Pretty Misfortunes (Cruel Boys of Raven Oak Prep #2)

~Chapter II~

~Madelyn~

THE CAR RIDE TO RAVEN OAK PREP felt more suffocating than the altercation we endured with Tobias and Monster combined. The air was stuffed with a tense stalemate that could easily be cut with a knife. I didn't want to make a sound, because I felt if I did it might trigger an unnecessary conversation between me and Morris and Beau who sat silently in front of me.

The limo pulled to a rest minutes later. For seconds no one moved, poised in dead silence which threatened to swallow us whole.

God, this was torture.

"We need to talk," Morris finally spoke up.

I bit my lip.

I dreaded doing just that. I didn't want to talk. I needed space, and my attic suited the perfect excuse for me to hide in this situation.

I had a lock. No one could disturb unless I let them in.

"We have nothing to discuss," I replied.

"We have lots to discuss. You will not deny me the chance to explain-"

"Explain what?" I met his gaze, regretfully, and tried to keep the anger from being unleashed upon him despite my defense wanting to lash. "Tobias beat you at that tonight. What more truths do you have to unleash upon me other than the fact that I have never been your daughter?!"

Morris flinched as if I hurt him. Good. Maybe he will look back and face the mistake he could have avoided sooner if I was told the truth. He was not my birth father. Beau was born from a different mother- Charlotte's sister of all people -therefore his relation to me stole the title as my cousin; not my brother.

How did he not expect me to be upset?

"We were going to tell you," he said, guilt written all over his face. "Lottie thought we should wait until the time was more safe and you were older to understand."

Wait? Until I was older?

"Don't."

"What?" He sounded confused.

I balled my fists and forced them in my lap. I didn't have the strength to hold myself back if he kept talking like a wounded bird. "Don't act like you didn't have plenty of opportunities to tell me."

He nodded. "You're right. But you and I both know your mother was hard to comply with. When it came to you and Beau she was very passionate, yes, but all that became an obsession the moment she learned you had become the same as her."

"Same as her how?" I forced myself to ask.

"She has a condition most do not know of. Not even her parents. I grew up with their family, Charlotte and Maybelle, and as we got older I noticed strange occurrences whenever the two were alone. Once I even caught them speaking to nothing but air, as if someone really was there speaking back."

Chills rose the hairs on my arms and back of the neck.

"It was like that for years until her mother decided to medicate both of them. High school is when everything started to happen again and shit became complicated. Charlotte was always rambling about voices in her head." He looked pained as he reminisced on the past.

That must mean I was just like my mother.

"So Charlotte and Maybelle can communicate with the dead," I surmised.

Morris nodded. "Before I left I tried to convince your mother to see a shrink. Dr. Graves was the best available, so I recommended her to your mother just in case your delusions worsened."