"You knew I'd come back for you, sweetie," the intruder said with an evil grin.
--
Getting caught up in the problem is the easy part.
Getting out unscathed though? Not so much.
Maya's life never seemed to be complicated but once her mother's murder...
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Pacing around the room, a dark uneasiness settled in my head after I'd woken up from my nap.
I couldn't put my finger on what it was but something about Tanner did not add up. Maybe it was the fact that he didn't take me to hospital. Maybe it was the fact that apparently he's lived in the area for so long, yet I hadn't heard a word about him before. Something about him definitely put me on edge.
One thing I knew was that my instincts were rarely wrong, especially after watching Jack twist his way into Maya's world.
After that day, after I watched him use her and my mother to get what he wanted, I noticed how there was never that spark in her hazel eyes and how she distanced herself from everyone. Guilt blossomed from my heart as I never actually checked on how she was doing because even though I hadn't spoken to her, I saw her. I really saw her.
At least, I wanted to think I saw her but the truth was, I'd been under the impression that she was the murderer. For a long, long time as well.
Ocean and Connor may have stood by her for the years I was absent but I knew from the moment I saw them, Ocean was nothing but a shallow teen that hung around Maya for the sake of the drama Maya carried around with her. Connor may have been there for her for real but I knew that he never saw her. He never saw her like I used to see her.
Actually, I know for fact that no one but me knows Maya. It makes perfect sense.
It doesn't make sense at all.
Ever since we were young, Maya kept to herself. She'd perfected the art of secrecy, telling me things that made it seem like I knew everything about her but in reality, she hadn't even expressed a fraction of her thoughts and feelings.
I didn't know Maya at all.
And if even I didn't know her, everyone else had only been talking to a corpse. A dead soul inside a living body.
If I was going to save Maya, I had to start doing something other than sitting around on my ass while Tris played babysitter.
I walked back to Tanner's house to wake him up but it was immediately noticeable that the last thing that Tanner had done was sleep, like I had told him to.
Surveying the scene infront of me, I noted the door was wide open as paper sat flung across the splintered, old, damp wood. Glass shards sat dispersed along the floor and as I tried to avoid the carnage that lay on the floor, a very dishevelled Tanner walked down the stairs.
He looked proper rough with his deep set dark circles that clouded his rounded eyes. In a sense, it kind of looked like makeup that went miserably. His hair stuck up like he'd been dragged through a thorned rose bush over and over.
No one would have been able to tell that we had only seen each other a couple of hours ago. He'd clearly not kept his promise and gone to sleep.
