Kings of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #1) - Caroline Peckham ,Susanne Valenti Page 0,190

I kept in the secret pocket and tossed them down on the table for me to see.

Dread gripped my soul and made every part of my body scream.

“No!” I gasped, leaping out of my seat, intending to get them back no matter what I had to do. Blake snatched me around the waist, dragging me down into his lap and locking his arms around me so that I was forced to remain in place.

“Let me go!” I demanded, wriggling wildly as Kyan watched us all with mild intrigue on his face. My heart thrashed in my chest, my mouth was overly dry and the part of me they’d broken before was already coming unstitched.

Saint cocked his head to one side, surveying me with nothing but evil in his eyes. I’d made the devil bleed and he intended to repay the favour.

“Do you think we didn’t go through your whole bag when we first brought you here?” he asked, stepping toward me and leaning down into my face. The scent of sin washed from his skin, pure and clean and deadly. “Because that would have been a really fucking stupid thing to think, Plague.”

I bared my teeth, fighting viciously against Blake’s hold, but I couldn’t get free. Every part of my body was begging me to claw and tear my way to Saint. I couldn’t bear the look on his face, couldn’t stand the cruelty in his eyes.

He fished through the pile as if looking for a particular letter then smiled satisfactory as he lifted one up and read from it. “I miss you, Jess. Sometimes it hurts so much I can’t breathe. Knowing you’re gone, knowing you left me.”

His words cut into me and I roared my rage at him as he tossed the letter onto the fire burning in the grate behind him.

“No!” I screamed, my throat rubbing raw as I watched the page curl and turn to ash. It was a piece of my soul, lost, gone, destroyed.

Saint casually picked up another letter, reading another snippet just to make me bleed on the inside. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re still out there somewhere. I hope you’re somewhere happy, somewhere safe.” He sneered at me, enjoying my pain, his eyes electrified with it like it was the only thing that made his heart beat.

“What are they?” Kyan asked with a frown, but Saint only answered by tossing the letter onto the flames and snatching up another one. My heart felt like it was burning alive with those pages on the fire. Each word had poured from me, meant for her. But she’d never read any of them.

Saint snatched up another one, a nasty smile biting into his cheeks. “Today was your funeral. I had to say goodbye to my big sister. My guiding star. I love you, Jess. I don’t know what I’ll ever do without you.” He gave me a mocking stare and another piece of me shattered like glass.

A wave of pain crashed against my heart as I remembered that day, the way I’d poured over that letter as I unleashed my pain, letting it all out. And in the years since, I’d written to her whenever I needed to. Whenever I wished I could get her advice or tell her about my life. It had helped ease the grief, given me an outlet for the words I’d never gotten to say to her. For all the moments I’d never shared with her. And now they were all disappearing, one at a time, consumed in flame like they meant nothing. But they were everything, everything.

Saint sifted through the pile again and produced a letter that made my heart fracture into a million pieces. The paper was different. Crumpled, worn, a hundred tears soaked into its fibres.

Jess and I had written letters to each other all through my sophomore year. She’d stayed in California to study biomedical science, but I was too young to stay with her. I’d continued to travel with Dad. But that letter, the one the devil held between his fingers now, was the last one she’d ever given me. She’d come to surprise us in Chicago for Christmas. She’d delivered it to me in person.

“Dear Tatty,” Saint read in a mocking tone that made my bones ache. “I thought I’d give this one to you myself as we’re going to be spending the entire holiday season together. And guess what?! Dad says you’re coming to California with me in January. Now I’m eighteen I