Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Left to be forgotten. To be written out of history.
I crouch down to one. The earth is soft beneath my boots, and I pick up a fresh white rose at the base. Since they’ve been back in town for a couple hours at a time, the godmothers have made a point to leave flowers at the graves of the Wolfes, they told me. Find the ones with the fresh white roses. That’s your family.
A knot is in my throat. My eyes burn as I make out the start of a name. Ev…for Evan. I run my tongue over my molars, and I somehow manage to get out, “Thanks for saving my life, big brother.”
I didn’t think it mattered to know where I came from. I didn’t think I’d care.
Because I wouldn’t trade the family I have for another, but this one—this one was ripped out of the ether. I was what was left. And the man who did it has parasitically consumed their entire legacy, all they ever built through the generations—his.
All they were—gone.
They weren’t the type of people we prey upon.
“I hate cemeteries because I don’t like disturbing the dead,” I say quietly.
I’m not talking to myself.
I sense her beside me. Phoebe sinks her knees into the grass.
“But I hope they feel me,” I say. “I hope they know I came back. That I didn’t leave them.” Fuck. I pinch my eyes and bury the crashing, searing emotion.
She places a hand on my thigh.
We check over our shoulders. Jake waits by an old poplar tree, keeping an eye out.
Our gazes return to each other, and I touch her hand on my leg.
“They know it, Rocky—I believe they do, and everything I believe is true, so…” Her emerging smile floods me and centers me.
I lace her fingers with mine.
She swallows hard. “I still can’t believe it. Like when I say it out loud, it—”
“Sounds ridiculous?”
“And fucked up. My father killed your whole family.” She lets out a sharp laugh. “I didn’t even want a dad. I never felt empty without one. And now that I have one, I’d really like to give him back.”
“Yeah? How are we going to do that? Send him to the returns and exchanges at T.J. Maxx?”
“I would a hundred percent return him for a knockoff purse.”
I laugh a little, but the sound fades as I gaze at the headstones of two brothers I never knew. Of a mother and a father who never got the chance to see their children grow up. “The Alcon blue butterfly,” I say under my breath.
“What?” Phoebe frowns.
“It’s something Hailey once told me about ants and this specific caterpillar. How it can take over an entire colony by tricking the ants into believing it’s the queen.”
“Like what Varrick did,” Phoebe realizes.
I rise with her hand still in mine. She follows suit, and I stare one more time at the headstones. At Christian, Josephine, Evan, and Griffith.
Defenseless, unsuspecting, prime, easy targets for him. But I’m not one.
I was raised to mimic the fucking queen.
As we walk back to Jake, my fingers slowly, slowly, slowly slip from hers, and then I stuff my fists in my leather jacket. She’s still his girlfriend in public at the moment. With Claudia gone, there’s no reason for their fake relationship to continue, but Phoebe breaking up with her “boyfriend” the week of his mother’s death is callous and would do irreparable damage to her reputation in this town. We all agreed to give it some breathing room.
I try not to fixate on her hand in his hand as they head in the opposite direction of me.
Looking backward, I catch Phoebe risking a glance at me, too, and we share a furtive smile made of passionate, loving, volcanic years.
This isn’t forever. But her hand always staying in mine—that will be. One day.
It’s just not now.
I put my sunglasses on and hike down a hill. To the Pontiac GTO idling on the street. Nova waits outside for me with crossed arms and tension in his stern-lined face. Some things never change.
And then some things do. “No more mustache?” Stubble has grown along his jawline. His dark brown hair is even an inch or so past the buzz-cut stage.
“You hated the mustache.”
“Yeah. But now, I’m worried you’re reversing to eleventh grade where you looked like Crash Bandicoot.”
“You want a ride or not?” he retorts.
“Am I driving?”
“Fuck no.” He gets in the front seat.
My lips tic up, and I stare around the cemetery one last time. History. My history. Then I climb into the passenger seat, and I look ahead as Nova peels out onto the road, driving into town. Home.
How do you make a place safe when you’re the thing that tears homes apart?
For the first time, I want to find out.
FORTY-ONE
Phoebe
Hailey and I sit side by side on a hospital bed, the paper crinkling underneath our butts. Neither of us are wearing those flimsy patterned gowns, but in solidarity, I got a physical and blood work done with her.