“It’s ok. I’m fine here,” he tells me, and his tone is strong, and his heart is brave. This is why I love him.

I love him.

I love him.

I love him because he’s strong, because he’s rebellious, because he’s so serious and sweet and because he lives free now. He lives free even if no one knows it yet but me.

“When will they let you come home?” I ask hesitantly, because even now, I know that I have to go. Finn’s probably beside himself. They’re probably combing the estate for me, and once Jones calls them… all is lost. They won’t let me out of their sight again for a month.

“Probably tomorrow,” he promises, and for a split second, there’s warmth there, in his tone, in his eyes. He looks at me and he sees me. No one else does… no one but Finn.

Everyone else sees who I could be.

Who I might be.

Who I should be.

They don’t see who I am.

But Finn does. And Dare does.

It makes me feel closer to them than anyone else in the world.

“Go,” Dare urges me. His phone is ringing and I know who it is. I know it before he even answers it.

“She was here,” he confirms into the mouthpiece. “But she’s on her way home now. I wanted her to come. It was my fault.” His eyes burn into mine, and I shake my head because why is he taking the blame? He’s protecting me yet again.

He nods to me, toward the door, his attention still with Eleanor who I know is on the other end of that call.

Go, he mouths to me. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Reluctantly, I make my feet move away from him.

I don’t want to leave him alone, because I know what alone feels like.

But I have no choice. If I don’t, they’ll come get me, because we’re all prisoners. Prisoners of expectations, prisoners of responsibility, prisoners of life.

But someday… I’ll live free, just like Dare.

I don’t even glance at Jones when he opens my car door.

“I know you called them,” I grumble.

“You lied to me,” he says quietly as he climbs into the front. I don’t have an answer to that. Because it’s true. I did lie.

When I get back to Whitley, everyone is so relieved, everyone but Finn. After dinner, he glares at me when we’re in the privacy of the empty library.

“You could’ve told me,” he says stiffly. “I would’ve gone with you. I care about him, too.”

Not like me, you don’t. But obviously I don’t say that. Finn made his opinion known long ago and he’s said it many times since. You can’t love Dare. But he’s wrong. I can, and I do.

“I didn’t want you to get in trouble,” I tell him, which is only partially true. I wanted to see Dare alone.

Finn doesn’t believe me because he knows me. He knows me better than anyone. When he walks me back to my room, he touches my elbow at my door.

“You’ve got to behave. Eleanor will talk mom into leaving you here with Sabine all year long. Or worse. Is that what you want?”

“No, of course not,” I say quickly, because the idea of being separated from Finn makes my heart constrict and pound in terror. But at the same time, the idea of being here with Dare makes it soar.

I’m a contradiction, an endless, endless contradiction.

Finn is pacified and we say goodnight and he sleeps in his own room tonight, because he doesn’t know how unsettled I am, and how I don’t know why.

I can’t settle in, and I can’t settle down.

My blood is rush, rush, rushing through my veins, through my heart, pounding through my temples, and my feet itch to run, run, run away… down the halls, out the doors and away from this house.

But of course I don’t.

I stay glued to my bed like I’m tied down, like the invisible manacles are real. I ignore my racing thoughts and twitching fingers.

It’s a few minutes later when the screaming starts, echoing down the hallways and through the night, and I get goose-bumps because I have a startling realization.

Dare is in the hospital, not here.

The screaming has never been his.

I’m confused, shocked, unsettled.

I focus on the wailing, on the shrieks, and I ponder life here at Whitley. Nothing is what it seems, I guess. I’m not sure who I can trust, who I can’t.

The screams finally dwindle, then die out, and I’m able to relax, my muscles sinking into my sheets.

Nothing is what it seems, and I know nothing.

All I know for sure is that Dare is an outcast, frowned upon by everyone, and I hate that. It’s unfair. If I could change that, I would. Because Dare deserves the moon and the stars and everything in between.

Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll somehow figure out a way to change it.

I fall asleep with my teeth gritted together. I relax my body, and focus on Dare. I focus on what the family would be like if he hadn’t been born into it, if he was safe somewhere else.

I love him enough to want that for him, even if it means he’d be gone from me.

The thought of being apart from him breaks my heart into jagged shards, but the thought of him laughing and running through a loving home, a home where he is appreciated, puts the shards back together.

He deserves that.

He does.

When I wake in the morning, I eye everyone with suspicion at breakfast.

I’ve always thought Dare was screaming, that Richard was hurting him in the night, that everyone was closing their eyes to it, turning their backs on what was happening.

But if that’s not the case, and thank God, then what is happening here?

My mother quietly picks at her breakfast and I shove my food around my plate, ignoring Finn’s concerned stares and my grandmother’s coldness.

My grandmother’s fingers are like spiders, long and thin, as they curl around her water glass. Her eyes are steel as she looks at me over the rim. I look away. At the wall, at the table, at my own arm. At anything but her cold eyes.

I trace the outline of the vein on my wrist as it throbs against my skin, my life’s blood pulse, pulse, pulsing through me. The blood is blue, the blood is red, the blood is mine. I stare at the skin, at the bump, at the vein. It bends with my arm, it caves when I move, it--

“Calla?”

My mother interrupts my thoughts and I yank my attention from my arm to my mother.

“Yes?”

“Don’t stray too far today,” she instructs, and something is troubled on her face. Something disturbs her perfect features.

Something.

Something.

What is it?

“Will Jones pick up Dare today?” I ask her as she sets her glass on the table. My mother clears her throat a little and Eleanor is still.

My grandmother stares pointedly at me and my heart speeds up. Why aren’t they answering?

“You should rest today, Calla,” Eleanor finally answers, without acknowledging my question. My mother clears her throat again, a small and strange sound. It causes the hackles to rise on my neck, because something is

wrong

wrong

wrong.

“Is Dare coming home today?” I ask again, more firmly this time, and this time directed at my mother. She stares at her eggs for a long time before meeting my gaze.

“You need to rest today, my love. You’ve been wearing yourself out.”

Her face is expressionless and odd, and panic starts to rise in me like a wave, a wave that threatens to overtake me and pull me under.

“I’m fine,” I manage to utter. “I’m fine.”

My mother nods and Finn reaches for my hand beneath the table. He squeezes my fingers lightly, then harder. Our silent signal to let things drop. He wants me to let it…Dare?...drop.

No.

Never.

I turn to my grandmother. “Will Dare be here for dinner?”

Finn is squeezing my fingers hard enough to cut off circulation, but I ignore it. I focus on the faces in this room, the treacherous, treacherous faces.

I can hear shoes scraping on the floor, silver scratching porcelain plates, light breathing. I count my breaths.