Cassidy’s name leaving her, Parris nearly stumbles back. Not only is there shock on his face but almost a nervousness that wasn’t there.
Did he know Cass?
“You’re that Colt?”
“How many female Colts have you met?” she asks, the amusement helping her recover from the sadness I know she feels.
“I just... Your hair is black.” He ruffles his gelled hair, making it far too messy and way less controlled.
“Who are you?”
The way her voice cracks has me bringing her to me, making sure I can hold her up no matter what brings her down.
“I’m Parris,” he repeats. “I—” His phone chirps, stopping his words. He looks around as if people are watching.
Maybe they are.
Maybe we’re all fucked.
Holding Corpse to my side, making sure she doesn’t fall, I watch him answer, and his face morph into that disconnected robotic man who was here before.
“Yes, sir.”
Colt squeezes me before stepping away and toward Parris. He hangs up his cell, and his eyes bore down on her.
“You don’t have to tell me, but I think I know,” she murmurs, her words halting and slow.
Parris nods with a nostalgic and depressed look. “So, he is dead.”
The redness of his face lets me know he’s seconds away from breaking.
Colt begins to shutter and sob, and I know it’s my cue to pick up the pieces. Do what I couldn’t when she needed me most. Be who she needed when no one was there. Have her back when she’s always had mine.
“We’ve got to take her for makeup and to try on dresses,” Parris explains, looking at me while the anguish behind his eyes tell me what I need to know.
He’s him.
The him we all wondered if existed.
“P-please,” Colt stutters through her tears. “I can’t do this again.”
I come to her, lifting her up, and Parris helps me. She’s not heavy by any means, but I don’t know if carrying her wedding style will be taken kindly. She’s so frail, skinnier, bonier. She wasn’t lying when she said she wasn’t doing well.
As she falls apart in our arms, I pray for reprieve. For strength. For answers.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Colt
I don’t know how I know he’s the man I always knew Cass loved, but I do. The way he asked if it’s true that Cassidy’s dead broke me. My body feels far too heavy to carry a burden of a lost brother. It’s too beaten down to ever want to get up.
One thing Elijah didn’t get to take is my ability to use anything to ease my pain. He might have taken me from my home, my phone, and dignity, but he can’t take my depression and need to self-harm.
Not that he knew. No one did, not really.
Oh, yeah, Lux knows.
My scars are everywhere, but they’re inked too.
“Is she going to be okay?” Parris asks Lux. They’d brought me back to my room and have been standing by the door for the past ten minutes, watching me, waiting for me to break down.
Unfortunately for them, it’s too late. I broke ages ago. I literally died, sat six feet under with Cass, and the only part left of me is the corpse.
“She misses him.”
“I wasn’t entirely sure he died,” Parris says grievously. I can’t see his face, but I’m sure he’s feeling the loss, much like me. “I figured he ghosted me. It wasn’t until the summer when the Imposter event happened that it clicked in something was wrong.”
“You’re a nerd too?” Lux guesses, his humor apparent.
“Yeah, that’s how we met. After that, I went digging. Did you know the Marchettis are not only one of the oldest families in the Vestige, but their existence is only erased because the Grims thought it only fair to have equal pain?”
I listen, my eyes closed, acting as if I’m not.
“I’d been raised to think of you guys as the traitors.”
Parris chuckles at Lux. “Yeah, I didn’t know about the Vestige until June. I reached out to my grandpa, and he told me everything. He also hooked me up with Elijah, promising me a job and future.”
“We shouldn’t talk here,” Lux mentions. That’s when I remember all the cameras in this place. There’s no way they don’t know me and Jordan fucked. There’s no way.
Parris leads me back to my room, letting Lux know he can't follow me, that I'm definitely at the mercy of cameras. I practically cry on the idea that I'm part of their reality TV. They know I'm suffering, that I'm cutting, that I have done some shady shit in my