My heart dropped. I knew there was a chance of that, but I figured they’d do something else to explain my death. For them to use me for their benefit had disgust churning in my stomach. Pushing past my hesitation, I asked the one question that could give me a chance.
“Is Niko coming?”
The second the words left my mouth, I could see it was a mistake. His jaw tightened as his eyes darkened in anger. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. He looked the same as the night he had found me all those months ago. Cold and cruel.
“Let’s talk about my brother,” he hummed out with his hand still wrapped around my leg.
“Talk about what? He’s part of your society. I figured he’d be right at your side the whole time.” I didn’t let my disappointment show. Niko was my small hope of getting out of here alive.
“How did you get my brother to turn his back on us?” he asked as his rage climbed.
“What?” I asked, playing dumb.
“I know your little secret, Sage. You were sleeping with him. I came home that night instead of leaving for the weekend and saw you in his bed.”
All the words I had been prepared to say disappeared from my head. Panic for Niko tore through me while a small amount of relief trickled in too. He hadn’t chosen them. If Alex had found out, that meant there was a reason Niko hadn’t been able to contact me.
“You acted like you wanted to marry me,” I mumbled, too scared to ask about what happened to Niko.
“And we were going to get married. For a year. Then next year, you were going to be the sacrifice. Turns out, we’re just doing it a year early.”
I gaped at him. “You were going to stay with me a whole year?”
“Believe me, it wouldn’t have been a nice year for you,” he growled. “It would have made the last six months with me seem like a cakewalk.”
I sucked in a breath, trying to control the sheer terror taking over my body. I didn’t want to die by their hands. For their fucked-up ritual that my sister and mom had died for.
“You had this plan since you found me?” I wondered if all my lies and acting with him had been for nothing.
“No,” he answered sharply. “I was really trying to make a life with you. To be happy. But after I saw you and Niko, it wasn’t going to happen.”
“You can forgive me stabbing you, but not for what I did with Niko,” I said, my voice full of contempt. There wasn’t any reason to care what I said to him now. “Are you mad that your brother can fuck better than you?”
Without warning, he reached over and grabbed my hair, yanking until I was inches from his face. My head was still sore from when Eric had dragged me into the house, and I let out a shriek. My cuffed wrists were screaming in pain as I tried to struggle out of his grasp.
“You should have been grateful to me. I took you in. I spoke up in front of the group. For you. To keep you alive. And you repaid me by sleeping with my brother and drugging me so you could leave,” he spat out, his eyes crazy with fury.
“Alex—”
“Did Niko help you run?”
“No,” I cried out as I tried to think through the searing pain from his grip.
“Did he help you run?”
“No. He had no idea. Why the hell do you think I drugged him too?” I screamed.
“You’re lying,” he hissed.
“No, I’m not. Please,” I begged him, my head throbbing.
He loosened his grip slightly but still held on to my hair as he studied my face. I glared back. He could do whatever he wanted; I wasn’t going to give up Niko.
“He was part of Lacey’s ceremony. I thought you’d jump at a chance to get him in trouble.”
“Is that what you want me to say? That he helped me, even when he didn’t? I did everything behind his back. I got the pills when I told him I was grabbing tampons. I went through your phone when you both were sleeping. I never got a chance to run when I was with him.”
Alex finally let go, and I ripped my head away from him. Leaning back, I slowed my breathing, trying to calm down. I met his gaze again, not recognizing who was in front of me. The man I knew was gone and had been replaced with a cold, cruel monster.
“Doesn’t really matter anyway. They know what he did with you. And Niko outed how much he cared about you when he refused to help find you. I wanted to see what you’d say,” he said as he finally moved off the bed and stood up. “You’ve truly learned how to lie. I don’t believe anything that comes out of your mouth anymore.”
“I wish I’d never met you,” I screamed at him. “And that’s a fucking truth. I hate you.”
“One of you would have been sacrificed, even if we’d never met, Sage,” he murmured as he stood up from the bed.
I looked away from him and stared at the wall. There wasn’t anything else I wanted to say to him.
He sighed. “Enjoy these last few hours. When the sun goes down, it’ll be time to start.”
“I’d enjoy it a lot more if I wasn’t handcuffed.”
“After everything you did at the other house and this past year, that’s not happening. Sorry.” He sounded anything but sorry.
He moved toward the door before stopping. He faced me, and I stiffened, wondering what he was about to say.
“What happened with Geo?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Exactly what I said happened. He attacked me. Almost killed me, then changed his mind.”
I didn’t care if he knew what I really did. I wasn’t protecting myself. I was lying to keep Niko out of it. If they knew Niko had covered up Geo’s death, that would be even worse than what he’d done to help me.
“We’ll find him,” Alex said quietly. “Whether he’s alive or not.”
I shrugged. “Good luck.”
He stared at me for another few moments, as if he wanted to say something more. He shook his head and left the room, shutting the door behind him. Only then did I allow the tears to fall. I took shallow breaths, trying to cover up my sobbing. I didn’t want them to hear. The shadows from the bars on the window covered the grimy wood floor. The sun was already starting to lower in the sky, and my entire body began to tremble. I had put on a brave face in front of Alex, but I didn’t want to die. Especially not at the hands of him and the society.
A sob caught in my throat as I thought of my dad. This would break him. I was all he had, and he was about to lose that too. Kiara wasn’t going to understand why I went alone. But tomorrow, she would get that email and find the evidence. Alex still had no idea I’d driven Lacey’s truck up here. Even if they realized the book was missing, they wouldn’t know where to look. Until it was too late. A slice of peace calmed me. Kiara would do what needed to be done. It would happen even if I wasn’t here to see it.
My thoughts drifted to Niko as I stared at the slowly darkening sky. He’d chosen me over his society. His entire life had been for them, and he’d turned his back on it to help me. Not Alex, who I had shared my life with for over three years. Niko found it in himself to realize that the way he had grown up was wrong. I regretted not saying goodbye to him now. My heart stuttered when I let myself admit what I already knew.
I was in love with him. In a different life, I could have been happy with him.
But it was too late for that.
* * *