Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
I expected her to at least crack a smile at my self-deprecating joke, but she keeps watching me with the same look. Then, “You know I wasn’t asking about that, right?”
The side of my face prickles, and I know it’s because he’s watching me still. I wish he wouldn’t do that, and I wish I wouldn’t blush at his stare the way I am. I keep my eyes on Haven, though, as I say, “You kept it from me on purpose, didn’t you? Last night.” I swallow thickly. “When I was asking about him, you didn’t tell me it was my… My father killed his parents. Everything he went through is because of my…”
His accident, his injury. The bullying. His scar. The fact that people still haven’t gotten over it. Everything he’s suffered is because of my family, my father. And I don’t know how to feel about that.
Haven shakes her head. “I didn’t say anything because whatever happened to Rad, it happened years ago, and it doesn’t affect what’s happening now.”
“How can it not affect things now?” I say, my voice all rough. “My family killed his family. My father murdered his father and his mother, and he went through—”
“Still, it has nothing to do with you,” she states.
“But—”
She squeezes my arm again. “No, it has nothing to do with you, Peyton. None of this has anything to do with you or Reverie. Not the war between our families, not Arsen’s revenge, not what happened to Rad. What’s happening is wrong, do you understand? You shouldn’t be here and neither should Reverie. I don’t agree with what’s happening, but I can tell you one thing: These men, no matter how they seem, have honor. If they said they’ll let you go at the end of this, they will. Mr. Grayson will make sure of that. He’d never go back on his word. So that’s all you need to focus on.”
By “Mr. Grayson,” she means her husband, Marsden. I don’t know and can’t imagine why a wife would call her husband by his last name, but I hope that man treats her right. Because in less than the forty-eight hours since I met her, I’ve already fallen in love with her. I’ve only ever had one friend in my life because I don’t let anyone get close to me. But if circumstances were different, I know Haven and I would be best friends.
“And as I said before, as long as you’re here, in my house, you’ll be safe.” She squeezes my arm again. “Even from him.”
Like Reverie, she’s noticed it, too, then. Not that he’s hiding it or anything. Because I can still feel him watching me, tracking my every movement, probably plotting ways to torment me. That’s what he wants from me, isn’t it? That’s why he won’t stop watching me even now. It’s because of my father, because of what my asshole dad did to his family, to him. It isn’t about the land for him, or some stupid war between families. It’s personal. And therefore, he’s more of a danger to me than any of these Graysons. But what’s even more dangerous is that I can’t find it in myself to blame him for that.
For hating me the way he does. For watching me the way a hunter watches his prey.
But I thrust all of this aside because what Haven said is also right. I should focus on one thing: getting out of this place. Making sure they don’t go back on their word. And I found something. Something crucial during my snooping with Reverie earlier this morning. And if that something leads to what I think it’s going to, then we’ll have enough leverage against the Graysons that they’ll have no choice but to let us out of this hellhole.
This is risky.
I’ve known it from the beginning, and I know it now. But it’s the only way to make sure these people don’t go back on their word when the time comes.
See, there’s a rumor about Rawhide, something I overheard when I was young, still living at Wildfire. That people disappear on this ranch. And by people, I mean prison inmates. It was something my dad and my brother would talk about. About how convicts are disappearing from the system and how it’s all somehow connected to Rawhide. They wanted to find evidence for it so they could use it to take down the Graysons and get their land. Back then, I didn’t pay much attention to it because I never paid much attention to the rivalry between our families. It used to be an abstract concept. Even the attack on my father eight years ago didn’t really shake me enough to think of it as anything other than a fairy tale. Bloody and gruesome, but a fairy tale nonetheless.