Total pages in book: 186
Estimated words: 176552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 883(@200wpm)___ 706(@250wpm)___ 589(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 883(@200wpm)___ 706(@250wpm)___ 589(@300wpm)
The hem of my shorts grazed my thighs as I moved.
My phone was lit up with a flurry of new notifications.
Ari
Anyone up?
I replied instinctively
I am.
My phone immediately started to ring.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Ari’s voice came through low and cautious. “Was everything okay with you last night?”
I hesitated, eyes drifting to the window where the sunlight spilled through my curtains, making the world outside look deceptively calm. “I got some more texts, but aside from being dragged into a tunnel by Dennis, my night was fine.”
I wasn’t sharing the details about how the latter half of my evening was spent.
“How are you even functioning?”
I shrugged even though she couldn’t see me. “I’m not sure I truly processed it yet. Were you okay last night?”
“I started getting texts,” she confessed.
“So did Roxxi.”
“Yeah, she told me, but not what they said.”
“Same here. You going to keep yours to yourself, too?”
“I forwarded it,” she replied softly.
I pulled the phone away, tapped the screen, and switched to speakerphone so I could open our thread again.
The past doesn’t disappear just because you pretend it’s not there. The question is, what will you do when it finally catches up to you?
“What the hell does that mean?” I murmured, reading it twice. It was too pointed. Worse, just like with Cloe’s, it felt like a reply.
“Ari,” I said slowly. “There were more messages before these. Weren’t there?”
She grew so quiet I was worried she’d hang up on me, but after another minute, give or take a few seconds, she replied. “I won’t lie to you, Sanj.”
That was an indirect confirmation.
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Why delete them, just to send one?”
“It’s not something I’m ready to talk about yet. I didn’t want to hide that I was getting them, though. I’m sorry. I just… I can’t.”
This was becoming a recurring theme.
I sat down on the edge of my bed, the phone resting on my thigh. “What the living fuck is going on?”
Someone knew things they shouldn’t about all of them. How did that happen? Secrets. Guilt. Regrets none of us had ever said out loud. Whoever this was, or these people were, they’d had front-row seats to all our worst moments. I couldn’t even imagine what my girls were keeping from me and each other.
Essentially, we were all cooked.
God knew the guys were carrying enough demons to sink a city. Ryder, Cade, Xander, Nick... even Rook. Maybe especially Rook. Sure, I hadn’t come out and told them about Ryder, but that had only just happened, and not a single one of them would be shocked. If anything, they'd be more surprised it took this long.
I exhaled quietly.
“Do you have any idea who might know about… whatever this is referring to?” I asked, quieter now, less accusation and more concern.
“No. Only one other person knows, and they’d never say anything. They swore they’d take it to their grave.”
So it wasn’t that she hadn’t shared whatever this was; she just hadn’t shared it with us.
“Let’s hope that promise still means something to them then.” I rubbed at my temples, a dull ache blooming right behind my eyes. Tomorrow was going to unleash a whole new shitshow. “Have you checked the Marked chat anymore?” I asked, already bracing for the answer.
“No. I was trying to keep this all away from me for twenty-four hours. You see that didn’t work out too well.”
“Wanna check together?”
“Yeah,” she replied decisively. “Yeah, let’s do it.”
I navigated through my inbox to get to the right chat. “Geez,” I muttered. “There are over a hundred new messages.”
“With over sixty people in there? I’m not surprised.”
The group chat was a storm of dark jokes tangled with threats, flirtation that edged on disturbing, inside references I didn’t understand. My name popped up more than once—so did the Nest fight, the locker room incident, and even a few issues other people were having with the Huntsmen.
Some were admitting they’d gotten texts, too. Others were just now realizing how wide this thing was spreading. Someone had created a live countdown for The Hunt.
“Less than 48 hours left,” I mused. “On a scale of 1-10, how bad do you think this is going to go for us?”
Ari let out a breath that sounded more like a laugh, if laughing while walking toward a guillotine counted.
“I think we’ve got it in the bag, actually.”
“Are you serious?”
“If pressuring us with vague taunts and you almost getting dragged into a tunnel is the worst of it, which, for the record, I absolutely do not condone that behavior, then yeah. We can handle it.”
“Brittany was getting the business like a rag doll,” I reminded her. “You know she lied about how that went down, right? Did I tell you guys that?”
“Cade filled us in on our main group chat. That doesn’t sit right with me. Especially since she lied outright. I stand by what I said, though. Will it be easy? Of course not, but we can win this. We’ve got a few wildcards on our side, and that counts for something.”