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“You’re a terrible liar, Tommy.”

Didi has fallen out of the sky like an angel directly into Talia Vital’s sights, and I don’t know how to keep her safe. But Didi also killed Father Malcom and her mother.

Clearly, I have a type.

At least down here, it’s just me and her. Whatever Talia had planned for her tonight can wait. I locked my door when I brought her down here so no one would bother us.

“Why are your eyes so black?” she asks as she rubs her tiny fingers over my face. “Were you born in hell?”

And here I’m thinking she looks like an angel…

I arch my eyebrows and smirk. “My eyes are the same color they’ve always been.” She’s been asking me strange questions all night. Convinced I’m a masked devil. But she’s not wrong—every one of us is a masked devil.

She stares at me a moment longer and crinkles her nose. “Tommy?”

“Yeah, firefly?”

She turns away from me, and in a split second, she switches. “I wish I never met you,” she whispers.

Damn.

She tripping again. I can tell because she moans, and her body goes rigid. Whatever she’s seeing, it’s not pleasant, and I know firsthand how intense an acid trip can be. The first time I tripped, the acid altered my brain chemistry, and I was never the same.

Talia didn’t take it easy on me when she spiked my drink at breakfast a couple of months ago. The acid kicked in at track practice, and Bax, Remy, and I ran like we were spaghetti noodles.

I keep my arms wrapped tightly around her, and after a few seconds, her body goes limp. She shifts and moves her hand, landing it right on my dick.

What I wouldn’t give to experience Didi’s mouth on my cock again for just one second.

I’ve earned it.

I stare down at her gorgeous lips, and wonder if I unzip my pants and pull it out, if she would suck on it. She’s done it before.

After the trip, she looks at me, her eyes clear again. “Make it go away, Tommy.”

I rub her forehead and softly stroke her hair to ground her in reality. “Make what go away, firefly? What do you see?”

She lets out a small sob. “The pain… I can’t take it anymore.” Her face falls again, as it does every time she looks at me.

I see only darkness and pain, but she’s pure light. I have countless questions, countless thoughts, yet I remain silent. Nothing I could say would make any sense.

Her face contorts again.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she finally asks me. “Shadowface. You and Remy both are.”

I swallow hard and consider my next words. To admit it right now is to betray my oath, the one I bled for.

“Yeah,” I admit. “But there’s more to it.”

“You kill people,” she says with genuine curiosity. “You burned that building down and tried to kill everyone inside. Talia killed her boyfriend, you pretended to kill me, and your parents covered everything up.”

I don’t deny it, although that wasn’t exactly our intention.

Chaos. That was the intention of burning Smith Hall down and observing the beauty that unfolds within it. That is also the reason Talia drugged every single person at this party tonight.

To watch the natural order that unfolds during times of turmoil.

“Does that scare you?” I ask her, and my eyes draw down to her lips.