Page 38 of The Monster I Am
“About you coming to my house?” She questions. When I give her a sharp confirming nod, Bexley shrugs. “I didn’t think they needed to know. You were clearly just dealing with something. It’s not my place to tell them your business.”
“Stop doing that,” I hiss. “Stop acting like you care about any of us.”
Bexley’s eyebrows knit together in frustration. “Is it really that hard to believe that I do?”
“Yes!” I snap back, a little too loudly. I lower my voice again, taking a calming breath. “Because you’re not supposed to. That’s the rules.”
“I’m not a fucking rule,” she fights back. “I’m a goddamn person. And so are you.”
Her words are a direct bitchslap to my psyche.
I can’t do this.
“This isn’t right,” I mumble, running a hand through my hair. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
“What is it supposed to be like?” Bexley asks curiously. “A robotic allegiance to a bunch of mediocre older men? Fuck that. Look where it got us.”
She sounds exactly like Rylan. No wonder he’s so smitten with her. They seem to have some fucked-up bond over ourlegacies.
The legacies that used to mean something. A golden creation held above all else. Now, with each passing day, the gold is smearing, revealing an illusion—a deceitful disguise—and underneath, turns out we’re just gold-plated knockoffs, portrayed as puppets.
Everything I’ve ever known has been a lie. So, where does that leave me? With nothing.
I am nothing. Because my value never actually existed.
Bexley inches toward me, and immediately I feel the gravitational pull return. God, this close, I can see every little hidden spec of blue in her eyes.
“Hunter,” she says quietly, keeping our eyes locked. “I do care. And I think you do too. But I’m not your enemy here. I’m not going to use it as a weakness against you.”
She reaches up to my hair, flattening the unruly tendrils back down from my aggressive tousling.
“I know it sucks. I know what it’s like to have your entire world change overnight and how out of control you feel. But it’s not worth us dying for them, Hunter.”
I’m blindsided by the admission, unsure how to respond or feel, when Bexley finally turns around and heads into the library.
Letting out a sigh, I wait a few seconds before following after her.
The others have already managed to find the hole, the group crouching down to peer inside.
“It’s a tunnel,” Roberts says to Bexley. “No idea where it goes but it looks long.”
“Could head into the center of town,” Tai suggests. “It seems like it’s that direction.”
Rylan gives me a puzzled look when I finally join them but doesn’t voice the questions on his mind. “It’s not on the blueprints,” he directs at me. “We would have seen it.”
“Maybe check your father’s records,” I offer. “If it does lead into Ridgeview, he’d have access to any underground maps.”
Bexley leans down to gaze inside, a horrible wave of déjà vu hitting me. “So, I’m not crazy, right? This wasn’t obvious before?”
“Definitely not,” Parker confirms. “I was in the library the day of the fire. It was well hidden.”
“Or addedforthe fire. Access,” Rylan adds, making us all turn to look at him.
Bexley straightens up. “Why do you say that?”
I snort, cluing in on his line of thought. “It seems too convenient that this hidden tunnel was here the entire time. Obviously someone knows about it. Because if the trap door wasn’t open the day of the fire, then why was it open when we found it?”
I can see the cogs spinning in Bexley’s head as she comes to the same realization I have. Whoever tried to kill us came in through here, intentionally led us into the trap, then disappeared like a ghost.
