But he also made me feel amazing. Desired and cherished, when we were in bed, talking until morning. Revealing our secrets and dreams. He made me feel protected when he so publicly claimed me at the masked ball. Made me feel like he gave a damn when he intervened during tryouts. He made me feel things I’ve never felt with anyone else in my entire life, not even Dylan.
I can’t say that I loved him. There was too much hate, I think, for us to ever really love each other, but I cared for him. I can admit that to myself now, and God how I wish I could tell him that face-to-face.
How I wish I could also tell him to go to hell.
The room is spinning around me again, and I can’t focus on anything but the agony vibrating through me. I fight to hold it together because I can’t break down now. Not in front of these assholes. This is what they want, after all. Me, broken and weak, so I’m more pliable to their probing questions and demands.
Saint would be furious with me if I let them bully me into submission. He would tell me that only he could break me apart and bend me to his will. Anyone else who tried to do the same would be playing with his toy, and he wasn’t one who liked to share. No matter how many times I told him I wasn’t an object he could own, he would just give me that smirk of his and claim me anyway.
Holding onto that thought, I take a deep breath and focus on the table until the room stands still once more. Raising my chin, I meet both officers’ gazes and hold them for several moments before I gather the last of my wits and manage to speak at last.
“Despite what you may believe, I didn’t start that fire. Nothing you say or do will make me confess to a crime I didn’t commit. Now, I want to call my guardian, or a lawyer. I’m not answering any more questions without one of them with me.”
“Ms. Ellis, I promise you, you are not in trouble,” Officer Fallon tries to assure me, but I can hear the resolve weakening in his tone. He’s as ready to give up this charade as I am.
“It sure fucking feels like I am,” I hiss, not giving a shit when their gazes narrow.
Good. They’re pissing me off. It’s only right that I get to piss them off as well.
“Ms. Ellis, please. There’s no need to turn volatile.” Officer Meyers looks particularly peeved that I’ve spoken so disrespectfully to them.
I lean back in my chair and arch my eyebrow, mirroring his cockiness from a few minutes ago. “I’m not being volatile; I’m just trying to cut through the bull. And there’s no need to ask me these questions if I’m not being accused of anything,” I say, enunciating each syllable and squaring my shoulders. “I’d like a phone now, please.”
“You are not doing yourself any favors, little girl,” Meyers growls, dropping all pretenses of civility. Not that he was trying awfully hard to show any to begin with.
I’m fine with it, though. I work better with raw and angry anyway. That’s the world I grew up in. The world that shaped me into the person I am today. The world that I was unwittingly dropped into when I received my letter to Angelview last summer.
“If you’re accusing me of something, just get it over with.” I lift my chin and give them a hard, unblinking stare while I clench my hands so that they don’t see the tremors. “But I’m not answering you until I speak to my guardian.”
“We’re not accusing you—” Officer Fallon begins.
“Then why the interrogation?” I cut him off sharply.
I can see frustration playing across both their faces, but Officer Fallon is way better at keeping himself in control. Officer Meyers? Not so much.
I’m determined to break him before he breaks me.
He slams his hands on the table. “If you don’t cut this shit out right now, we’re going to assume you are guilty of something. Cooperate or there will be consequences!”
It feels like I’m getting scolded by a frustrated dad at the end of his rope, and I can’t help poking at the nerves he’s exposing to me. I’ve found a weakness I can’t wait to exploit because that’s how they’ve made me feel.
Exploited.
Vulnerable.
Alone.
“Is this your first day?” I sneer. “You that excited to fuck up an innocent girl’s life? Don’t you have anything better to do, you over-paid mall cop?”
“That’s enough, Ms. Ellis.” Officer Fallon’s tone is firm but controlled. His experience is shining through in this moment because he’s way more in command of himself than his partner. I’m guessing years of putting up with entitled rich kid shit has made him the most patient man in the world. If I wasn’t so furious about them putting me in this position, I might have felt godawful about my behavior.
Since they won’t stop screwing with me, however, I’m not going to stop being a little shit to them.
I open my mouth, ready to demand that Carley or a lawyer be called—or even pulling a classic Jenn move by threatening a lawsuit because this interrogation has to be illegal in a million different ways—when a sudden commotion outside the door startles all three of us. It sounds like someone’s shouting, and maybe even throwing things. I can’t make out the voice, but there’s a familiarity to the angry rumble that makes my skin tingle.
“What the hell is going on now?” Officer Fallon grumbles, moving to the door to open it and peek outside.
Now that the door is cracked open, I can hear much better. The voice is getting louder. The words becoming clearer.
Recognition slams through me, and I lose my breath as my heart begins to race out of control.
It’s Saint’s voice. He’s alive.
Saint is alive.
And he sounds livid as he shouts, “Where. Is. She?”
3
Over the last several months, I’ve seen Saint Angelle angry. At me. At his own friends. At the fact that he was born with a diamond-encrusted spoon in his arrogant mouth.
And I’ve heard how he reacts when he’s pissed off.
But I don’t think I’ve ever heard him like this—with pure violence dangling off every syllable he churns out. He wasn’t even this furious after I pelted him in the back of the head with that stupid fucking apple and cemented my spot in prep school purgatory.
“Where is she?” he bellows again, and someone says something in a hushed whisper that earns them a snarled, “Get the fuck out of my way.”
I sit up straight in my chair, too stunned to call out to him or move in any way. That ends up being okay, though, because I don’t have to try and get his attention.
He finds me. Like a rotten Prince Charming.
Moments after his angry shouts bounce through the room, he’s barreling past a dumbfounded Officer Fallon and storming inside.
I gawk up at him, wondering for a moment if he’s a ghost rather than a real live person. Has he come back to haunt me? Is he refusing to leave me alone, even in the afterlife? My misery is his unfinished business.
I was so certain he was dead. Hell, I felt it deep in my gut. That’s how the officers made it seem, at least. Why would they ask me about threatening him if he was alive? I thought that was the whole point of all this.
What exactly is happening right now?
Saint’s stormy eyes lock on me, and I notice that his bronze skin is flushed, his gaze a touch crazed, the white t-shirt he was wearing earlier rumpled and dirty. Has he been worrying over me? My heart skips at the thought, but I order it to calm the fuck down. I tell myself it doesn’t matter if he was concerned. It’s great that he’s alive—a huge weight of fear and sadness from my shoulders—but he screwed me over, under, and in every other direction tonight.