Total pages in book: 181
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 3
Levi
That night
I sit on a chair in the dining room and stare at the wall. The screaming all around me comes in like a dulled noise, in one ear and out the other. My fingers tingle, and I can’t feel even an inch of my skin. It’s like I’m not really here. Like I’m floating on that rock near the edge of oblivion where I lost my mind.
Mavis Rivera is gone.
She’s gone because I couldn’t …
I lower my head and close my eyes, blinking so hard I swear my eyes might permanently turn blind, but I don’t care. I wish I didn’t have to see the unraveling of our world.
The downfall of an entire family.
All caused by me.
“Levi, are you even listening to me?” my mother shouts.
“Lana, please, calm down,” Milo, one of her other lovers, says.
“No, I will not!” she replies. “Mavis is dead. How? Why? He won’t fucking answer any of our questions, and it’s been hours!”
“It doesn’t matter how or why. She’s gone,” Nathan, my mom’s third lover, replies.
“You act like it’s done and over,” Mom growls back.
This is one of those moments when I wished my mom wasn’t in a polycule. God, I hate it when they all band together.
“No one said that,” Nathan replies. “It’s just that there’s not much we can do at this point.”
“How about offer explanations to Penelope and Felix?” Lana says. “We owe them that much.”
“She doesn’t want an explanation,” my dad Kai says. “She wants revenge.”
My mom steps back. “You really think so?”
“You know that fucker. Felix was more than happy to chop off a finger even when you were only a suspect,” Nathan says, showing off his missing index finger. “All of this was just because of a missing diary, so I can’t possibly imagine what he’s planning to do now that his daughter is dead.”
I rub my forehead, trying to make sense of this. One moment, Mavis was here, and the next, everything turned to dust. All I can see in front of me are those haunting eyes, begging me to save her.
God. Why did this happen?
I turn around in my seat and bury my hands in my hair. “Fuck!”
“Levi, tell us what happened. Please,” Mom begs.
“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t,” I mutter.
“Couldn’t do what?” Dad asks.
Everyone’s looking at me now, aiming their arrows at my head like I’m the one who has all the answers, who can be their saving grace, but I will never be.
“She’s dead. And it’s my fault,” I say through gritted teeth.
“What?” Milo makes a face. “That can’t be true.”
Nathan steps forward and grabs me by the shoulders, forcing me to sit up straight. “Look at me. Did you kill her?”
My eyes widen. “What?”
I never thought of it that way, but now that he’s said it out loud … what if I did?
He shakes me. “Did you?!”
My dad pushes him away. “Leave him alone, Nathan. Can’t you see he’s struggling?”
“Levi, if you killed Mavis, I need to know. Now,” my mom says with such a stern voice that it nearly makes the house quake.
“Ask Apollo. He was there too.” Sunny, my half sister, leans against the door opening, offering a way out.
I take it. “He was. He pulled her out of the water.”
“Was he the one who killed her?” Dad asks.
I frown. “What? No.”
“If it’s a possibility, we need to know,” Nathan says.
“Why does it matter who did it?” I yell. “She’s dead. It’s not going to fucking bring her back!”
Everyone’s quietly staring at me as if they’re slowly realizing that I’m right. That this means the end.
The end of everything.
“They will want someone to blame,” Sunny says, folding her arms. “You know that, right?”
“Oh God.” Milo grabs his head with both hands. “This is going to end up in a big fight, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t kill her,” I mutter to myself.
“Did Apollo do it?” Nathan says.
“Apollo didn’t kill her either.” I gaze up at them all. “No one did.”
“Then how the fuck did she die?” Mom shouts.
“She fell,” I reiterate.
She sighs out loud and slaps her hand against her forehead. “This again.”
“It’s the truth,” I say. “Why won’t you believe me?”
“People don’t just fall off a cliff, Levi,” she says.
“We were supposed to make the jump together,” I explain.
“And then what?” my dad asks.
My lips part, but I can’t bring myself to say the words, so I opt for nothing at all.
Mom shakes her head. “This is a nightmare.”
A nightmare I can’t seem to wake up from.
“We can fix this, right?” Milo asks. “Please tell me this is fixable.”
“No, we can’t,” Nathan growls. “Pen’s kid is dead. Sunny’s right. Someone’s going to have to take the blame.”
Someone to blame.
That’s right. Aspen will need someone to hate. She’ll never look at me the same way again.
So why would it matter if I destroyed everything?