Page 52 of Five

“I love that you still have these little tinfoil stars hanging under your canopy.”

I smile. God, I haven’t thought about those stars in like… forever.

“I wish we were kids again,” he says. “I wish I had never gone to any of those summer programs and stayed here with you for every second instead.”

“Just tell me,” I say. Because it’s very clear to me now, he has something very bad to say. He just doesn’t know how to say it.

“I don’t even know where to start, Princess.”

“From the beginning?” I ask. “Isn’t that always the best place to start?”

“I’m not really sure where that is.”

I frown into the night. Look up at my bedroom window. There’s no flutter of a curtain to tell me he’s watching. No familiar face peeking out. “Five, no matter what’s happening, I need to know, OK? I really do. I get what you were trying to do down in your dad’s secret…”—God, what to call it except a—“lair.”

He laughs. It’s so familiar, I laugh too. But they are two small laughs. Two sad laughs.

“You were trying to show me that this life isn’t what it seems, right?”

Silence.

“And… we’re not who we think,” I continue. “But I’m strong, Five. I’m tough. I know how to shoot a gun. I’m pretty damn good at it, in fact.”

“I know,” he says. “Your mom made sure of that.”

I can almost hear a smile in those words. So I sigh. “Please tell me. I won’t judge you. You know that, right? I’m always on your side, Five Aston. No matter what.”

“Do you have any idea why I left six years ago and never came back?”

I shake my head. But of course he can’t see me. So I swallow down the lump forming in my throat and say, “No. But you’re going to tell me now, right? You’re going to tell me everything and no matter what it is, we’re going to be OK.”

More silence. Long, drawn-out seconds of emptiness.

“Five?”

“I think you better come upstairs, Princess. I think you’re gonna need to look me in the eyes when I tell you the truth.”

That whole sentence echoes in my head for what seems like an eternity.

“Rory?” he says.

“OK,” I say, getting out of the car. And before I can say anything else, the call drops with three ominous beeps.

I walk to the front door, key in my code to unlock it and disarm the alarm, and go inside.

I look up the stairs, at the darkness beyond, and hesitate.

I don’t really want my little fairy tale life to be shattered. I’d much rather live in the little fantasy my parents created for me.

But it’s time to grow up, I realize. It’s time to accept certain truths as fact and move forward.

So whatever Five Aston has to tell me up in my childhood bedroom… whatever horrible thing it is… I’m going to deal with it the way my mother taught me.

Like a fighter.

Chapter Sixteen - Five

Her shadow appears in the doorway like a ghost caught in the past, her long, blonde hair falling over her shoulders as she pauses in the threshold of something new. Like the secret I’m holding captive in this room might bite.