Part 3He Calls Me Sister

CRASH!

I grabbed the glass jar from my nightstand—the one filled with a thousand paper stars I’d folded for him—and brought it down hard on the back of his head.

The glass shattered, sending a galaxy of colorful, hand-folded stars scattering across the bed.

Liam’s body tensed, then slumped forward, a dead weight on top of me.

He was unconscious.

I lay there, gasping for breath, my eyes squeezed shut in sheer, post-adrenal terror. Thank God. Thank God.

A buzzing vibration started up from somewhere beneath the bed.

I shoved Liam’s dead weight off me, trying to sit up and find the source of the noise. But as I pushed myself up, the world tilted violently. The drug my mother had slipped into my painkiller was finally taking its full effect. My stomach churned, and a black fog began to creep in at the edges of my vision.

Just before I lost consciousness, I remembered what was vibrating.

It was Liam’s phone.

And the person calling was the girl he secretly, desperately loved. The girl he held in his heart like a sacred prayer. Isabelle Croft.

…

“Oh, Isabelle, you’re here!”

“You’re looking for Liam?”

“Come in, come in.”

The voices drifted from downstairs. It was my mother, welcoming a guest.

I clutched my throbbing head and forced myself to sit up. Outside my window, the sky was bright with morning light.

A flurry of footsteps was heading straight for my room.

“Liam is in Ava’s room,” my mother said cheerfully.

“Oh? This early? What’s he doing in Ava’s room?” a sweet, feminine voice asked.

In an instant, my mind cleared. My heart plummeted.

This is bad.