Whispered Darkness by Jessica Sorensen Page 0,11

hates Grey. So do I.”

“Almost everyone does,” Kingsley agrees then sighs. “But I don’t really have any room to talk. Not a lot of people are fans of me either.”

I find myself reaching over and brushing my hand across his cheek in an attempt to comfort him. “Maybe that’s not as true as you think. Maybe you just think that because Foster wants you to.”

“No … a lot of people hate me …” His eyelids momentarily shut. “Har … you’ve got to stop doing that,” he murmurs, opening his eyes.

He may be saying that, but I can feel how much he likes it, so I touch him again.

His knuckles on the wheel whiten. “If you keep doing that, I’m going to get so distracted that I’m going to crash the car.”

That should frighten me after what happened, but it doesn’t. Because …

“No, you won’t,” I tell him but pull my hand away.

He looks at me questioningly. “How can you be so sure that I won’t?”

I lift a shoulder. “Because I’m in here, and I know you won’t let anything happen to me.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he says, staring at me almost dazedly. Then he clears his throat and that dazedness evaporates. “If it does turn out that Foster is dealing night kiss, there’s going to be a case built against him.”

“I figured as much.”

“And I don’t want to bring this up, but I feel like I have to … It’s about what you told me about the night Foster’s truck went off the cliff and how you thought maybe you were … drugged.”

A chill nips at my skin, even though I’m more than warm in Kingsley’s hoodie. “Okay.”

He scratches the side of his neck then rests his hand on the shifter, appearing twitchy. “I don’t want to push you or pressure you to do anything you’re not comfortable with, so I want to talk to you about it before I do anything.” Another hesitant pause. “I just think that it might help the case. Not just the one I’m working on, but the one for the night of the accident, if maybe you told someone about what happened.”

“I kind of told the detective working my case about it already,” I inform him. “Well, I told her a little bit about it. Honestly, I can’t really remember much about what happened that night.”

“I know. I still think you should maybe mention the drug thing to her … and Foster’s name.” He wavers. “Well, that is, if you don’t mind talking about what happened that night. If you don’t, I completely understand.” His grip on the shifter tightens. “I never want you to have to relive that sort of pain.”

“You … You talk as if you’re speaking from experience. Like you’ve experienced that sort of pain before,” I say cautiously, wanting to tell him that I know.

Know all about his pain.

Strands of his blond hair fall into his eyes as he shakes his head. “No. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

I internally sigh. He’s not going to open up to me.

“But you’ve experienced pain like that before.” It may sound like a question, but it’s not.

He shakes his head again, but with much more hesitancy this time, and his lips remain sealed together, locking his secrets inside.

Maybe I should back off, stop myself from telling him the truth—that I know. But all of this pain—his pain—swells through me, so powerful that I feel like my skin is going to burst open. That featherlike wound on my wrist begins to throb, too, and when I glance down at it, the flesh is splitting open, blood weeping from the wound. It was healed enough this morning that I took the bandage off. Maybe it wasn’t ready for that, though. Or maybe it was. Maybe ripping it open is exactly what I was supposed to do.

Just do it.

Dragging this out will get you nowhere.

You can’t help him unless you tell him.

Tell him the truth.

“I know,” I say.

A crease forms between his brows. “Know what?”

I stab my fingernails into my flesh until that’s the only pain I feel. But why is this so painful? Because I feel like I’m about to open an old wound of his?

“I know what happened to you … How you … died.”

“That … That never happened,” he chokes out, that pain inside him amplifying.

I suck in a deep breath. “Kings, I know it did, and I want to help you. But before all that, I need to tell you something important.”