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The one thing I have spent every day and every night working to fucking protect.
Getting from the main manor to the healthcare suite is a complete blur that I only know I completed because I’m the one holding the keys when I stomp inside the building.
Faint objective sounds trail behind me, but they’re ignored.
And they will continue to be ignored.
I am done letting those around me have any sort of say.
Barging past Hill into Lauren’s room, I accidentally bump into the chair he’s occupying; however, instead of saying sorry or acknowledging him in any way, I simply lock my glare onto Brynley and bite, “What do you plan to do with the money?”
She casually crosses one tanned pant covered leg over the other and playfully pokes, “Continue to fund my mascara addiction.”
Lauren snickers on a shake of her head, eyes looking through the word search they were clearly doing pre my arrival. “How about starting to fund a 401k?”
“I do not find your answer amusing, Miss Winters.”
At that, her bare arms fold defensively across her cream-colored turtleneck tank top. “And I do not find your tone becoming, Mr. Wilcox.”
“You have the audacity to pretend as though you have no idea what it is you’ve truly done.”
“There’s no pretending.” Her brow pulls tightly together in perplexity. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about or better yet – given your whole Wrath of Khan vibe – what you think I’ve done.”
“Wes,” J.T. quietly tries to object only to be entirely ignored.
“You can drop the scam, Miss Winters.” Bitterness bulldozes itself through my expression alongside my tone. “You’ve already been paid. There’s no need to continue the performance.”
“What performance?”
“Pretending you gave a shit about me, the real me. Pretending you enjoyed learning about whiskey and comics. Pretending you were going to quit your barely above legal joke of a job for something you probably don’t actually have a fucking degree in.”
“Excuse the fuck out of you!” she seethes as she springs to her feet. “My degree is real! The hours I stayed up cramming bullshit into my brain for labs and oceanography finals is all real! I fucking earned that stupid piece of paper I’m just now getting a chance to use!”
“So, it was just being in love with me that wasn’t real.”
“How can you-”
“The signs were all there.” I emotionlessly shrug. “Why you pushed me to show you my face. Why you pushed me to leave the estate. Why you pushed me to take that fucking photo.” Rage rushes through my system raising my volume. “Time was fucking running out, wasn’t it?! They demanded you to deliver, didn’t they?!”
“Who the fuck are they?!”
“Weston,” Lauren swiftly scolds, motherly infliction striking the wrong nerve. “I-”
“Not. A. Word. From. You.” I savagely stab in her direction with a pointed finger. “You fucking brought her here! This is your fault, too!”
“Don’t fucking talk to my mom like that!”
“Why?! Because she was in on it?!” A new realization, a darker, uglier, much viler one propels me closer to Lauren’s bed. “Were you ever really sick or were you just making yourself sick?!” Furious huffs hit the walls of the hospital like space. “Were you purposely poisoning yourself, so I had no choice but to bring your slutty con-artist daughter under my roof!?”
“Dude!” shouts my best friend from behind me.
“Did you keep making yourself sick to bide her the time she needed to fuck me?!”
“Dude!”
“To fuck me over for that photo she got paid for?!”
“Dude!”
