The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(65)

Grayson told me that it was her heart.

I flipped the shower on as hot as it would go and stepped in, turning my chest from the stream and letting the hot water beat against my back. It hurt, but all I wanted was to scrub this entire night off me. What had happened in the Black Wood. What had happened with Jameson. All of it.

I broke down. Crying in the shower didn’t count.

After a minute or two, I got ahold of myself and turned the water off, just in time to hear my phone ringing. Wet and dripping, I lunged for it.

“Hello?”

“You had better not be lying about the assassination attempt. Or the making out.”

My body sagged in relief. “Max.”

She must have heard in my tone that I wasn’t lying. “What the elf, Avery? What the everlasting mothing-foxing elf is going on there?”

I told her—all of it, every detail, every moment, everything I’d been trying not to feel.

“You have to get out of there.” For once, Max was deadly serious.

“What?” I said. I shivered and finally managed to grab a towel.

“Someone tried to kill you,” Max said with exaggerated patience, “so you need to get out of Murderland. Like, now.”

“I can’t leave,” I said. “I have to live here for a year, or I lose everything.”

“So your life goes back to the way it was a week ago. Is that so bad?”

“Yes,” I said incredulously. “I was living in my car, Max, with no guarantee of a future.”

“Key word: living.”

I pulled the towel tighter around me. “Are you saying you would give up billions?”

“Well, my other suggestion involves preemptively whacking the entire Hawthorne family, and I was afraid you’d take that as a euphemism.”

“Max!”

“Hey, I’m not the one who made out with Jameson Hawthorne.”

I wanted to explain to her exactly how I’d let that happen, but all that came out of my mouth was “Where were you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I called you, right after it happened, before the thing with Jameson. I needed you, Max.”

There was a long, pregnant silence on the other end of the phone line. “I’m doing just fine,” she said. “Everything here is just peachy. Thanks for asking.”

“Asking about what?”

“Exactly.” Max lowered her voice. “Did you even notice that I’m not calling from my phone? This is my brother’s. I’m on lockdown. Total lockdown—because of you.”

I’d known the last time we’d talked that something wasn’t right. “What do you mean, because of me?”

“Do you really want to know?”

What kind of question was that? “Of course I do.”

“Because you haven’t asked about me at all since any of this happened.” She blew out a long breath. “Let’s be honest, Ave, you barely asked about me before.”

My stomach tightened. “That’s not true.”

“Your mom died, and you needed me. And with everything with Libby and that bob-forsaken shipstain, you really needed me. And then you inherited billions and billions of dollars, so of course, you needed me! And I was happy to be there, Avery, but do you even know my boyfriend’s name?”

I racked my mind, trying to remember. “Jared?”

“Wrong,” Max said after a moment. “The correct answer is that I don’t have a boyfriend anymore, because I caught Jaxon on my phone, trying to send himself screenshots of your texts to me. A reporter offered to pay him for them.” Her pause was painful this time. “Do you want to know how much?”

My heart sank. “I’m so sorry, Max.”

“Me too,” Max said bitterly. “But I’m especially sorry that I ever let him take pictures of me. Personal pictures. Because when I broke up with him, he sent those pictures to my parents.” Max was like me. She only cried in the shower. But her voice was hitching now. “I’m not even allowed to date, Avery. How well do you think that went down?”

I couldn’t even imagine. “What do you need?” I asked her.

“I need my life back.” She went quiet, just for a minute. “You know what the worst part is? I can’t even be mad at you, because someone tried to shoot you.” Her voice got very soft. “And you need me.”

That hurt, because it was true. I needed her. I’d always needed her more than she had needed me, because she was my friend, singular, and I was one of many for her. “I’m sorry, Max.”

She made a dismissive sound. “Yeah, well, the next time someone tries to shoot you, you’re going to have buy me something really nice to make it up to me. Like Australia.”

“You want me to buy you a trip to Australia?” I asked, thinking that could probably be arranged.

“No.” Her reply was pert. “I want you to buy me Australia. You can afford it.”

I snorted. “I don’t think it’s for sale.”

“Then I guess that you have no choice but to avoid getting shot at.”

“I’ll be careful,” I promised. “Whoever tried to kill me isn’t going to get another chance.”

“Good.” Max was quiet for a few seconds. “Ave, I have to go. And I don’t know when I’m going to be able to borrow another phone. Or get online. Or anything.”