“Let her go and I won’t have to,” River commands.
“Angelica,” Freya whispers, “just do as he says.” Oz told us she called herself Angelica but it’s still weird to hear in person.Does she think she’s Freya?
“No!” Angelica digs the knife in, and a trickle of blood runs down Freya’s pale neck.
River’s hands tighten around his gun.
“River, don’t,” Freya begs. “She won’t hurt me.”
“She already has.” He bites the words out, his eyes dropping to the cuts marking her bare stomach.
“River, look at me.”
He does as she asks. I keep my gaze on the knife, watching for the slightest of movements.
“I need you to trust me,” Freya says. “Don’t shoot her. She won’t kill me.”
Jude lowers his gun a fraction. “Are you sure?”
The knife shifts a little as Freya swallows. “I’m sure.”
I take my gaze off the knife to look at her eyes. I’ve spent every day since Freya came into our lives studying her. I may have been wrong about her intentions, but I know when she’s fudging the truth and right now, she’s lying through her fucking teeth.
“River,” I warn.
“I know.”
Jude lifts his gun again but none of us have a clear shot. They’re the same height and we can’t shoot Angelica without risking hitting Freya.
Angelica rests her chin on Freya’s shoulder. “Oops, too slow.” She tilts the knife.
Freya closes her eyes.
The back of the warehouse explodes. The sound smacks against my ears, smoke fills the air and then the SWAT team, led by Oz, swarm inside.
Angelica whips around and a gunshot cracks through the room. She cries out and drops the knife. She falls to her knees, gripping her shoulder and Freya stumbles towards us.
I holster my gun and rush to her, catching her in my arms when she sways. “Eli, I’m so sorry.” The words slip from her lips before her eyes flutter closed.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Freya
I’M BACK IN the hospital. My chest is covered in bandages once again and my arm is hooked up to an IV. I lost more blood than I thought from the cuts Angelica made which is why I apparently passed out in Eli’s arms.
The guys have all pulled up chairs around my bed and it feels like the first time I sat in their living room and told them my story. Only this time there’s not going to be any half-truths or hidden lies.
They didn’t catch my father. Instead, they found one of the SWAT team dead, his throat cut and his vest missing. That’s how he’d slipped away, by pretending to be one of us. We got Angelica though. My sister is locked in a cell somewhere and if I ever want to see her again, I have to come clean.
River’s sat to my right. He leans back in his chair, his hands locked together in his lap. Waiting.
I take a sip of water and fiddle with the plastic cup. There’s no easy way to explain the mess that was my childhood, so I just dive right in. “My father raised us as one person.” I look up at the guys. “He gave us the same name, the same scars. He said being identical would be our greatest weapon. The perfect alibi.”
Jude taps his fingers against the arm of his chair. “One of you commits the crime while the other is out in public.”
“Exactly. No one knew we were twins. He only registered one child and he never let us out at the same time. We’d take it in turns to be ‘Angelica’. One of us would go to school, eat dinner, sleep in our proper bedroom, while the other stayed at home, locked in the basement. We switched out every day. I always thought someone would notice but they never did.”
My fiddling breaks the rim of the cup. “It’s partly my fault, I never got close to anyone but it’s hard to make friends when you don’t know what you said to them the day before.”
