Malice

28

An hour later, we pull up to another huge house, but this one isn’t rundown and abandoned-looking like the last one. It’s a swanky mansion with columns lining the front and a second-story balcony stretching out from large French doors.

“Who owns this?” I ask as we exit the car and make our way to the front door.

“We’re borrowing it. From a friend.” The he smirks and leads me inside. No surprise, this place is also sparsely decorated which makes me believe they’re squatting and just so happened to have hit the scummy jackpot with this place. We make our way to a cavernous living room, and my eyes immediately fall on Je

“Mom!” I cry, rushing to her. I drop to my knees and press my fingers to her throat and wrist, searching for a pulse. I nearly burst into tears when I find it, faint though it is. Grabbing her shoulders, I shake her, trying to wake her up. “Wake up, Momma.”

She doesn’t open her eyes, no matter how hard I jostle her. I’ve seen her like this more times than I care to think about. When I was younger, I figured out how to turn her onto her side when she was so high that she passed out to keep her from choking on her vomit. I do that now, moving her so her cheek is pressed against the couch.

I fish out my phone, ready to call 911, but Ghost snatches it from my hand and holds it out of my reach.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I screech. “She could die!”

“The bitch is fine,” he says with a nonchalant shrug. “She just needs to sleep it off.”

Sleep it off my ass. “Why won’t you help her?”

“That bitch isn’t my problem.”

It doesn’t make any sense that he would say that if he’s working for her, or if they’re working together.

“Why were you in my dorm building last semester?” I demand.

He grins. “Damn, and here I thought I’d been so smooth sneaking around that overpriced daycare.”

That’s not an answer, but I hadn’t expected him to be very forthcoming.

I try again. “Why do you work for Je

Now he full on laughs at me. “I don’t work for Je

“Are you fucking stupid?” He must be high as well. “Je

“No. She’s not.”

I go very still at the sound of a feminine voice echoing through the room.

Slowly, I turn and am shocked to find an impossibly familiar, stu

Nora.

“It wasn’t Je

She smells like vanilla and when she smiles, I see my smile.

It scares the hell out of me.

“Afraid not,” she says, crossing her arms. “The last time I saw you, you were so tiny. So perfect. We’d called you Eden, but—”

“Stop.” My mind is a blur, and my heart is beating so hard, I can’t even hear myself. I gawk at her, trying to process her presence and her words. “You’re lying,” I snap.

“Why?” she murmurs, raising her hands. “Why would I lie about something like that?”

“I-I don’t know.” I’m so confused, I feel panic begin to rise within my chest. “I just want to get my mom and get her to a hospital. Please, let me take Je

“Her name isn’t fucking Je

I don’t know what to do with any of the words she’s speaking right now. Everything she’s saying is crazy. And yet … it makes sense. She looks so much like Je

“Dead,” she says with a shrug. “Or at least presumed dead. I almost did die, too. I almost got caught in that fire that killed my family sixteen years ago. The fire I thought had killed you and Alex.”

“Presumed?” I’m desperate to poke holes in her story wherever I can. “Why not let everyone know you’d survived.”

Nora sighs and shakes her head. “It was too dangerous. Despite what official records might say, it wasn’t an accident. Someone torched the place intentionally.” Her voice cracks slightly at the end of her words, and her eyes shadow with such a raw sorrow, I actually feel it in my own heart.

“What…what happened?” I ask because I’m helpless not to. A part of me really wants to know what she’ll say next.

Nora licks her lips and appears momentarily hesitant.

At length, though, she says, “It happened the weekend I was supposed to finally marry Benjamin. Your dad. My family and Alex’s best friend were gathered at the beach house we’d rented near the venue, and it caught fire the night before the wedding.”

“But somehow you escaped?”

Her features tighten for a moment, then she slowly nods. “I’d gone out for a walk on the beach to clear my head before the fire broke out. By the time I returned, the house was already on fire, and I thought … I thought…” She trails off and swallows, turning her gaze from me as she takes a moment to collect herself. “I thought I’d lost you along with everyone else.”

My mind is still resisting her story because there’s something off about it—something that makes the tiny hairs on my arm stand at attention—but my heart, always over-eager to find affection, breaks for her.

“Then how did I survive? And how did you not figure out later that there were two bodies missing from the house?”

“Because the fire destroyed everything.” She looks down at Je

“What?” I murmur, turning to gaze at the unconscious form of the woman I’ve always known to be my mother.

She saved me? The woman who never seemed to give two-shits about me growing up had saved me from a burning house?

That might be the most difficult thing to believe out of anything Nora’s said so far.

“She saved me … and then took me?”

Nora nods, making her way toward the couch. She sits next to Je

“Mallory,” I correct.

“Hmm,” is all she says before clearing her throat. “They broke in and started that fire. She hid and she got you out of the house and when she tried to get in touch with Benjamin, she found out about his car accident. Baby sister always was a goddamn conspiracy theorist, so she stole her best friend’s identity—Je

“Her best friend?” I squeak, desperately trying to put all these pieces together. “The one you said was in the beach house for the wedding?”

“Je

The sound that escapes my throat is raw and angry. “But what about her family? What about her—”

“The real Je

Nora snatches her hand away from Momma’s head and that look of disdain crosses her features again.

I understand that look. I’d felt it countless times toward my mother throughout my life. Whenever she’d come stumbling home, covered in filth and vomit, I’d gaze at her and wish I’d been born to someone else. Anyone else.