Tess is furious about my being late to fifth period. Apparently, the automated system that calls parents when students are marked as absent goes off about ten minutes into class, sending a text message to the number on file. I, unfortunately, was fifteen minutes late.

Between retrieving my panties, combing my hair with my fingers, and picking grass off my uniform, I’m lucky I made it to class at all. I sat there shaky and disoriented and completely uninterested in anything but the memory of what I’d just done.

Now here I am sitting in Chasm’s sportscar—in the backseat by choice—and wishing that Kimber wasn’t chattering away in the front. Chas gets us all drinks at a drive-thru, his eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror every so often to search for me.

I find that it’s hard to look at him, so I don’t return the favor, staring down at my phone and trying to figure out a way to sort of … let the Slayer know what happened in a way that implies that I’m not aware that he couldn’t see us in the maze.

Are you happy now? That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

Being honest can’t hurt in this scenario, so I let some of that raw anger flow through me.

You’ve turned me into a cheater. Like father, like daughter, I guess.

The words fly off the tips of my fingers before I can rethink the strategy in actively insulting the man who holds Parrish’s life in his hands. Fortunately, it seems to work well enough.

Has your mother mentioned what happened between us? he asks, and then in comes a request for a video chat.

Fuck.

No!

“Pull over!” I snap, and Chasm startles a bit, jerking the wheel a little as he overcorrects, and then steers us to the side of the road. My seatbelt is off and I’m scrambling for the driver’s side door as Chasm moves out of the way to let me out. “Keep Kimber occupied,” I whisper, stumbling away from the car and answering the call.

Parrish is sitting on the edge of the bed, a bottle of wine in one hand. I’m not sure how he got the cork out, but he lifts it to his lips and swigs some of it as I watch. He seems marginally better today, but it’s impossible to miss the mess that his chest has become. It’s a bloody swath of scars, some of them oozing, some of them dark with scabs.

His beautiful brown eyes are dull and glassy, and the wine bottle seems to weigh about a million pounds as he lifts it to his lush, full lips. As if he can sense me watching him, Parrish lifts his gaze up to the camera. My breath catches and my eyes shimmer with unshed tears.

I betrayed him in the worst possible way today.

I’ve become one of the things I hate the most in the world: a cheater.

With that slow, lazy indolence that I’ve come to love and expect, Parrish lifts a single tattooed hand and flips off the camera.

“Go fuck yourself, you stupid, cowardly prick,” he growls out, throwing the wine bottle at the wall so hard that it shatters. Parrish turns around and crawls back into the bed, yanking the covers over his head to obscure himself from view.

The call ends, and I’m left sitting there on the side of the road, staring at a dark screen.

Chasm comes over after a few minutes to check on me.

“She isn’t an easy one to fool, I’ll give her that,” he offers, crouching down beside me. “Were you able to … did it work?”

Did it work? That’s what it is now, an ‘it’, an experiment. That’s what it has to be, in order for either of us to keep feeling human. We can’t admit that we had a hot fuck, and that we both loved it, and that I’m wondering what it wouldn’t be like to fall asleep in the warm circle of Chasm’s arms.

“You’re lucky,” I whisper, using the passing traffic as cover for our conversation. The very last thing in the world I need to do is piss Kimber off today. She’s vicious on her best days. On her worst? I don’t even want to know. “You might not need to have sex with me ever again.”

Chasm doesn’t respond to that, and I rush to fill the silence, just to make sure that he doesn’t get the opportunity.

“Parrish looks much better. He was up and moving around, drinking a bottle of wine.” I almost smile at that, but the expression just slides right off. “He even flipped the camera off and threw the bottle against the wall.”

Chas lets out a sharp exhale and groans in relief. The sound is far too similar to the ones he made with me in the maze, and I shift uncomfortably.

