Erasing Faith by Julie Johnson
This one’s for
4 A.M.
For keeping all my secrets.
“Just gonna stand there and watch me burn…
Well, that's all right because I like the way it hurts.
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry…
Well, that's all right because I love the way you lie.”
Skylar Grey
Prologue
Faith
“I have to get back to my life. People will be looking for me in New York.”
Shit. I hadn’t meant to tell him where I was living.
Tension saturated the room, denser than morning fog. “Who?”
My back went ramrod straight as I listened to his footsteps crossing the room back toward me.
“Who’s waiting for you, Faith?” His tone was deceptively soft, but I could hear the strain beneath his words. “A boyfriend? A husband?”
I didn’t answer, but my hands curled into fists by my sides. He had no right to know the answer to those questions — not anymore.
“Is it the man who helped you disappear? The one who turned you into Fae Montgomery? Because whoever he is, he has connections. Even I couldn’t find you. And, believe me, I looked.”
My stomach clenched at that admission.
“Someone helped you vanish off the face of the f*cking earth, without a single trace. No mere name-change could’ve erased you so thoroughly.”
I bit my lip to keep from answering as Conor’s face flashed in my mind.
“Someone taught you to shoot.” His words slithered around me like a snake, moving in for the kill strike. I tried to ignore him, but the closer he moved toward me, the harder it was to remain unaffected. “Someone helped you change into this… new person.”
I spun around so fast, I nearly knocked noses with him. He edged back until our faces were a few centimeters apart, and I glared into his eyes, suddenly furious.
“You want to know who changed me?” If looks could kill, he’d be down on the floor, bleeding out. “You. You changed me.”
His jaw clenched.
“You broke me, Wes—whatever-your-real-f*cking-name-is-Adams. You ripped my life to shreds and walked away.” I shoved his shoulders with both hands and screamed a little when he barely even rocked back. “You don’t get to know about my life after you wrecked it. And you certainly don’t get to judge me for how I chose to put myself back together after you shattered me.”
I shoved him again, fighting the tears that were suddenly threatening to pour, and continued to berate him.
“If you don’t like the girl you see in front of you, you have only yourself to blame. You feel like I’m a new person? Good. I don’t want to be that fool who believed your lies ever again.” Despite my efforts, I felt a tear slip out from beneath my lashes. When I shouted at him again, my voice cracked with emotion. “You don’t recognize the woman I’ve become? Perfect. Now you know what it feels like to look at someone you thought you understood, and realize you never knew them at all.”
“What do you want from me?” he growled, his dark eyes narrowed in anger. The careful restraint he always used was stripped from his voice. “Do you want me to pinky f*cking promise that I’m not going to hurt you again? Because I can’t. Grow up. This is the real world, Faith. I’m not accountable for your happiness — no one on this godforsaken planet is.”
“I don’t want anything from you!” I screamed, shoving him again.
My fists pounded against his arms, his shoulders, anywhere I could reach. I was crying full-out now — a sniffing, sniveling mess — and I couldn’t stop the tears streaming down my face any more than I could stop the words flowing from my mouth.
“You’re the devil.”
My vision was blurred, my voice clogged with grief as I struck him again and again with balled fists. He didn’t move, didn’t speak; he just stood there and let me hit him.
“You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
My voice broke on the last word and I felt something deep inside me break, too. Anger dissolved as quickly as it had materialized, replaced by sorrow so deep, shouldering it instantly fatigued me.
Strength sapped from my limbs, my blows subsided into feeble strikes against his chest. I thought I might collapse under the weight of my own broken heart.
“I hate you,” I whispered weakly, the heat of my anger gone. “I hate you so much.”
I’d never been a very good liar.
***
THREE YEARS EARLIER
***
PART ONE
BUDAPEST
Chapter One: WESTON
IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
There’s a monster in the dark, darling. Hiding under your bed, lurking in your closet.
Are you scared yet, little girl? You should be.
Monsters aren’t all tentacles and teeth. Sometimes, they’re far less obvious — wrapped up in charm and charisma, cloaked behind secrets and seduction. They don’t blunder through blackness, or slither soundlessly through shadows. They are the dark — it’s what they’re made of, it’s in their very essence.