Chapter 12 · The Torch

The photo shook in my hand.

Not because the room was cold. Because Julian Cross stood in the middle of my burned-out childhood, blood all over his hands, passing a flaming torch to my father.

On the other side of the iron gate, Julian hit the bars hard enough to make the whole wall jump.

“Nia.” His voice came out rough. “Put that down.”

I looked at him through the narrow gap between the bars.

His face had gone gray under the dirt and blood. Black lines crawled from the cut on his palm, up his wrist, under his sleeve. They’d reached his throat now. Thin dark veins under his skin.

He looked scared.

Not hurt. Not trapped.

Scared.

“You were there,” I said.

He gripped the bars tighter. “Listen to me.”

“You were at my house.”

“Nia—”

“My mother died in that fire.” My voice cracked on the last word, which pissed me off more than anything. I tightened my grip on the photo until the edges bent. “My dad spent the next ten years telling me the Cross family did it. You disappeared. Everybody said you were dead.