“Thank fuck,” he murmurs, rising to his feet and helping me up again. This time, he doesn’t yank quite so hard on my hand, and I don’t end up falling into his chest. Still, his hand lingers on mine until I very carefully draw it back, cradling it against my chest. Chas frowns at me, looking me over for a moment. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He hesitates briefly, looking back at the car to make sure that Kimber’s still occupied with her phone before turning back to me. “Because you seem … off.”

I give him a look.

“I cheated on Parrish today, Chas. I … He’s sitting in a fucking torture chamber waiting to be rescued, and I screwed his best friend.”

Chas’ nostrils flare and a muscle in his jaw ticks with anger. I notice him clenching and unclenching his hands by his sides. His eyes take me in with an entirely different glint than before.

“Is that really it?” he asks as I gape at him.

“What do you mean is that really it ? It’s everything, Chasm. You said it yourself: it’s beyond fucked-up.”

He exhales, making his yellow and black hair flutter a bit against his forehead.

“I get that. I do. But what else were we going to do? Let Parrish die for propriety’s sake?” Chasm takes a step closer to me, but I don’t have anywhere to back up seeing as I’m not at all interested in stepping into traffic and getting hit by a car. “I’d rather he were alive and heartbroken than sliced up and dumped in a field.”

I cringe a little at that. I know Chasm’s right. I do. We did what needed to be done. That isn’t the part that I’m upset about.

I decide to tell him that.

“Did we have any other valid option? No. But I …” I start, pausing and jogging back over to the car. I lean into the backseat, stuffing my phone into the pocket of my book bag. Kimber gives me an odd look, but I haven’t exactly decided how to explain this whole thing just yet.

I move back over to Chasm, grabbing his hand and drawing him away from the road and closer to the fence that lines a green field to my right.

“We didn’t bring any phones with us to the maze,” I explain, and he blinks at me. The thing is, he’s just as smart as I am. Smarter, actually. Our minds work a little differently sometimes, but in general, he’s the cleverer of the two of us. He’ll see where I’m going with this. “Oh, and also … we forgot the heart pin on my bag, the one that’s a camera.”

He stands there for a second, putting the pieces together.

“How did you figure that one out?” he starts, and I sigh, reaching up to rub at my face. We should really get going. Like I said, Tess is furious about me being late to fifth period. Speaking of periods, I told her that I started mine and bled everywhere and that’s why I was tardy. She seemed to accept that readily enough, but she’s not happy with me.

I give Chasm a quick rundown of my ideas on the heart pin and why I believe what I do about it. He listens carefully, and then clenches his jaw in understanding.

“We didn’t give the Slayer proof that we followed his instructions,” Chasm offers, and then he sighs heavily. “How did you convince him otherwise?”

“I played dumb,” I explain, shrugging my shoulders and then slipping my hands into the pockets of my blazer, as if this moment isn’t one of the most significant ones of my entire life. “I basically asked him if he enjoyed turning me into a cheater.” I look down at the toes of my shiny dress shoes. “He bought it.” Keeping my attention on the ground, I do my best to explain myself to Chasm. He deserves to understand the situation from my point of view. “I’m glad it worked, but if we were really doing that just for Parrish, I should’ve been more aware of the situation. Instead, I let myself get lost in you.”

Chasm says nothing. In fact, he goes completely still; I think he might even be holding his breath.

When he finally does release it, there’s an agony in the sound that I didn’t quite expect.

I force my eyes up to meet his gaze.

“Parrish is … he’s a good person,” Chasm explains, putting his own hands in his blazer pockets and mimicking my pose. “It makes sense that you chose him. I just can’t help wanting what I want, Dakota. I don’t even give a shit that I’m second place. Somehow, that doesn’t matter.”

I shake my head violently, because I can’t allow him to believe that, not for a single second.

“He was the person I met first, that’s the only difference, the only thing standing between him and you. I care about you both the same. I realized that even before I slept with him.”

Chasm closes his eyes and lets his head fall back. My eyes are drawn to the strong column of his throat, the lip piercings on either side of his full mouth, and his hair as it catches the sunlight and glimmers blue-black. My entire chest feels tight; it hurts.

