I think we were in the Horsemen’s lair—or, in a part of it. Everyone knew and had probably been to a party in the underworld, but those were not held where the Horsemen slept.
I don’t think they expected us here. If this was the underworld, it felt a little bit like Lottie and I were in purgatory.
I pulled the coin Grayson gave me out from under its hiding spot—my pillow—and held it between my fingers, the blood now crusted. For a month, I spun this coin in my hand.
“It fell from my brother’s hand,” Lottie said weakly. “Both that, and the locket.”
I looked over. “What?”
“He said, ‘Tell her I didn’t get anything out of this. Tell her this time I didn’t do it for me.’ I think he meant you.”
You’ve never done something for anyone if you didn’t get something out of it, have you West?
“I should have told you earlier. I just…” Her brow pinched. “Everything that happened, you know.”
All these months, West had it?
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “None of this makes any sense to me. Why didn’t he use it?”
I’ve been thinking about his death a lot, because I don’t feel very much of anything. I think I grieved him all the time he was alive, and that night on the beach I finally stopped grieving.
I’m sad he died, because I’m sad he doesn’t get a chance to be a better person.
But I guess…I guess I’m happy he used his last moment to finally be better.
Lottie stared at the gold coin in my hand. “You know, my mother’s first love is the father of my child. I thought she was the only one who loved me. Do you know what she did when I told her it was Jack’s? I should have known then.” She looked at her child, still sleeping soundly. “It was the first time I’ve ever seen my mother flip out. I thought it was because I cheated on Grayson.” She sighed. “She flipped, and I mean flipped. She called me a whore and threw a crystal votive. I really should have known, because she looked me dead in the eye and said Jack could do so much better than me.” Lottie laughed, but it turned into a cry. “The next day, she was much more composed, she told me I had to keep it a secret, or I would ruin everything. Our family, the Crownes, and even Jack.”
Her soft cry turned loud and untamed. Lottie who hadn’t cried in the month we’d been here—not even a tear—was sobbing.
“They all used me. My baby was just another pawn on their chessboard.” She tilted her head, looking at her baby through her tears.
She laughed again, but it was bitter and wet through her tears.
“I still can’t be mad at my mom. What is wrong with me?” She practically screamed it. “Why can’t I hate her?”
Her baby started to cry, and Lottie pulled him into her arms, rocking him. “Everything we’ve done,” she said, breathing heavy. “All of it. Who were we before them? Would we still have become these people? They ruined me, they ruined West.”
Her eyes landed on her still unnamed baby, brows wrinkling as if picturing the future.
Ruined.
“They didn’t ruin you. They won’t ruin us.” I lifted the coin again, looking at it under the low light. “This fucking coin. It destroyed everything.”
“My brother is dead. There is no redemption for him.”
Tears wracked Lottie’s face. I climbed into bed with her, pulling her and her child into a hug. She sobbed into me.
I hugged her for everything they took from us.
For everything we lost.
Until her tears dried on my shirt.
I’d lost count of what day it was, I think Lottie and I both have.
“We’re going to have to leave this room at some point,” Lottie said weakly.
I eyed the black door that separated us from the rest of the underworld. “Yeah.”