not freezing anymore. The pain meds are probably taking care of that.

If only they could erase what happened, too.

I drop my bra down next to the dress, glancing at it briefly before I gasp. No.

Goosebumps buzz up my arms, making the hair on the crown of my head lift at the roots. It can’t be.

I grab the dress and pull it toward me, staring at the tag along the collar where a big D is scrawled across the laundering instructions.

This is my sister’s dress.

When we were kids, she got so sick of me stealing her clothes that she started putting a D on all of her tags. Even as we got older and we grew to have very different tastes, she never got out of the habit.

“No,” I fold forward, clasping the dress to me, an inhuman howl ripping from my throat.

Oliver twists. “What is it?” He runs to the side of the bed, but I can’t get the words out. I just sit there rocking, holding my sister’s dress to my bare skin.

They put me in Dee’s dress. They put me in Dee’s dress.

Pretty little dead girls.

No, no, no.

“Talk to me, love.”

I peer up at him, more tears welling at the corners. He’s fractured, but I can still see the horror on his face. “It’s Dee’s,” I tell him, holding the tag up.

He reaches for it, and peers from me to the dress. “You’re sure?”

“There,” I tell him, heart aching and pointing toward the scrawled letter. “She always did this so I wouldn’t steal her stuff.”

His jaw tenses. He just stares down at the dress blankly. Minutes seem to go by before he throws it off the foot of the bed. “Listen, Edie. We’re going to get away from them while we can. This is fucked up. You know it. It’s…it’s ludicrous,” he stumbles out eventually. “I don’t care what we have to do, but we’re not going back there. It’s exactly like Keegan warned us it would be.”

“That was my sister’s dress,” I say almost numbly, shaking my head. “I went through her things, and that was not one of the dresses she had at Jarvis Hall, Ollie.”

“They probably got it from your parents’ house,” he suggests, sitting on the bed. He dips his gaze to my chest, and then reaches for the plastic bag and pulls out a pair of long pajamas with bananas all over them. “I figured you’d like these.”

Not even these adorable pajamas can make this better. He tugs the tag off the shirt and hands it over. I pull it on, the never-ending soliloquy in my head on repeat. Why and how I was wearing Dee’s dress when—

That’s as far as I’ll let myself remember.

“Panties on or off?”

I snap my gaze back to Oliver.

A pinch forms between his brows. “I just didn’t know if you wanted to keep them on.”

I shake my head. “Off. You can throw them out for all I care.” I snap down on my jaw to keep my mind from spiraling, from wondering if some old Elder touched my panties. If they ogled my body. Or worse. My stomach rolls. They could’ve done anything. I’m sure if I’d gotten lab work done at the Urgent Care, they would’ve found traces of whatever drug they gave me to keep me sedated. So, yeah, I don’t want the damn panties.

“Lie back,” he instructs. I do so, and he systematically tugs my panties down and starts working my feet carefully through the banana bottoms. He has to stretch the fabric out over the boot, but it eventually goes.

Oliver gets up, and I hear them drop into the wastebasket. Good. I’ll never have to see them again.

“You hungry? I can get food delivered. Thirsty? I can do whatever you want.”

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