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What the fuck are you playing at? Trying to find a nice spot in the sun to read Little Women for the fourth time this week?
I need to use this time to figure out how the hell I’ll get out of here.
My shoulders straighten and I slip my sunglasses onto my face to hide my panic. It’s hard to walk around the grounds like I’m simply enjoying the view, every security guard has their heavy gaze clamped on me as I pass.
But I know who I’m looking for. And I’m praying he has his clippers with him today instead of a bulletproof vest.
The relief washes over me as I find Cillian crouching down in a shadowy corner, tending to a patch of hydrangeas.
“Rose garden,” I mutter out the side of my mouth as I pass. I loop around the grounds and dip down the narrow path that leads up to the gate.
I can only hope that he heard me.
I’m antsy, sitting on the bench, bending back the cover of the book in my sweaty hands. Just when I thought he definitely hadn’t heard and I get up to leave, I hear the creak of the gate.
Cillian appears between two rose bushes and mops his brow with the hem of his T-shirt. I take a peek at the toned, brown skin underneath, before averting my gaze.
“I can’t stay long,” he says.
“So, I’ll get right to it,” I gabble, closing the gap between us. It’s crazy how I’ve only met him once, exchanged less than a hundred words in our entire lifetime, but he feels like a piece of normality. “What’s your escape plan?”
He frowns, casting a suspicious eye over my desperate face. “I don’t have one.”
“You do,” I say, reaching out to grab his arm. “I know you do. You said it last time, remember?”
His eyes narrow. “No, I don’t.”
The desperation claws at my throat now. Cillian is a tiny, silver lining surrounding my enormous dark cloud. He’s a beacon of hope, but it’s looking like it’s nothing but a mirage.
My throat is dry. “We’re in the same boat, Cillian.Please.”
I reach out to grab his arm but he steps back to avoid my clammy fingertips. “We’re not in this together, Poppy.” His demeanor has never been kind, but he hardens from stone into carbon. The wall he puts up creates a bigger divide between us, even though he’s only a few inches away. “I can’t trust Marcus Murphy’s daughter, that’s for sure.”
The words spit from his lips with enough venom to stupefy me.
Marcus Murphy’s daughter.
I’ve heard this so many times now that it feels like a dirty slur. I think back to the day of the fake funeral, to Lorcan Quinn, standing behind the pulpit in all of his cruel glory, announcing to the small, unwilling congregation that Marcus Murphy signed for the package that contained the bomb that would kill his family.
An idiotic mistake from a bottom-of-the-barrel lackey. A mistake for which I took the punishment. But every time my father’s name graces Lorcan’s tongue, it’s accompanied by sheer hatred. And now Cillian has that look too.
“My father isn’t who I thought he is, is he?” I stammer.
His mouth hardens into a tight line. “It’s not my place or my passion to walk you through your family tree, Murphy,” he says, before spitting onto the stone slabs by my feet. “I’m trying to do my time and get out. Stay away from me—you’re bad news, just like your father.”
Cillian stalks down the path and out of the gate, taking my last fraction of hope with him.
I sink down onto one of the benches, the weight of his words too heavy to carry. A sob comes deep from my chest, and I try my best to stop it from materializing.
Left on my own again. Like I’ve always been.
Think, you silly girl,I beg my brain, racking it for a plan B.
Then they come to me: his words, fully formed.
I collect things. And when I’m done with them, I discard them.
When I’m no longer of any use to him, he’ll let me go. When he gets what he wants from me.
