Page 97 of Worse Than Wicked
“Is anyone else coming?” I ask, thinking about Colt, his smoky blue eyes, his smoky breath on my lips, the way he always slips through my fingers like smoke.
“Who else would come?” Baron asks, watching me.
“I don’t know,” Mabel says, pulling out her phone. “I can ask. I don’t know if Dolly puts the baby to bed or if the nanny does it.”
“Don’t bring him here,” I say, tossing myself on the couch and pulling out my phone. “I don’t want to see your family right now.”
“I’ll take you over,” Baron says, but he’s eyeing me. “Want me to drop you by Royal’s on the way?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t feel like seeing anyone right now.”
He frowns harder, standing there in a rare moment of indecision before he turns to go with Mabel. I can tell something’s up, but I don’t know what. Is that suspicion in his eyes? Or regret for what he’s about to do to me?
I shouldn’t let them leave together, cut me out again. This is their perfect opportunity to get rid of me, for Baron to come clean and tell her I committed a murder. They could go to the police. But I can’t bring myself to care.
I swallow a handful of Alice without bothering to hide it. I didn’t want to leave Faulkner, but now that I’m back, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be anywhere.
I don’t want to see Olive happy with Royal and Harper, and know I’m the reason her sister is gone.
I don’t want to see my sister, who is still normal, who still loves me when I don’t deserve it, don’t deserve her. Why should I get a sister when Olive doesn’t?
I don’t want to know that Colt is still with Lo, that they’re happy now that she’s finally out of Cedar Crest and able to be with him.
I just want to be left alone.
Mabel steps outside, but Baron lingers in the door, brow furrowed. “You shouldn’t take that many at once.”
“Fuck off,” I say, not looking up from my phone.
“Duke,” he says, glancing out at Mabel and then back. “I want to talk to you. When I get back, can we do that?”
“I’ll be high as fuck.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
I sigh. “You’ll do it whether or not I want to. Why even ask?”
“Because you’re my brother.”
When I shrug, he scowls, then shakes his head and walks out. I lay there for a while, letting Lady Alice creep over me. He said tomorrow, which means he’s not getting rid of me tonight, at least. I have one more night. One night to do whatever the fuck I want.
He also said “I.”
Iwant to talk to you. WhenIget back.
Baron never says “I.” It’s always “we.”
He’s too evolved for petty feelings like jealousy.
I’m the one who gets mired in feelings. Even Mabel gets jealous. Maybe that’s why she picked me. That’s what she said he can’t give her. I can feel things for her that he never will.
He can’t give her his heart because he doesn’t have one.
He says I am his heart.
What if that’s what she asks for, like the Evil Queen asking the Huntsman to bring her Snow White’s heart. It makes perfect sense. She will have asked Baron to bring her his own heart, and that is me. He’ll deliver me to her.
They’ll dump my body wherever it is that they put Mr. Harris, in some secret location where I’ll never be found. And who would report me missing?
