Chapter 3

The shaky peace we made in the dark got tested in the light. Leo's fever broke, but a new, watchful tension took its place. He watched me all the time, his eyes like chips of ice. The memory of my kiss seemed to mess with his head as much as it claimed him.

A few days later, he was feeding me dinner. Again, my hands were tied. It was our new normal—a quiet admission that trust was still broken.

"Leo," I said, drawing out his name, putting in a sweetness I used to save for Mark. The spoon stopped right at my lips.

"Lily." His voice was flat, a scientist stating a fact. "Last time you used that voice, you almost got me sent to jail." He was talking about when I planted stolen stuff in his room and called the cops, a nasty, desperate try to be rid of him.

He was just telling it like it was, but under the table, my leg brushed against his. He went still. A faint pink hit his pale cheeks, making him look weirdly young, exposed. If I hadn't felt him lose control in the dark a few nights before, I might have bought the act.

"Leo," I tried, "you ever believe in fate?"

No answer. Just those wary eyes.

"I had a dream last night. About the future." I leaned in as much as the ties let me, holding his stare, trying to beam truth into him. "In the dream, I married Mark. You broke your leg trying to stop me. Later, Mark and Chloe plotted to kill me for my money. You… you dragged that busted leg of yours all over the world. You hunted them. You got revenge for me." My voice got thick with the memory of a death I actually lived. "So now, I really, really hate Mark."

I put every ounce of real feeling I had into it. Leo's face didn't change. His eyes stayed cold and blank, like a frozen pond.

"Oh yeah?" he said finally, leaning in so close I felt his breath on my neck. "Funny. I had a dream too." His whisper was a snake in the grass. "In mine, my little sister was so desperate to get away from me, she made up a beautiful, perfect lie. She tricked me into buying it, made me think I finally had her… and then she left me behind. She put me to sleep and walked right out the door."

A chill that had nothing to do with the AC slithered down my spine. For one scary second, I wondered if reality had cracked, if he remembered a past life too. Because in my last life, that was exactly what went down. The night I drugged him, I held his face, looked into his hazy eyes, and whispered, "I'll never leave you, Leo. I promise." Then I watched his eyes close, turned around, and walked out without looking back.

If that was the dream haunting him, no wonder he wanted me tied to this chair.

I let out a soft, airy laugh, a sound with no humor in it.

He frowned. "What?"

"Never mind, Leo." I met his look, dropping all my guards, showing him the tired, stubborn truth underneath. "Do whatever you want to me. I'll take it."

But going along with his crazy didn't mean giving up my mission. Mark and Chloe were getting antsy. Their clock was ticking, and so was my chance to get proof from inside their game. To do that, I needed freedom. I needed Leo to take me somewhere he couldn't follow, and then I needed him to leave me there.

The plan was simple, brutal, and I knew it would cut him deeper than any slap. But it was the only way.

I turned the shower to ice-cold and stood under the blast until my teeth chattered and my skin was covered in goosebumps. Later, with my hair still wet, I hit it with the cold setting on the hairdryer, driving the chill right into my bones. I'd always gotten sick easy; it was one of the many things Leo worried about.

By that evening, the ache was in my sinuses, my throat was scratchy, and a familiar heat was brewing behind my eyes. Perfect.

When I walked out of the bathroom, towel on my head, Leo was on the couch, a book open but ignored in his lap. His dark eyes tracked me like a hawk.

I didn't have to fake the stumble. The room tilted a little as a real wave of dizziness hit. I let out a soft "whoa" and fell forward, not to the floor, but right into his lap.

His arms came up on instinct, catching me, holding me. For a weird second, I felt like one of those sneaky spirits from old stories, using weakness as a trap. But Leo's look had no charm in it, just a deep, scary stillness.

"You're burning up," he stated, his palm flat on my forehead. The worry was there, but buried under layers of doubt.

"Think I got a fever," I mumbled, letting my head drop against his shoulder, breathing in his pine-and-storm smell.

He didn't ask questions. In one smooth move, he scooped me up, grabbed his jacket, and was out the door, carrying me to the taxi stand. In the back of the cab, I leaned on him, shivering, clinging to his coat. He pressed his hand to my forehead again, and I felt the tiny shake in his fingers.

He always panics because of me, I thought with a guilty twist in my gut. He's perfect in every messed-up way, and I'm his one big flaw.

At the ER, he was a storm of quiet panic. He rushed me in, his voice tight explaining to the nurse. He sat me in a hard plastic chair in the packed waiting area, his hands fussing over me, fixing my coat, tucking my hair back.

"Stay here, sweetheart," he murmured, his rough voice softer than I'd ever heard it outside. "I'll go take care of the paperwork. I'll be right back. Be good, okay? You'll feel better soon."

He leaned down and pressed a quick, desperate kiss to the corner of my mouth—a mark, a promise, a plea. Then he was gone, swallowed by the bright, busy halls.

I waited until he turned the corner. My heart was beating like a wild thing. With shaky hands, I slipped off his big coat, leaving it in a heap on the chair like a shed skin. I stood up, the room swaying just a little, and walked out of the hospital, into the cold, empty night.

The city at night was a different animal. The spot Mark gave me was a busted-up warehouse in the industrial south side. The sky was starting to lighten to a dirty gray, but the warehouse was a pit of shadows. It felt less like a spot to run away to and more like a place you get murdered. I couldn't believe how stupid I'd been.

As I walked, my phone buzzed nonstop in my pocket. Forty-five missed calls. All from Leo. The screen glowed in the half-dark like a guilty conscience. I silenced it, the action feeling like a punch to the gut.

I got to the far end of the huge, empty space. The rising sun painted the broken windows in weak gold and pink. And there, lit up by that sad light, was the scene.

Mark was tied to a metal chair, a rag stuffed in his mouth, his eyes huge with animal fear above it. He wriggled weakly against the ropes.

And behind him, leaning casual against a rusty post, was Leo.

My brother. His hands were in his jeans pockets. He was fiddling with something small and plastic—a phone's SIM card. He looked totally calm, totally in charge, like an artist looking at a finished painting.

Right then, all the pieces smashed together with a final, deafening click. The weird voice on the phone. The callback that was too easy. Mark hadn't been testing me. It had been Leo all along. He'd grabbed Mark, taken his phone, and played me.

And I'd walked right into it, saying the things I needed to say to convince "Mark."

"Leo? I can't even stand to look at him."

"He's just a dog that won't stop following me around."

"The day he dies? I'll throw a party."

The words echoed in my head, each one a nail in the coffin of his trust. I'd said them to save us, to buy time, to play my enemies. But he'd heard them as my real, honest truth.

Oh, crap. I was so, so totally screwed.