All the Truths (Lies & Truths Duet, #2)

by Rina Kent

Arianna said you were to blame before she jumped.”

“No idea, but Asher believes it as if it’s his religion. He fought with Alex about it right after Arianna’s death. He demanded his father sever all ties with you, but he wasn’t having it and told him to stop being irrational.”

“Of course not, Reina. There might have been disagreements before her death, but you loved Arianna as if she were your sister. She was the only one you never acted snobby or robotic with.”

Next time, he’ll force you to jump off a roof like Arianna did.”

The remaining part of my heart shrinks and turns into stone. Asher took everything from me. Maybe I have taken everything from him, too. Now we have nothing.

Don’t they say those who have nothing to lose are the scariest?

Life is strange. One day it’s all unicorns and rainbows, and the next, it’s a straight-up trip to hell.

It’s fight or flight. It’s kill or be killed.

Arianna Carson, beloved daughter and sister.

Her smile is starting to fade from my memories. It crashed and burned that day three years ago.

All I can see is her tear-streaked face, the trembling of her lips, and the white dress that flew in the wind behind her as she stood on the edge. Her face was pale as she shook like a leaf and confessed the words that killed me on the spot.

The words that ended my fucking life with her...

would’ve told me not to hate the man who acted as our father. She would’ve said she missed Mom and hugged me.

I became her mother, father, brother, and best friend. I became Ari’s world, and she was mine. Until she left me and joined Mom.

Was I too protective? Was I not attentive enough? Was I too fucking stupid?

A world in which Reina existed.

After that, I decided to leave, because I didn’t want to be in such a world either. I didn’t want to see her fucking breathing when my only family lay six feet under.

But she broke the rules that night. She wanted to escape.

Fuck that. Fuck my patience for seeing her decimated little by little. I’m done watching, done trying to stay away.

Reina will pay, and she’ll do it my way. She’ll do it while hanging off the edge of a rooftop, bound and tied and ...

“Her grave will be next to yours an...

My sister was my purpose in life. The day she died,...

The thing that rose from the ashes was a demon thirsty for bl...

In this godforsaken town, people like Reina and me rule—popular and beautiful and fucking monstrous.

We were born to be at the top of the food chain while Ari was always destined to be at the very bottom where anyone could step on her.

It’s funny how three years can seem too long and yet too short at the same time.

My murderous gaze flits from her to him. My demons whisper at me to go over, punch Jason in the goddamn face, and take back what’s mine.

And I’ll screw the world so she’ll remain that way.

I felt a strange energy. It’s like the ocean’s pull when it’s drowning you, or the sirens’ song when they’re luring you to nothingness.

She’s the devil dressed as an angel.

My plan was simple: torture then kill her. Make her suffer then finish her miserable life.

Make her mine one final time then toss her aside.

She stopped smiling around her sixteenth birthday.

When she does, they’re filled with contempt and malice. Fake.

I took pictures of those smiles while she wasn’t watching and studied them later to see if she was putting on a front again.

They were almost as genuine as when we were pre-teens.

The Reina from today is different. She’s so fucking similar to her old self.

Now that I’m getting what I wished for, I want to grip her by the throat and fuck that old bitch out of her.

Is the new Reina dead?

Why don’t you just let go? Why are you holding on to a life that means nothing to you?

No one would notice you’re missing, you know. No fucking one.

He knocked on my door yesterday. I didn’t answer and he went away. Good. I don’t want to see his face again, not ever.

I don’t want to think about how he played with my heart, body, and mind, how he allowed the gloomy cloud to sweep over me.

“Reina.” The heart I thought was long dead pulses back to life at that voice, the deep voice with slight huskiness, the voice that brought me happiness right before he shattered it and left me in the clutches of this gloomy cloud.

I think about making up some sort of a lie. After all, that’s exactly how my life has been in the past: a liar, a homewrecker, and everything in between.

It’s painful. I can’t move or drink or eat or do anything. The only movement in my brain is this signal urging me to open the window and jump, just jump and see how freeing that is.

You jump in cheerleading—why would you want to jump in another way?

It’s a different type of jump. Don’t. Don’t?

Nothing.

Then at least I tried.