The Devouring Gray(52)
She stood on her tiptoes until her face was alongside his, and still he did not move, even when the tip of her upturned nose brushed the side of his ear.
Mere moments ago, being this close to him would’ve left her dizzy. But now her shortness of breath was born of rage, not lust.
“It never stops hurting,” Harper whispered. “And you know what? You deserve it.”
Then she turned, pushed the branches aside, and walked back into the forest.
She tried to go back to the Saunders manor first, but the deputies were still swarming outside with no sign of a letup. So she texted Violet an apology and walked back to the Carlisle cottage, her fury growing with every step.
The Hawthornes had condemned her and forgiven him, because it was convenient for the town to believe that Justin was strong and she was weak.
And for that, they deserved to fall.
All her doubts were gone now.
In their place was the sharp, perfect certainty that she would have her revenge.
Violet didn’t come to school on Monday.
Justin texted her a few times, but she never responded. Saturday night was a half-blurred mess inside his head that had left him and most of the senior class battling vicious hangovers.
He remembered the crowd’s suppressed fury before he’d left the party.
He remembered Violet’s frantic texts to him and May.
And he remembered Harper.
Justin hadn’t realized how close he was to cracking. All it had taken was alcohol and the latent guilt his classmates had stirred up to send his secrets spilling from his lips.
He could still feel the brush of her lips on his ear, the rush of warmth that had shot through him right before her words left him gutted and defenseless, alone in the forest with nothing but his guilt.
He did not remember going home, but somehow, he’d woken up in his own bed, a headache the size of a galaxy spiraling through his skull.
For the first time in his life, Justin Hawthorne wished he remembered less.
He had been a fool on all counts. Blowing his second chance with Violet by being so drunk. Making Harper hate him even more by telling her the truth. He’d wanted her to know she wasn’t alone in her suffering. But Justin saw now that too much time had passed for him to heal things between them. All he had done was gouge open the scar of what they’d had before and let the wound fester.
May was furious with him, of course. But it was Isaac’s reaction that caught Justin off guard. His cold, disdainful anger was a palpable presence the day after the party, leaving Justin confused and hurt in equal measure. What was it to Isaac if Justin saw fit to tell the truth about his ritual?
He was determined to find Harper and properly, soberly apologize. But over the past few years, she had made herself invisible. She didn’t eat in the cafeteria or hang out in the courtyard at break times.
He had done this to her. Turned her cowed and small, a stranger in her own hometown.
He deserved her disdain, her disgust. He had walked away from her—she had earned the right to do the same to him.
But he couldn’t spend the rest of the day chewing on his guilt.
So when classes let out, instead of heading to the locker room for track practice, he walked through the parking lot, avoiding the parking spot where May was fiddling with the keys to their shared truck.
Isaac caught up to him as he hit the main road, scratching absently at the dark stubble on his chin.
“You’re going to see Violet,” Isaac said as they turned onto the well-worn footpath beside the gravel.
“I am,” said Justin, steeling himself for an argument. They’d learned earlier that morning that Daria Saunders was dead. It was why Violet hadn’t come to school. Why she hadn’t been answering his texts. She had reached out to Justin in her hour of need, and although he’d tried to help her, he’d failed. He knew her silence meant she was angry with him. But he wanted to apologize in person. Wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to grieve alone. “How did you—”
“I’m coming with you.”
“What?”
There were three things in the world Isaac cared about: his books, Justin, and May, in that order. Justin couldn’t figure out how going with him to talk to Violet would benefit any of those things.
But then, there was a lot he couldn’t figure out about Isaac lately. At least his anger at Justin seemed less present than it had that morning, even if there was something overly emphatic about the way he was walking, steel-toed work boots stamping out deep prints in the dirt.
“All founder kids grow up with baggage.” The branches behind Isaac’s head were crooked, reaching toward them like broken limbs that had healed wrong. Justin couldn’t tell if it was an optical illusion, or if something had happened to this part of the forest. “Kind of hard not to when our ancestors gave us the lifetime gig of guarding a monster prison. But for some of us, there’s a level of loss you just haven’t experienced.”
Justin held back a retort. He didn’t want to get into a pissing contest with Isaac about which of them had been through worse.
Mostly because he knew he’d lose.
“And you’re saying Violet has experienced this, now that she’s lost her aunt?”
Isaac gave him a sharp look that seemed to suggest he was even less intelligent than he felt. “I did some googling. She had a sister. Rose Saunders, age eighteen, car accident, on her way back from prom-dress shopping. I saw her picture—they have the same glare.”