“You said ‘shit.’ What’s going on?”

“Oh. Nothing.” I plopped down on one of the couches. I could still see the lawns from where I sat and even got a glimpse of a fountain. Toeing off my sandals, I sunk down on the cushions and wished I could sleep, but I knew I couldn’t. I wasn’t even going to try right now. I said into the phone, “I was saying that my dad’s new girlfriend must be scared of me. The room she gave me is an apartment. For real.” I scanned the room again. “The only thing I don’t have is a kitchen, but hell, I bet she’s got a mini fridge stuck somewhere in this room. I have a freaking hallway in my room. Can you believe that?”

“Okay. Back up. Your dad?”

I sighed. That’s right. He had no idea so I told him everything. The surprise reappearance, how he posted my bail, the forest fortress, and the magical secretary/girlfriend that seemed too familiar around my dad for me to believe it was a new development. When I was done, Corrigan grunted. “Shit. I was going to brag that Denton, Bryce, and I all came together to storm the jail and demand your bail, but we got upstaged. I can’t beat that.”

All three of them were together? Right then? “Wait, you mean Bryce is there?” I suddenly felt a weight pressing down on my windpipe. A suffocating sensation was building within me.

“Yeah.” His voice softened. “You want to talk to him?”

I did. “No.” Later. I wasn’t ready right then and there. “Listen, I’m going to demand for you guys to come here.”

“I have a feeling your dad won’t be on the Corrigan and Bryce bandwagon. I don’t think it’ll be a go, unless you can reenact the drive there and give us directions? Then we’re all about that.”

A low growl started from my throat. He was right. I cursed under my breath.

Corrigan chuckled. “I know he liked Bryce, but that was a long time ago. And him stepping in and getting bail before we could, that has to mean something.”

And it did.

I found out an hour later when I was standing in his study and demanding my friends be given directions. I was met with a firm and final. “No.”

“Why not?” My arms were crossed so tight over my chest, my breasts felt constricted, but I couldn’t loosen them. I was holding myself back from lunging and putting him in a headlock, then trying to force the address out of him. It would’ve looked ridiculous, but it would’ve been fun at least.

My dad ran a hand down his face. The bags under his eyes seemed to have gotten bigger. “No, Sheldon. You’re here for your protection, too. People hate you. They want to hurt you, and anyone knows the quickest way to you is through them. They’ll follow them, and even though those boys love you, they’ll be bringing some haters right to your doorstep. I can’t allow that. I’ve been gone, but it was for your safety. I stepped in because I was forced to.”

I snorted in disbelief. “Your absence was for my safety? Are you growing weed somewhere in this fortress? That’d make more sense. Clue in, Father dear. I had a stalker who tried to kill my friends and me, and then shit started happening again last year. I’ve never been safe.”

“This is different.”

“How?”

He shoved out of his chair and yelled, hitting the desk with his finger at the same time, “YOU’RE WANTED FOR MURDER!” He stopped, grimaced, and lowered his voice. “The entire nation hates you, Sheldon. Grace was a good girl. She was lost and hurting, and she wanted to be accepted—”

“She was accepted.” By me.

He kept going as if I hadn’t spoken, “—and the police have arrested you as the suspect. With your history, with everything you have done or has happened to you, it’s all being brought up. The media has already painted you as a spoiled rich bully. That’s what you are to them, and your attitude of fuck off is what they salivate over. You have dark hair. Grace had beautiful blond hair. Good and evil. That’s what the nation understands, and the media is handing it to them on a silver platter.”

“I need my family—”

“I am your family!”

“No, you’re not. You’re not. I don’t ever remember a time when you were. Bryce and Corrigan are my family, and I want them here.”

“They can’t come here—”

All the crap he’d been dishing at me fell on deaf ears. I wasn’t dumb. I knew how I was being painted, but he wasn’t going to win this one. This time, I leaned forward and hit the desk with my finger. This time I was the one who yelled at him, “THEN GET THEM HERE! You do it. You figure it out because if you don’t, I’m finding a way out of here, and I’ll hitchhike all the way back to the city, no matter what car picks me up.”

I swept out of there.

My blood was pumping; the old Sheldon was tearing at me from inside. The old me would’ve trashed the house, then got obliterated and had sex. That wasn’t me anymore, but damn, gritting my teeth, I wanted to do some damage. My fingers curled into my palms, and I sunk my nails into my skin. I pushed them farther in and stood there, trying to calm myself down.

“Oh my god,” Beth gasped from behind me and then hurried around me. She disappeared down the hallway, but returned a moment later with towels. “Sheldon,” her tone turned cautious, “you are bleeding all over the floor. I need to look at your hands.”

I needed my family. Lifting haunted eyes to her, I said, “You’re not my family.”

“I know.” Her hand clenched tighter around the towels. “Can I look at your hands?”

I clipped my head to the side. “A lot of bad shit has happened to me.”

“I know.”

She was speaking so softly to me, like a timid mouse, but for some reason I needed her to understand. I said, “I’m not crazy. I’m not horrible. I’m not a murderer. I can be a bitch, that’s it. People have always wanted to take me down, and I don’t let them. That’s what I’ve done. That’s my mistake, standing up for myself.” An inner voice laughed in my ear. ‘Yeah, right. You’ve done your own damage.’ I muttered, half to myself and half to Beth, “I need to find out who killed Grace. I can’t stay here; I’m trapped.”

As I was speaking, I was half aware of Beth kneeling at my feet. My hands were touched, then peeled back, and she pressed something into them. Pain sliced through, but I was barely mindful of it. It couldn’t cut through the other pain that was already in me. Nothing could quiet the need to avenge what had happened to me.