“We might be following orders, but I like it too much. That’s the problem. Not you. Not what we did. Just … Parrish.”

He drops his chin back down and opens his eyes to look at me.

“If you keep talking to me like that, Dakota Banks, I’m going to forget that this is all for show.”

Chasm takes off for his car, and I follow along.

“What the hell was that all about?” Kimber asks as I climb in, and Chasm readjusts his seat.

“It was Lumen,” I say, and then I leave it at that. Kimber knows that I had my ass kicked. Every student in Whitehall knows. That seems to satisfy her enough to get her to leave me alone.

I check my phone again, and then stare out the window, my mind straying back to Parrish.

I promised I’d do anything to save him. At this point, I’ve gone too far to turn back now.

I’ll keep forging ahead until he’s here, and he’s holding me, and then I can tell him everything that happened.

Hopefully, he can find it in his heart to forgive us.

In a strange twist of fate, I actually do start my period in the car on the way back. By the time I climb out of Chasm’s backseat, I really am bleeding down my legs.

Chas pauses, cocking his head to the side and staring at me.

“This has nothing to do with …” he whispers, trailing off. I give him a very dark sort of look.

“Coincidence.”

At the very least, when I walk inside and Tess appears to confront me, she looks down at the redness on my pale legs and blushes profusely.

“Oh goodness,” she breathes, and then her eyes flick to Chasm. He keeps his gaze steadfastly focused on anything but me. “You should get upstairs and clean up.” Tess gives a soft smile, directing the expression Chasm’s way. “I’m so sorry, Chasm. I know how boys feel about periods.”

My eye twitches, but I’m not in the mood for a feminist rant right now.

“Oh, it’s so icky,” Chasm drawls, and I clench my jaw. I’m going to punch him in the balls later, mark my words. I take off up the stairs as quickly as I can, in such a hurry that I actually slam right into Maxx. He steadies me with those big, calloused hands on my shoulders, his gaze drifting down immediately to the blood that even now is dripping on the floor.

“Oh shit,” he says, and I groan, pushing past him and locking myself in my bathroom to clean up.

This is … well, it’s a fantastic sort of day. Not only did I cheat on my kidnapped boyfriend, but I also managed to include Chasm and Maxx in the ‘hot guys I’m crushing on who’ve seen my period’ list.

Even though it’s a totally normal process that every girl has to go through, it doesn’t mean I enjoy having them watch me bleed all over the floor.

I wash up, insert a tampon, and then change into sweats and a tank top, fetching a roll of paper towels from under the sink before heading out to clean up the blood. Chasm and Maxx are both waiting for me, sitting on the edge of my bed together.

What a pair they make.

My heart skips strangely, and my breath catches. It’s not a usual sight, to see two Instagram model worthy boys cuddled up on one’s bed. If only Parrish were here, I’d probably suffer a heart attack and die.

“I cleaned it up already,” Chasm offers casually, tilting his head to one side as I stand there with the paper towels in hand. My heart starts up again, but the beats are coming much more quickly than they should, almost frantic. That feeling of free-falling sweeps over me again.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I whisper, and he gives me one of his sultry bad boy smiles, the ones he affects while lounging casually against lockers in the hallway, watching over Parrish and, apparently, me.

“You know how boys feel about periods ,” he retorts, and I narrow my eyes, chucking the paper towels at him. Annoyingly enough, he catches them between his palms and sets them aside. Maxx looks between the two of us with a quizzical expression on his face.

I feel suddenly terrified that he might find out what happened between me and Chasm.

Then, of course, I realize that we sort of have to tell Maxx. He can’t help if he doesn’t know the full story. My eyes drift over to his, and he turns back to me, as if he can sense me watching him. He give me an easy, confident smile, like the hero to Chasm’s villainous smirk.

“Anything interesting happen today?” I ask it first, so that I can have time to get myself together.

