CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 4
Madison returned to school on Monday like a queen returning from a boring vacation.
Everyone stared.
Everyone pretended not to.
At lunch, her friends surrounded her at the corner table.
“Where were you?” Brooke asked.
“Family thing,” Madison said.
Tyler sat across from her, handsome, restless, and pale.
He had been avoiding her eyes since she came back.
Madison hated him for that.
Not because she loved him.
Because he looked guilty, and guilt made things messy.
Brooke leaned closer.
“People said you were in Europe.”
Madison smiled.
“People are stupid.”
The table laughed.
Tyler did not.
Later, near the lockers, he grabbed her wrist.
“We need to talk.”
Madison pulled away.
“No, we don’t.”
“Madison, I didn’t know your parents were going to—”
She turned so fast he stopped.
“Don’t say another word.”
His voice cracked.
“That was my child too.”
The hallway blurred for half a second.
Madison looked around.
A freshman at the water fountain glanced over.
Madison smiled cruelly, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear.
“You’re delusional.”
Tyler’s face went still.
“You don’t mean that.”
She stepped closer.
“I mean every word.”
He stared at her like he was seeing the costume and the girl underneath at the same time.
Then his phone buzzed.
He checked it.
His eyes changed.
“What?” Madison asked.
He turned the screen toward her.
Unknown number.
The message said:
If you want to know where she is, tell the truth before Preston Vale erases it.
Madison’s mouth went dry.
Tyler whispered, “She?”
Madison slapped the phone out of his hand.
It hit the floor and cracked.
Students turned.
Madison’s chest rose and fell.
Then she laughed.
A perfect little laugh.
“Oops.”
She walked away before anyone could see her hands shaking.
In the girls’ restroom, she locked herself in a stall and pressed both palms over her mouth.
No sound came out.
That was the worst part.
She wanted to cry.
But the house she grew up in had trained tears out of her so well that even grief had nowhere to go.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from her father.
Come home now.
May you like
Madison stared at it.
For the first time in her life, she did not obey immediately.
