Novel-novel oleh Mia Katy

EPILOGUE !The Christmas ball was soon beginning and I’d be expected to be beside my father as we were the hosts. The ball room was the former basement which had been renovated into a ball room. It was first my mother’s hideout but now it was a ball room. I didn’t want the memory of Hannah to dampen my mood today.I stand at my balcony with the glass of champagne I’d grabbed downstairs before coming up, watching other people from above. Maybe I wasn’t really watching them, I was more of looking for someone, Kayla.It’s been hours already and she wasn’t coming. I’d gone in to the theatre room several times to check on her.Okay fine, I meant to spy on her, but her blinds were down and I couldn’t see inside her room. This year, I had a reason to buy her a gown. The previous years I just had to watch Jonathan buy her gowns as gifts but this year I told him to not buy her gowns and that I’d give her a gown for the ball. A knock comes at my door and I go to open it. It’s Martha. “Youn

Chapter Hundred and oneHunter’S POV.I throw my phone against the wall in my fit of anger. I felt powerless. I was Hunter King. I wasn’t supposed to feel powerless but I did.I called Kayla and asked her if we could talk about everything that happened but she just said she needed some space to process everything by herself.By herself.Which meant I had to stay away. She doesn’t know this but, I needed her to breathe to survive. I almost went berserk when I was told she wasn’t pregnant. I refused to believe it and when the doctor tried to convince me, I had lost control and punched him in the face. Security had to come and throw me out.I told her to use the child as an excuse to be with me but now she could leave me at any moment. We weren’t tied together anymore.It hurt.I couldn’t lose her and our child. Losing one already drove me berserk. If she left me this time, I don’t even know if I can survive.My house bell dings and I run downstairs like a giddy teenage guy. Fuck, but i

Chapter HundredHow long has it been since I got out of my room and lived? How long has it been since I came back from my coma and shunned everyone out and locked myself up, depressed and crying for the child I never had?I don’t know. Janel, Xander and Asher came to see me at the hospital but apparently they have a grudge with Hunter so they haven’t been to the house since then. Aunt grounded me when she heard about the false pregnancy and gave me the whole responsible sex talk. After that, I was taken to the hospital and placed on birth control.Hunter must be having it worse than me. He found out about his mom and the child. For Hunter to resort to violence when adults were around and ruin his golden boy image, he must be taking the news harder than I was. I should go and see him and stop telling him I needed space to process everything. What’s there to process again? We were both not okay and needed each other. Everything is finally over. No more secrets. Nothing. The least I can

Chapter Nintey NineI hope you can forgive my rush decisions. I’m sorry I made you worry. I know you cared for me. Please forgive me.It’s black and nothing and I’ drowning. Several gunshots are fired. But I don’t feel a thing. Am I dead already? Is that why I don’t feel a thing?Crap, I wish I had another chance. I don’t want to die without making him pay first. I don’t want my child to die with me. I can’t regret coming here. I had no choice while my father was watching. I had no choice but to follow his orders. I didn’t know his emotions will take over that he would choose to kill me so quickly. I was waiting for the perfect opportunity to launch a surprise attack but I didn’t get it. You’re right, Hunter. I am weak.Nothing I feel nothing.I hear nothing.What is nothing again?........Nothing is a black unawareness of everything. “Kayla, Kayla wake up.” I hear someone’s voice. It’s familiar. It’s distant. It’s inviting me back to something. Back to someone. Back to what

Chapter Ninety EightA screen lights up and a video begins to play. It’s a recording of my father and a lady talking. He seems to be hiding the camera from the lady, so I don’t get to see her face.“Do you regret what we did?” the lady asks my father. Her voice is disturbingly familiar.“I don’t know. Do you?” My father replies.“Of course not, that bitch had it coming after she betrayed me. She pretended to be my friend and used me. I took her out of the trash and gave her a life. How does she repay me? By trying to take Jonathan away from me. She knew he was mine from the beginning but she steal dug her filthy claws into him. She deserved a more miserable death.”“I agree, although Rosa interfered and took the girl so she’s still alive.”“Fucking Rosa. I took them both out of their wretched lives and this is how they repay me. I was wondering when you were going to tell me you were incompetent and that you let Kayla live.”“I didn’t know you had it in you to murder a child, Hannah.”

Chapter Nintey SevenMEETING MY FATHERI grab my hair on my head and refused to cry, instead I gnash my teeth with anger. I was not a victim. I was no longer the girl he kept locked down in the basement as he hit her mother upstairs. I could now defend my loved ones. I won’t let them be like mom. I won’t let him hurt anyone any longer.I couldn’t protect mom from him then, but now I can protect Hunter and Aunt from him.This time round, I won’t let harm come to anyone I can protect. And if all I have to do to prevent that is to face that devil, then so be it.Car lights catch the corner of my eyes, the gate opens to let him in. At first, I think its Hunter, but then I notice it’s not his car. It’s not my father too because he wouldn’t dare come in. He’d be dead by now not driving towards the worker’s quarters. It’s my opening to get out without being caught. I recognize the driver. He was part of the workers in the garden this morning. He drives into the mansion and towards the wor