“Well, first off, I’m pretty sure that GG is a boy,” X offers up, leaning back on the bed on his palms. He’s wearing another wifebeater today. This one’s white, and it strains across his broad chest in a way that’s disturbingly distracting. Not to mention it leaves both of his arms bare, his thick biceps and corded forearms exposed.

“How do you figure that?” Chasm asks, slipping out of his blazer and then reaching down to unbutton the top few buttons of his dress shirt. As he goes to do so, he realizes that a few are already undone and the rest are crooked. His eyes lift up to mine, and I swallow past a lump of anxiety.

“He tried to hump me for one,” Maxx starts, and I let out a snorting laugh, clamping a hand over my mouth. Chasm gives me a look, one that’s absolutely dripping with innuendo. Like I humped you today? That’s what I imagine he’s saying, but maybe I’m just a crazy person. “Second, he sprayed the inside of his cage and also quite a few of Parrish’s hardcover books in the process.”

“He’s going to be so fucking pissed when he gets back,” Chasm says with a sharp grin, but then the expression freezes on his face and slides right off, leaving him with a pained grimace instead. “Fuck.”

Maxx exhales and sits up, trying to move past the sickening sadness that’s just permeated the room. He forces another pretty smile.

“Anyway, I looked it up. It’s possible that GG’s a girl, and still doing those things, but it’s far more likely that he’s … well, he’s a he.”

“Isn’t it, like, obvious?” Chasm asks, giving Maxx a side eye.

“How so?” X queries back, turning to look at his friend. The way they’re sitting and staring at each other reminds me of Parrish, that easy, comfortable friendship the three of them share. It’s something I thought I had with Sally and Nevaeh back home, but I’ll be honest: I don’t think that anymore. Not only could they not be bothered to return my texts or resist dating my crush, but I highly doubt my old besties would ever load a dead maid into the back of their sportscar and dump it off at a rapist’s house in order to save me.

“How so? Man, don’t make me say it. Does the rabbit have a dick?”

“Were you home all day with GG? Did you do an online search on how to sex a rabbit? It isn’t as easy as it sounds, and I’m not fucking doing it.” Maxx turns back to me, his eyes dropping to my chest before lifting back to my face. I know that I’m blushing. He knows it. I have no idea why because we’re talking about freaking rabbits here, but …

I did screw Kwang-seon McKenna in a hedge maze today, so my mind is in the gutter.

“Well, whatever. Your rabbit, your problem,” Chasm says with another smirk. The expression doesn’t reach his eyes, but that’s okay. We’re all trying our best here.

“So, what about you two?” Maxx asks, standing up and moving over to the desk. He’s already brought his laptop in here, sitting down in the desk chair in front of it. I wet my lower lip and glance over at Chasm. It isn’t like we didn’t know that the Slayer could watch us through tech, but at least now we know he’s been watching us another way.

“Let’s go see the bunny,” I suggest lightly, grabbing Maxx by the arm. His eyes drop down to my fingers on his bicep, and he cringes slightly, so subtly that I might not have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it. He stands up in just such a way that he dislodges my grip without being obvious about it.

Much to his surprise, I actually reach my hand into his sweats pocket and snatch his phone, chucking it on the desk beside the laptop.

You’d think I straight-up punched the guy.

“What are you doing?” he asks me, his tone of voice a subtle warning.

I ignore him. I do not have the headspace to deal with … whatever this is.

“Just shut up and show us the rabbit,” Chasm snaps, tossing his own phone onto my nightstand. We head into Parrish’s room, and I take a quick moment to comb over it, searching for a spare iPad, a Kindle, whatever. I have no idea how extreme the Slayer’s hacking skills are, but I’m not willing to risk it.

“We found a hidden camera,” I blurt as soon as Maxx closes Parrish’s door. With his back to me, I can see the edges of those angel wings tattoos peeking out near his shoulders. He turns around to look at me with his brow raised. The thing is, to explain this, I have to … explain everything.

“We had sex today,” Chasm adds unhelpfully, sitting on the edge of the bed and yanking one of his dress shoes off.

