Page 187 of Hexed
“Is it because you love her?” I ask.
Now his head finally snaps up, and his gaze meets mine.
There’s that fire. Pity I’ll have to snuff it out.
The thought makes my chest ache, so I shove the words from my brain, centering myself so I can stay in the moment.
“Have you been working for Uncle T this whole time and just pretending to be my friend?” I continue my rapid-fire questions, but my voice cracks on the word “friend,” and I hate that I just showed him a vulnerability. I want to go back to the Venesa who felt nothing, who couldn’t shed a tear even if she prayed for one. It was easier that way.
“You don’t understand,” he says lowly.
“So why don’t you try to explain it to me?”
“I didn’t have a choice. When Aria came back…” He pauses and shakes his head. “Before she left, we were?—”
“Can you unchain me?” I interrupt. “It really is uncomfortable.”
He looks from my wrists to my locked-up ankles. “I don’t trust you won’t kill me.”
“I’m the only one who’s ever understood you, so don’t come at me with that condescending bullshit,” I spit back at him. “I was loyal to you for years. I’ve been nothing but your friend, and this is how you repay me?”
I jerk my limbs, making that god-awful clanking sound again. “I know you two had your thing in school. But God, Fisher. Is she really worth all this?”
“Did you know Aria was pregnant?” he blurts. “When she left town…she was pregnant with my fucking kid, Short Stack. She didn’t run away because she hated it here. She ran away to save our baby. Aria’s not the devil you make her out to be.”
I suck in a breath, trying to fit together new square pieces into round holes. “She’s lying.”
He shakes his head sadly. “We found out together, and she promised things would be different. She said she loved me, and I…”
A bit of understanding flows through me. “And you loved her.”
He lifts a shoulder, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets. “She’s the only one I ever have.”
Ouch.
“So you were only my friend to what…try to stay close to her?”
“No, nothing about our relationship was fake or forced.”
“Except at the end, apparently.”
Pain flashes across his face, and he swallows audibly. “It was a few days before Aria came back. You were…somewhere, doing something for your uncle, I’m guessing, since he showed up to the Lair knowing you wouldn’t be there. He took me aside, told me I needed to give him information.”
My mouth runs dry. “What kind of information?”
Fisher shrugs. “About you. What you were doing, whether he could trust you.”
I scoff. Was everybody backstabbing me this entire time, and I was just a blind fool?
Fisher takes a step forward. “I refused. I swear to God, I told him to get fucked.”
“Clearly,” I drawl.
“He pulled out pictures. Pictures of a kid, and I… She has this bright blond hair and freckles just like Aria’s. He said if I didn’t, then he’d kill her, and I…I may never get to know my daughter, but I’ll be damned if I live in a world where she doesn’t exist.”
Now it’s pity that fills my chest, and I relax my shoulders, trying to keep my arms still because the metal chains around my wrists chafe like a bitch. “He’s lying to you, Gup. They’re lying.”
“No,” he says vehemently. “I saw the pictures, Short Stack.”
