Page 40 of Pucked Around and Found Out

The admission hits like a gut punch.

I drop my arm back to my side and glare down at her, willing myself to feel nothing. To be the monster she's describing.

“Masen is alive, Xaden.”

The words shatter the moment like glass breaking.

Everything inside me goes completely still.

“My brother survived.” Her voice is steady now, meeting my gaze without flinching. “He's alive. And I know where he is.”

Rage and something dangerously close to hope war inside me.

Because if Masen is alive, that means I get another chance.

Another opportunity to make him pay for what he did.

To make him suffer the way Em suffered.

“Where?” The demand is raw, desperate.

She smiles, sad and knowing and absolutely devastating.

“That's the thing, Xaden. That information? It comes with a price.”

“Name it.”

“You,” she says simply. “I want you to listen. Really listen to what I have to say. No guns. No threats. No violence. Just... us. Here. Where it all began.”

I stare at her, standing in the headlights at the spot where my entire world ended, and I realize she's playing chess while I've been playing checkers.

“You manipulative little⁠—”

“Yes,” she cuts me off. “I am. You taught me well.”

And God help me, I'm trapped.

Because I need to know where Masen is more than I need to maintain my pride.

“Fine,” I spit out. “Talk.”

She takes a deep breath, and I see her steeling herself for what comes next.

“Your sister's death wasn't an accident. But it wasn't my fault either. And everything you think you know about that night? It's wrong.”

The moonlight catches the tears finally spilling down her cheeks.

“So if you want the truth—the real truth—you're going to have to stop trying to destroy me long enough to actually hear it.”

And standing there on that cursed stretch of road with the ghosts of my sister and best friends between us, I realize I might not have a choice.

Because Toren Kellar has become the one thing I never saw coming.

My blind spot.

My weakness.

My undoing.