If I were Tess, I would describe Maxx’s face like this: The world was rended and remade in an instant. Everything he knew became dark, twisted, like a clone of the life he once lived but one that was birthed wholly from shadows. He understood that his friends had little other choice, but he did not envy them the heavy decision that they’d had to make.

I bite my lower lip and X notices, his nostrils flaring slightly.

“I assume there’s good reason for that?” he asks very, very carefully.

This somehow feels as difficult a conversation as the future one I’ll need to have with Parrish, as if the stakes are that high. When we went hiking, Maxx confided in me that he was a virgin. At the time, so was I, a fact that I also chose to blurt out.

“The Slayer demanded I act on my feelings for Dakota,” Chasm says, wording the story in just such a way that he really does come across as the villain. He glances casually up at Maxx and then shrugs. “And that she allow me to do so.”

“And you thought fucking during the school day was the prime place to start?” Maxx asks with a harsh, dry laugh. He reaches up with his right hand and rakes his fingers through his wavy hair, his eyes closed in frustration. To be quite frank, he looks like he’s within an inch of losing his shit.

“We tried kissing,” I start, rushing to explain before Chasm makes this any harder for me. “But we were in the bathroom, and the Slayer still knew about it. Well, there aren’t any cameras in there, Chas didn’t have his phone, and mine was buried inside my pocket. We never spoke aloud about what exactly we were doing. Yet he knew anyway. Then I remembered the circumstances of how I actually got the heart pin: someone left me a note that said princess and then tucked it in my drawer. Tess never brought it up, and she certainly never calls me princess. It was the Slayer. That fucking pin is a camera.”

“That’s a pretty big jump of logic to make,” X says, opening his eyes. They bore into me, demanding the truth. Is there something to it, like in the shape of his eyes? The pretty soft striations of moss and billiard green in his irises? Or is that citrusy, grassy smell of his like a truth serum?

“Maybe. But it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Let’s just assume that all tech—and that stupid heart pin—are his eyes.” I’m doing my best to steer the subject away from the actual ‘having sex’ portion of the equation, and luckily, it seems to be working.

“There could be cameras all over this room,” Maxx explains, gesturing loosely with his hand. “All over the house. It’s clear that the Slayer has no problem getting in and out of this place without being seen and without triggering the alarm.” He lifts up an arm toward me in placating gesture. “But I do agree that the pin could be a spy cam; he can’t possibly plug the entire world with hidden cameras.”

“It’s too late now,” Chasm says, unbuttoning his dress shirt the rest of the way and tossing it aside. Without breaking stride, he rises to his feet and moves past me, his right arm brushing across my back and making me shiver. I glance over to see Chas prowling through the top drawer of Parrish’s dresser.

He goes still all of a sudden, curling his fingers around the edge of the drawer and closing his eyes. His inked body is rigid, his muscles stiff with tension.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he says all of a sudden, letting his head hang down. “I just need a minute.”

I find myself rooted to the spot, gazing at Chasm’s back and wishing I could go to him, throw my arms around him, hug him close and promise that everything’s going to be okay. But there are no cameras in here—at least, I don’t think so—and that means I’d be holding Chasm just for me. For him. And it would have nothing to do with Parrish.

“It is too late,” X agrees softly, some of the anger leaking from his face. “But we haven’t broken any rules. If the Slayer knows we’ve discovered his camera, what does it matter? He’s actively challenging us to plot against him; it’s what he seems to want.”

Chasm returns to life like he’s been kicked. He slams the drawer back into place so hard that the dresser—luckily not the one that GG’s cage is resting on—wobbles like it might fall over.

“You’re going to yell at me,” Chasm accuses, turning some of that anger and frustration onto Maxx. The latter raises one chocolate colored brow.

“Yell at you? Not while Dakota’s present,” Maxx says, and that really does it. Chasm curls his lip up in a snarl and moves over to Parrish’s nightstand, stealing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter before climbing out onto the roof to smoke in nothing but his academy-issued slacks.

