Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
What if they’re not here?
But as soon as I think it, the knob begins to turn, and the door opens just a crackjust enough for whoever’s inside to peek out.
“Teagan?” River says. “Is that you?”
I think I’m going to vomit. “Yeah,” I say.
She opens the door another foot, then reaches out, grabs me by my arm, and pulls me inside, closing and locking the door again behind me.
“What are you doing here?” she almost whispers. “How did you find us?”
“II don’t know,” I tell her. “I just I saw Hazel on TV, and then I saw this video online, and I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I miss you.”
She pulls me into a hug, and I bury my head into her now-dark hair, closing my eyes and inhaling.
Lavender and honey. Just like before.
“I missed you, too,” she says.
“We’re not.” I look up and see Hazel standing in the living room. Her formerly pink hair is also brown with thick bangs across her forehead, and she’s wearing glasses. It’s a good disguise for anyone who doesn’t know the exact curve of her chin or that she has two freckles exactly two inches apart under her right collarbone. As suspected, the blonde hair from the interview must have been a wig. “We’re not okay. At all.”
“Hi, Hazel,” I say weakly.
“Come sit down, Teagan,” River says. She looks at Hazel before adding, “Just for a few minutes.”
“Yeah, I can’t stay long anyway. I have a fucking curfew.”
“Yeah?” Hazel says, gesturing toward her ankle monitor. “Us, too.”
“It’s not Teagan’s fault,” River says. “She’s a victim, too.”
Is that what we are? Are we victims? Did Hazel mean everything she said on TV?
“Did you bring a phone in here?” Hazel asks, mouthing the word ‘phone’ instead of saying it aloud.
“Yeah I did.”
She holds out her hand and gestures for me to hand it over, so I do. Then, she opens the living room window and tosses my phone outside before closing it.
“You can grab that on your way out,” she says before dropping down into an armchair. My expression twists with confusion.
“I know what you’re thinkingand you’re right. We are paranoid fuckers now,” Hazel says.
I sit beside River on the sofa. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“We’re not safe,” Hazel says. “The shit we’ve been dealing with ” She pauses, scoffing. “Not all of us have rich parents to come to our rescue and send us to some mountain retreat.”
“It wasn’t a retreat,” I say. “It was a mental hospital, Hazel.”
“Hazel, calm down,” River says. “Do you want some water, Teagan? It’s hot as fuck; we can’t seem to get this place under seventy-eight degrees even though the AC is running on high all day.”
“That’s okay, River. I’m fine. But what happened to you guys? Where have you been? What’s up with the phone?”
“They’re following us,” River says softly as if there’s someone nearby who might hear. “Watching us. Have you seen them?”
“Seen who?” I swallow hard, the air in the room suddenly becomes heavy, holding me in place as my pulse picks up again. I can’t move my arms.
“Oh my god,” Hazel says. “She thinks you mean Declan and Luca. No, Teagan. Think a little harderthink less big dicked, manipulative assholes and more cut you up and stuff you in a suitcase.”
Oh them.
“Yep there you go,” Hazel says once she sees the realization on my face.
“I just got out. I haven’t noticed anyone following me.”
I’m not sure if it’s a lie. I don’t know if what I’ve seen is real. It doesn’t seem real.
And River says they’re being watched. That’s not how I’d describe what’s happening to me.
“Teagan,” River says, “you need to be careful. Be careful what you say, and be careful what you do. Maybe just go back to Rancho San Flores.”
“What? It’s a glorified jail cell.”
“But you were safe.”
“That’s not how it felt. And I thought about you every day. Not knowing where you were I hated it.”
“Well, we were in jail, mostly,” River says.
“We sat in that jail for over a month, Teagan,” Hazel says. “No one came for us, and they wouldn’t let us see each other. If it weren’t for that last part, I’d say we were better off there, too.”
“It was awful,” River adds.
“I had no idea if River was even there, let alone if she was okay. They told me that if I’d just tell them the truth about Declan and Luca, they’d let us go, but I just kept thinking if I waited long enough, Declan would come and save mesave usjust like always,” Hazel says, her eyes pooling with tears. “Obviously, that didn’t happen. It was the fans who put together a GoFundMe and paid our bail and our lawyer. And now we’re pretty sure these fancy ankle bracelets are the only things keeping us alive. They are everywhere, Teaganeverywhere we go. And talking to you now is a violation of our probation.”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I had no idea.”
“It hurt,” River says. “It hurt a lot. The police got us before we made it to the back of the hangar. We didn’t even know about Brady and Rhett; we didn’t know how they just left us until we saw it on TV. The funny thing is I wasn’t even worried when we were in jail. I was just waiting, like Hazel, because I was so sure they wouldn’t leave us. Because I thought they loved us. It broke our hearts.”
“Mine, too. I just I still don’t understand how it could have been fake. How do you fake that?”
“He’s a fucking professional,” Hazel says. “I’m just angry now. And I feel badfor Layla, for Heidi, for me and Riv. I feel bad for all those fans who hurt themselves for something that wasn’t real. And I feel bad for you, Teagan, because you still believe in him. I can see it in your eyes.”
“So, you meant it, then?” I ask. “Everything you said on TV? You don’t think any of it was real?”
Hazel shakes her head. “Declan De Rossi is not a god, Teagan. He never was. He’s just a sick man with a lot of money who gets off on controlling the people around him. And what better way to control people than with love and affection, the promise of a family and a place to belong? Especially people like us who have spent their whole lives searching for exactly that who would do anything to keep it.”
“You believe this, too?” I ask River.
“Yeah,” she says, nodding as her blue eyes meet mine. “I do.”
“I know you’re righton some level, I do. But he said he loved me,” I tell them. “He let me carve my initial into his chest. It was real to me. We were a family. Nothing has ever felt so real in my entire life.”
“But it wasn’t real, Teagan. The only person Declan De Rossi loves is himselfmaybe Luca, too, but only as an extension of himself. In reality, spilling his blood must have meant nothing to him. There was still a small part of you that wasn’t completely under his thumb, and he knew that was the best way to fix it. That’s all.”
“It broke my heart, too,” I cry. “I waited, too. Every day, I waited for him to come back. He promised he’d never leave methat I’d never have to be alone again. It was the last thing he said to me.” Close your eyes and count to thirty. “But I am I’m completely alone.”
“Hazel’s right, Teagan. You need to move onforget about them the way they forgot about us. Look out for yourself that’s what we’re doing. We’re not going to wait around for them to kill us.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We’re getting out.”
“Come with us,” River says, taking my hand in hers.
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On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.