Chapter Sixty-Three - Broken SticksWe hear it before we see it.A crash first, like someone dropped a drum kit down a flight of stairs. Then a roar from the far end of the arena that has nothing to do with hockey.Kenzie's head snaps toward the sound. "That's our side.""Come on."We run. My sneakers slap the concrete and her skates click behind me, and we burst out of the service tunnel into noise so loud it feels like walking into a wall. The third period is supposed to be starting. Nobody is on the ice. The resurfacer sits abandoned near the blue line with its engine still rumbling, and the entire West Rivers bench has spilled out onto the rubber mat in front of the penalty box.They're all holding something.Teddy Okafor, their goalie, stands at the front with his chest pads hanging off one arm. The foam has been slit open from collar to hem, and stuffing droops out of the cut like guts. Beside him, a defenseman named Luca holds two halves of a hockey stick, one in each fist, sta

Chapter Sixty- Two Half time II"The text told me to stay away from Zane. It didn't tell me to stay away from the school. It didn't tell me to quit cheer or move to another city. It told me to stay away from him specifically." I take another step. "Then a picture arrives, and nobody posts it. If you want to ruin someone's life, you post the picture. You don't sit on it.""I'm not a detective, Ava, I can't help you with your theories.""I'm not done." I count it on my fingers. "Someone who cares about him. Someone who didn't want it blowing back on him. Someone who'd rather quietly scare me off than watch his reputation take a hit.""That could be anyone.""It's not anyone. It's you."She laughs. It's a bright, brittle sound that bounces off the cinderblock. "Wow. You really think you're the main character, don't you? Some random person takes a picture of you and it's automatically my fault?""Show me your phone.""No.""If it isn't you, there's nothing on it.""There's nothing on it t

Chapter Sixty-One - HalftimeThe scoreboard above center ice says WEST 2, EAST 2, and there is one minute and twelve seconds left in the second period.I know the exact number because I haven't stopped looking at that clock for ten minutes. It's easier than looking at the ice. It's a lot easier than looking at my own squad."Pom-poms up," Coach Ellery calls from the end of the line. "Smile like you mean it, ladies. It's a tie game, not a funeral.""Feels like a funeral," Jade mutters."Smile, Jade."Jade smiles. It is the worst smile I have ever seen on a human face. She's standing three girls down from me with her shoulders angled the other way, which is how every girl in this line has been standing since Wednesday. Like I'm a draft from an open window. Like if they turn their bodies just right, they won't feel me.Coach put me on the left end tonight. She didn't explain. She pointed, I went, and Priya slid into the center spot where I've stood since sophomore year like it had her na

He doesn't come into the bathroom.SuprisingHe texts me when he's outside, and when I push through the side doors with my bag clutched to my chest, Zane is leaning against his car in the faculty lot like he owns the building.Every window on that side of the school has a face in it."You can't be here," I say, walking straight up to him."Obviously I can. I'm here.""Zane, this is literally East Rivers. They have a security guard named Doug.""Doug waved at me.""Doug waved at you?""Nice guy. Asked if I was lost." He opens the passenger door and holds out his hand for my bag. "Get in.""I have second period.""Do you really."I look back at the building. Three girls from my squad are standing in the second floor window, arms crossed, not even pretending to hide. One of them is Priya. She lifts her phone and angles it at us.I get in the car.I make it exactly four minutes before the school calls. Not my phone. His. He glances at the screen, hands it to me without a word, and I hear

Chapter Sixty - You really thoughtIt's up before I even make it to school.I see it the second I unlock my phone in the driveway, notifications already stacked three deep, and my stomach drops so fast I actually have to grip the steering wheel for a second before I can make myself look properly.The photo's grainy, clearly taken from across the street, but there's no mistaking it. Me, climbing out of Zane's window at dawn, his jersey still half tucked into my jeans, hair a mess, looking exactly like what it is.The caption underneath just says: didn't realize East Rivers and West Rivers did sleepovers now 👀No account name I recognize. Same energy as the rivalrytea post that leaked Kenzie's video weeks ago, posted from somewhere designed to spread fast and disappear before anyone can trace it back. It already has thousands of views by the time I've read it twice, the comments section exploding in real time while I sit frozen in my own driveway.My phone starts ringing before I've ev

Chapter Fifty Nine - GirlfriendI sit in my car in the school parking lot for a long time after Maddox walks away, phone resting in my lap, the photo still glowing faintly on the locked screen every time it catches the light.Did he just get into my head?A little. I hate that he did, hate that some small, traitorous part of my brain is still turning his words over, picking at them like a scab. But the longer I sit here, the more his logic starts to unravel the harder I actually look at it.I start the car, but I don't drive anywhere. I just sit, engine idling, staring at the dashboard, forcing myself to actually think it through instead of just reacting to whatever doubt Maddox planted.Okay. Facts.The text came first. Stay away from Zane Volkov. Then, days later, the photo, taken from somewhere in the stands at a rink that's private property, members only, closed to the public after hours. Zane told me that himself the night we went skating, joked about needing special access even