“Don’t provoke him like that; he doesn’t deserve it,” I say, giving X my harshest glare. I try to borrow a little from Maxine. Since he’s dating her, he must be somewhat familiar with that look she gives when other people are being total dicks. “What happened today was hard on both of us.”

“Doesn’t look hard enough on him,” X says, turning away from me and sliding his hands into his pockets. He stares at the rabbit instead of me.

“Can he help it if he has feelings for me when he isn’t supposed to?” I snap, and only when Maxx turns very, very slowly around to look at me do I realize the words that have left my mouth. “It isn’t like he wanted to act on them. I mean, he did. But he wouldn’t have without …” I just trail off because all I’m doing right now is making word salad. Sucking in a deep breath, I try to collect myself. “He—”

“He is sitting right here,” Chasm says, turning around to put his feet in through the window. He slouches over, the same old tattooed asshole I saw from the very beginning. “Dakota and I have a thing. Parrish and I even talked about it. You know I’d never fucking betray you guys”—I get a small thrill at the term you guys because it sure as hell feels like I’m included in that—“but my choices were to let him die or screw his girl. If our positions were reversed, do you know what I’d say? Go to town, bro.”

“Go to town, bro ?” Maxx repeats, looking back at his friend and shaking his head. “I know you far too well to believe that shit.” X lifts a hand from his pocket and points at me. “When he gets back, the two of you are going to fight over this girl and butt horns like mountain goats or some shit.”

Chasm just stares at his friend, but he doesn’t deny the statement. His eyes drift over to me, and chills break out across my body. Somehow, I don’t think that Maxx is right. Chasm is too … he’s as self-sacrificial as Parrish and me, maybe more so, but only when it comes to certain people.

Parrish, of course, being one of them.

“I also get a say in this, by the way,” I remind them, moving over to GG’s cage and taking him out to cuddle. I press a kiss to the bunny’s soft head and his nose twitches.

“Maxx is just cranky because he’s missing his girlfriend,” Chas snaps out, taking a drag on the cigarette and leaning out the window to blow smoke into the wind.

Tension snaps taut in the room as Maxx turns his gaze down to the floor beneath his bare feet. He looks like he might be physically ill.

“Maxine and I broke up,” he growls out, and then he turns and throws open the bedroom door so hard that it slams into the wall. My eyes go wide, and I flick a glance back at Chasm. He’s staring at the doorway with a frown on his pretty lips.

“Is that cigarette smoke that I smell up here?” Tess’ voice rings out, and now Chasm’s eyes are just as wide as mine. He’s snarling in Korean and stabbing the cigarette out in the ashtray, shoving it to the side and climbing in the window as quickly as he can. He slams the window closed and then snatches up a can of body spray, soaking himself with it and chucking it aside just before Tess appears in the doorway.

She stares at us, standing in her missing son’s room together. Him, shirtless. Me, holding a bunny. That’s what saves us, I think. The rabbit. We couldn’t possibly be having sex while I’m cuddling our new pet.

“I believe I specifically asked the two of you not to be alone together,” she starts, frowning hard as she looks between us. My cheeks and chest flush red, but I don’t know how to respond to that. All this time, poor Chas has been taking shit for something he never did. Now that we’ve actually, you know, done it, I’m even less sure how I should react. “Any news?” Tess sounds tired and hopeless at this point.

Part of me aches to tell her the truth, to let her know that Parrish is okay, that he’s actually looking much better today than he did two days ago. I … it looked like he might actually die that day. I choke on my own feelings and look down at the bunny, shaking my head slightly.

“Nothing,” Chasm says, and I hear Tess sigh tiredly.

“Please put on a shirt, Kwang-seon,” she admonishes, but there’s no bite to her words. No fire. It’s easy to be hopeful on day two or three or even seven or eight. But day twelve? Things aren’t looking good. “Your father’s agreed to let you stay until Sunday, but I will kick you out if I suspect that anything is going on.”

