“I can see that.” I laughed quietly. “Who knew? Not all men dressed in scuffed leather and riding around on custom-designed Triumphs prefer girls, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.”

He frowned. “Those things have never been in my repertoire.” His eyes blazed. “I almost became a monk because every other woman paled in comparison to you.”

I rubbed at my chest where a sudden unbearable pressure swarmed. “I’m glad you’re not a monk.”

He chuckled. “Me too.”

We stared at each other, wrapped up in so much said and so much still to learn. I wished we were alone again—so I could show him just how amazed I was by his accomplishments.

“I’m proud of you. So proud.” I couldn’t contain the awe and pride. I hugged him. Hard.

He tensed, then relaxed in my hold, hugging me back. His leather cut creaked, smelling of lanolin and masculine musk. It was the best smell in the world.

“All right, everyone. Grab some plates and form a queue. Dinner is finally served,” Grasshopper yelled.

The men clapped and women paraded from the Clubhouse with salads, pastas, and breads in their arms. I should’ve been helping them, but tonight I permitted a bit of laziness—after all, it meant Arthur and I finally got to enjoy something so simplistically precious.

Someone switched on a radio, turning the cicada-laced air into a jive of sixties music.

“Come on. Let’s eat.” Arthur guided me forward and together we joined our new family.

Chapter Twenty

Kill

Why was it that people seemed the happiest on the cusp of disaster?

It was like clockwork.

My mom had been happiest before her cancer diagnosis. Thorn had been happiest before my father decided he had to be removed. Even I’d been at my happiest just before my life ended.

Cleo made me happy.

But ultimately, she was the one who made me want to die. —Kill, age eighteen

Sitting in the darkness with my brothers and sisters around me granted the same kind of happiness I’d seen infect others. It was dangerous. This type of joy made people lazy. Unaware. Close-minded.

Happiness was a drug. The strongest of all because it made life seem friendly, open, and kind.

That was bullshit.

I’d forgotten that lesson when I was younger. Believing that everything would work out and my dreams would come true.

And I’d paid the price.

I’d paid the price for my blindness and almost sacrificed everything to despair.

So, even though I wanted more than anything to believe in the happiness spread before me. To open up my heart to the warmth. To bask in the glow of companionship …

I couldn’t.

Wallstreet was still in jail. My father was still alive. And the world was still the same stinking pile of corruption and lies it’d always been.

Until those three things changed, I had no space for intoxication on dreams and fantasy.

Only once I’d achieved what I promised could I find any hope in trusting again. Only once I’d eradicated the lies and treachery could I be free. And only once I’d put into place something so much bigger than myself could I stop chasing that ever-elusive more.

Then … perhaps—just fucking perhaps—I’d let myself be happy.

Chapter Twenty-One

Cleo

Arthur had made me promise something strange.

He’d stopped marking my homework and went silent for ages. I thought he’d leave, but he’d stolen my hand and made me promise that I would run away with him. I knew his family was cruel, but this was our home. Only, he didn’t feel that way. He said we were dying slowly—being strangled by lies. I didn’t agree, but what could I do? He needed me … so, I’d promised. I’d promised that I would run when he told me to. —Cleo, diary entry, age fourteen

Early evening turned into early morning.

The cicadas had retired, the radio continued its scratchy tunes, and the jokes became sloppy and crude.

However, I’d never had such a good time. Never been so relaxed and contented.

With my foster family, I’d always held back at gatherings or parties—afraid of forgetting something important or saying something wrong. No matter how much Corrine made me laugh, I’d never really made peace with the emptiness inside. I’d tried filling the amnesia-hole with new thoughts, but it was bottomless … devouring everything, throbbing with urgency to have me jump into the pit and remember.

However, there was one thing shadowing the ease and pleasure of the evening. The sense that this wasn’t just a bonfire to bond and gossip, but to hang out one last time before war broke out.

In the past few days, I’d been kidnapped, Arthur wounded, and the house broken into. That wouldn’t go unpunished. We were all on the precipice of something huge and it added a strange edge to the celebrations.

Could this gathering be the last time everyone was alive? Could this be the last time I witnessed Pure Corruption as a whole?

Arthur stared into the fire, his green eyes slightly unfocused as he relived things I could only guess. I slinked my arms around the back of his neck. “You okay?” I’d been on his lap for hours, my back nestled against his front, cocooned by his heat and smell.

He nodded, pressing his lips against my shoulder. “Never better.”

Pushing away my morbid thoughts, I sighed with contentedness. More time passed; we stayed poised in nothingness, hypnotized by the fire, and rocked into a lullaby of safety and serenity.