Savage Little Lies by Eden O’Neill

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Dorian

I drove around for over two hours looking for Sloane.

She never went back home.

I knew because I waited outside her house after I went after her. I’d been quick, but by the time I’d gotten into my car, she’d already peeled off into Wolf’s neighborhood.

And I hadn’t been the only one to go after her.

Wolf had taken Wells’s car. Probably because we’d all been parked outside of his house. I saw him handling our buddy for his keys through my rearview mirror, and he got them because he wasn’t that far behind me. We’d both gone after Sloane, my mind straight trippin’ about that. 

None of this made any fucking sense.

I didn’t know the story. Why she’d left, but Wolf clearly had done something. I lost him during the search and never did find Sloane. Like stated, she never came home, and during my search,I’d been trying to call my buddy to pick up the goddamn phone.

I blew his phone the fuck up but with no answer, and when I tracked it, I realized why. The tracking app I had showed his phone was still at his house, which meant he’d left it.

How had the night turned into this?

We were supposed to tell Sloane things tonight. I was supposed to tell Sloane things tonight. It was long past due time that she knew about my grandfather, but I’d been hesitant. She’d just been starting to trust me again and…

Wolf had been in my ear for what felt like forever about it. He didn’t like keeping her in the dark and thought she could actually help us. She could if she believed us, believed me, but I wasn’t nearly as confident as him. She still didn’t trust me. Even after everything and me trying to show her every day that she could.

I’d only fucked up everything more by telling her I loved her, and that hadn’t been a part of the plan at all. I kept blowing up our fucking plans, and if my grandfather had eyes on her, he definitely knew she wasn’t just a lay for me. She was my girl, mine.

The only thing my friends and I could do now was tell her everything and hope to fucking God she’d be receptive to what was still just theories. We knew my grandfather was moving here, and with Sloane’s father working for him in the past, that connected Sloane to my grandfather in a chilling way. My grandfather loved chess, and Sloane and her brother felt like the perfect pieces. He virtually owned them. He could do anything he wanted with them, and he was a man who had a propensity for some dark shit. My grandfather and his possibilities were endless, and what was worse, he had an edge over me. He had looked out for Sloane. He had her trust, and I was the guy who’d pushed her away.

It didn’t matter that she knew I loved her.

I knew that as well, as I’d been driving around town looking for her tonight. I’d called her too, of course, texted her, but she didn’t get back to me. Whatever had happened with her and Wolf had freaked her out, but she hadn’t come to me. She hadn’t waited for me to help when she should have been able to, and if that didn’t tell me all I needed to know about her trust in me, I didn’t know what did.

I had no time for pride at the present. I just wanted to fucking find her. In our group chat, Wells and Thatcher told me they’d been looking for her. They’d taken Bow, and everyone was out scouring the city. They hit up the school and several parks, and in all this, Wolf remained silent in the chat.

He hadn’t texted back, not fucking once,so when I finally did hear something, I was goddamn fucking surprised.

Wolf: We need to meet up. Where are you?

It was like I saw red in that moment, my own trust fucking limited. He was making it really hard to hold faith in him, and the only reason I had a semblance of it was because the last time I’d questioned him, I had been in the wrong.

I sat up in my seat, parked outside Sloane’s house. I’d come back around to her house after my circulation of her neighborhood. I wanted to stay close in case she came back.

Me: Sloane’s.

Wolf: I’ll meet you there.

He’d texted back in seconds, and by the time he did get there, I was out in the street. I had my jacket off, pacing, but I wasn’t going to handle things like I had in the past. It wouldn’t come to blows with my friend, but that had nothing to do with him.

I’d made Sloane a promise. I was trying for Sloane. I wouldn’t let my anger take hold of me.

But that didn’t mean it made it easy to look at him.

When Ares got out of the car, Wells’s car, he didn’t immediately come over. He had his hands to his mouth, his eyes fucking wild, and though I stopped pacing, he started.

He didn’t stop.

“I fucked up, D,” he started with, working his hands. He braced them on his arms like that was the only thing he could do to keep from messing with them. “I fucked up so bad, man.”

“How?” My fists tightened, my throat the same. “What happened and where were you?”

“I was out looking for her, but I can’t find her.” He breathed into his hands. “She found it all.”

“Found what?”

“It all.” He glanced my way, shaking his head. “She knows I’ve been recording her. That we’ve been recording inside her house. She found one of the DVDs from the camera I put in to watch for your grandfather.”

I closed my eyes.

“I kept it in my dad’s studio since he never goes in there.” He swallowed. “She found it all, D. The screenshots from the surveillance. The folder I made for her and her brother. I don’t know what all she saw in there, but she’s at least seen the photos. She threw them at me before she ran off.”

He’d created a docket for them, notes and stuff he’d actually started before I’d come back to town. He really had been trying to get to the bottom of things with Sloane and her brother back then, and anything he found, he’d kept in there.

Of course after I came back, Thatcher had taken over the case. He’d made a digital file, but Wolf still kept the hard copies at his house. He said they’d be safe there.

I put my fists to my mouth.

“But it’s not just that.”

I panned, my friend coming over after what he said.

“It’s so bad, Dorian,” he said, his swallow hard. “She found my sketches.”

My eyes narrowed. “What?”

“She found my sketches, bro.” He raised and dropped his hands. “And now, she thinks I’m stalking her. She thinks I’m a fucking freak—”

“What sketches, Ares?” I scanned for his eyes, but they averted. I braced his arms. “Ares.”

He stared off, his eyes fucking haunted. “I couldn’t help it.” He pressed a fist to his mouth. “She was in my thoughts all the time.”

What the fuck?

“Ares?” My brow lifted. “Buddy… what are you talking about?”

“I drew her,” he confessed, making me blink. He cringed. “I drew her a lot, and she found all that.”

“What do you mean she was in your thoughts all the time?” I asked, and he wouldn’t look at me again. I made him. “Bro, you better fucking talk to me.”

The words cracked, broken and goddamn shattered. I honestly didn’t even know how I said them without…

I stayed steady. I checked myself. I had to because if I did anything else in that moment, my voice wouldn’t have been the only thing to fucking crack.

“I couldn’t help it,” he rasped. My hands were braced over his shoulders, and he grabbed them. “She was in my thoughts. My only thoughts most days.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing her, and the drawings became the only way I could see her.” He raised a hand. “You said I couldn’t trust her, and I didn’t know if I could trust her.” He swallowed. “The drawings were all I had. Even if I couldn’t trust her, I at least had those. I just found her, bro, and I had to have a way to see her.”

Found her?

Ares was breaking down at this point, his hands gripping mine to fucking hell. He dropped to his knees, and I went with him.

“Ares.” I made him look at me. “What do you mean found her?”

The color had bled from him, like he truly was on the brink of a crash. He faced me, his nostrils flaring. “I have to tell you something impossible, and once I do, you have to help me find her. We can’t lose her, man. I can’t lose her. Not again.”

I had no words, my buddy squeezing my shoulders.

“It’s her,” he said, nodding. “It’s her, and I don’t know how. I don’t, but it is her. I swear to God it is. I even have proof. DNA.”

I gripped his hands. “Who?”

And then he said a name, one I hadn’t heard in years. The name had been buried, gone, and it had to be because too much hurt surrounded it.

My buddy and I had too many losses in our lives, too much heartache. The loss of Charlie and my grandparents before that had placed me in anguish, but at least, I’d gotten to know them. Ares’s hurt was one of the unknown. His was a what-if. He’d never gotten to know the person he lost.

He’d never even been graced with a memory.