Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

Chapter 24

Christopher

Something’s wrong. That’s all that goes through

my head as I look at my phone one last time to make sure that she did put the phone down on me.

“Well? What did she say?” Leo stops and looks at me from where he’s sat at his desk. “There has to be something more than what they said last night. It doesn’t make sense for her to go after Tomasz without us.”

“She put the fucking phone down on me.”

“They’re all hiding something. There’s a key point we’re missing because she wasn’t in any fit condition to be making decisions when…” He swallows, eyes drifting back down to his desk. It takes him longer than usual to carry on, and in spite of the war going on inside my head with my logic and feelings and all the other shit, my heart hurts for him and for her.

Taking a deep breath, he carries on with gravel coating his voice. “When I saw her at the hospital, she was not in any condition to be making decisions. She was hurting and breaking. I know Arabella and she wouldn’t walk away unless she was forced, not when she was that vulnerable.”

“That was before all this happened. We’ve all changed, Leo. This shit…it’s corrupted all of us. We’re not the same people—you said so yourself.”

“Not corrupted, Christopher. We’ve evolved. Bigger, badder, and better, remember?”

Monsters are monsters. There’s no pedigree between fiends. You are what you are. You accept it and survive, or you deny it and let it choke you to the bitter end.

Good, evil, or anything else in between— “A monster is a monster.”

“So what?” His shrug is genuine in its indifference. “Who the fuck cares?”

Not me. Not him. Not a single one of us.

Looking at my phone one more time, changing the conversation, I murmur, “She put the fucking phone down on me.”

It works.

Leo’s trying not to laugh; I can tell by the way he’s pressing his lips together, looking back down at the desk with shaking shoulders.

“It’s not funny.”

“I thought you said you made good?”

“We did.” I look at my phone one more time and then redial her number. “She won’t let me look at her. Not properly. She’s hiding from me…in front of me. Before my very eyes, she won’t let me see her.”

The line rings once, twice…three times before it goes to voicemail. The entire time the voice in my head keeps telling me something isn’t right.

“You need to own that shit.”

“Own that shit?”

“Yeah. If you treat her like she’s breakable, you’re making her weak. Cassie taught me that. After the attack…” Pausing, he takes another deep breath. It doesn’t matter how much we try to move away from it, that night refuses to slink into the shadows of history. “I did all the things I swore I’d never do. I treated her with kid gloves when she needed more from me. I regret that. I regret making her weak when she is anything but. Don’t do that—in the end you’ll despise yourself.”

I try Arabella’s phone one more time. It rings and rings until it goes to voicemail.

“Something’s off.”

His face morphs into a stony grimace that says he’s getting down to business.

“Yeah, you think?” he spits dryly. “That guy last night…he wasn’t one of the Russians. His English was too good. He was too open.”

“Open? Motherfucker said fuck all.” I have the busted knuckles to prove it.

“No.” Standing, he rounds his desk before he sits on the edge of it with one of those looks on his face that tells me he’s got too much going on in his head. “I mean, he wasn’t worried or scared about being seen. He walked into Whitehall with a gun and went for you. Don’t you find it odd?”