All Chapters of SIR: Chapter 181 - Chapter 190

Fuck. Did she really just say she loves me?​The words ring through Elias’s head as he closes the door of Lucia’s bedroom behind him.He stands there for a moment with his hand still resting on the polished handle, listening to the absolute silence on the other side of the wood. He knows he should probably go back inside, that he should explain himself better, but the raw look of betrayal in her pretty blue eyes right before he left is enough to keep his shoes frozen to the floor.​He doesn’t head down the corridor toward his assigned room in the main house. Instead, he turns on his heel and makes his way down the service stairs, exiting through the side doors into the cool, damp night air. He crosses the manicured lawn toward the detached security complex near the outer gates, checking into the smaller guard rooms instead. The space is tiny, smelling of industrial cleaner and cheap laundry detergent, but it is infinitely better than staying under the same roof as the girl whose entir

The silence that blankets the courtyard is thick, absolute, and completely terrifying.I stare at Chloe, my heart freezing solid in my chest as the cold afternoon air suddenly feels like ice in my lungs. Her history notebook slips from her fingers, clattering against the concrete steps, the pages fluttering open as she takes a slow, unstable step toward us.“Chloe,” I say, my voice barely cracking past the giant lump of panic rising in my throat. I drop my hand from Eli’s jacket, stepping away from him as if the physical distance could somehow rewrite the words she just heard. “Let me explain. It’s not what it sounds like.”“Not what it sounds like?” Chloe asks as her face twists into an expression of pure, unadulterated betrayal. Tears instantly spring to her eyes, spilling over her lower lashes. “I stepped out of class and came out here to check on my best friend because she has been acting completely off all day and I wanted to make sure she was okay. And instead, I walk out int

Elias rests his forehead against the steering wheel, his knuckles still aching from pounding Jason’s jaw. His thoughts are caught in a vicious loop of everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.He shouldn’t have come here today.If he had stayed home like he planned, they wouldn’t have had that dumb fight and Chloe wouldn’t have found out the way she did. Now Lucia’s best friends hate her, the entire school knows who her father is, and it’s all his fault.Eli runs a frustrated hand over his face and checks his phone for the fourth time in the last five minutes his irritation continuing to mount as the time shows 4:53pm.It’s been over fifteen minutes since he sent Tyler out to fetch Lucas and Lucia. He knows Lucia is mad at him, and he fully expected her to drag her feet just to make him suffer, but this level of delay is pushing past the boundaries of her usual stubbornness.Elias shifts the vehicle into park, his fingers gripping the door handle as he prepares to

“Lucy! Lucy, wake up. Please, you have to open your eyes.”My name sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a swimming pool.My brain registers it as background noise for what feels like a very long time before the cold floor beneath my cheek becomes impossible to ignore. I drag my eyes open and immediately regret it. The darkness in the room is not complete darkness, there is a single strip of weak yellowish light bleeding under the door across from me, and even that small amount of it makes my head throb like something hit it.Something probably did hit it.“Lucy.” The voice is urgent and small and entirely too familiar, and that is what finally pulls me the rest of the way back into consciousness.I blink hard, once, twice, forcing my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. The space is large, the ceiling high, and the air carries the particular smell of rust and old damp concrete that tells me we are nowhere near the school anymore.“Oh, thank God,” a shaky voice breat

Nobody tells you that cutting a zip tie with a nail is basically the most tedious form of torture ever invented. In the movies, the hero always gets free in about four seconds of grunting and then they’re off saving the world. In reality, I have been sawing at this plastic for what feels like a geological era, my wrists are burning in a way that suggests I am removing several layers of skin along with the tie, and the nail keeps slipping because my hands are at an angle that my shoulder socket was not designed to accommodate. Every single millimeter of progress requires an agonizing amount of leverage from my stomach, my muscles aching from being held at such an awkward unnatural angle. I hear something near the door. I straighten instantly, pulling my arms back into position behind the chair and dropping my chin, making myself look exactly like a girl who is still very much restrained and very much defeated. The door opens and a man steps through, and I get one good look at h