Tess turns and leaves, and we hear her office door close just a few seconds later.

Chasm glances over at me.

“At least if I’m going to get chewed out over this, I’m getting some.”

“Really?” I snap, putting the bunny back in his cage, and then turning to head back into my room. He follows me, even though he was just warned against exactly that. Chasm shoves my door closed and then flicks the lock.

My sister broke up with X? Why? Or did he break up with her?

Based on Maxx’s reaction, it’s clear that he doesn’t want to talk about it right now. I just hope it doesn’t have anything to do with … me.

“Why are you shirtless and in my room?” I ask, pausing next to the desk and looking down at Maxx’s laptop. I should get back online, make another video, another plea. Keep searching for clues in the comments. My eyes slide to one side, catching on the cover of Fleeing Under a Summer Rain, the book that Tess says is entirely fictional.

The one where a girl murders her abusive father. I reach out and tug it off the shelf. Flipping through, I try to remember some of the events in the novel, searching for some grain of truth in it. I might have to reread this, just to see.

What if there are clues here?

All of a sudden, Chasm is standing right behind me. I can feel him. I ache for him.

My eyes close and goose bumps spring up all over my exposed flesh.

He takes his hands and then runs them just a hairsbreadth above my skin, trailing down my arms and then stopping with his fingers just barely grazing my hips.

I turn around suddenly which I don’t think he expected and use the book as a shield between us.

His amber eyes are dark as he studies me before taking a step back.

“What do you want me to do tonight?” he asks, turning away and acting like he didn’t almost just grab me. “How can I help?”

I swallow hard and do my best to shake off the throbbing ache between my thighs. It seems impossible that we actually, like, fucked each other at school today. It’s weird. I won’t lie.

“Why don’t we take a look at the skeleton key?” I offer up, moving past him to set the book on my nightstand. I go to withdraw the key from the drawer and Parrish’s drawing falls out, the one with the green rose on it.

Chasm reads the note over my shoulder, speaking Parrish’s words aloud.

“I know I told you to think about what you wanted, but here’s an idea to get you started. Roses are a symbol of forbidden love. Also, it’s the state flower for New York. Thought you’d appreciate that. ” He finishes and then curses, stepping away from me. When I turn to look at him, he seems like he might be on the verge of puking.

I fold the note back up and press it against my chest, using my other hand to withdraw the skeleton key. Turning it over in my fingers, I look for markings and see a faintly stamped symbol near the bow-like shape at the base of the key.

“Let’s work on identifying this,” I say, feeling queasy at the faint scent of blood that surrounds the key. I’m aware that it’s made of iron, that I’m not actually smelling blood, but I can’t seem to escape it. Whether it’s a dead maid, a murdered rapist, Parrish’s naked chest, or my goddamn period, I can’t seem to get a break from the stuff. “This could be big for us.”

Looking back at Chasm, I watch as he visibly tries to extricate himself from more personal thoughts. Believe me, if I could, I’d lay in bed beside him all night and talk. More than talk, probably. But we can’t do that. Only the bare minimum to satisfy the Slayer.

Speaking of …

I snatch my phone off the nightstand as it begins to buzz and find myself staring down at the newest text.

You still haven’t learned your lesson. I asked you to be honest with yourself, to take what you deserve. Instead, you’re still too wrapped up in your head. Princess, you will never be truly free or truly happy while you cater to the whims of others.

Then again, perhaps I don’t know the true whims of your heart. I was wrong once. Maybe Parrish is simply not enough motivation? We’ll see, come Sunday.

My blood chills as I put the phone down.

“Anything?” Chasm asks, voice strangely hopeful. I pass the phone over to him and then take a seat at Maxx’s computer. This key is our best shot right now.

I grab my lime-green headset from one of the desk drawers and connect the Bluetooth to the laptop. Shaking my hair out, I plaster a smile on my face and start another live video.

“So, who likes to play with antiques?” I ask.