Corrupt

The closer you got to anything beautiful, the less beautiful it became. Allure was in the mystery, not the appearance.

I quickly looked up and spotted the cell phone from Will’s pocket—my pocket—laying several feet away. It must’ve dropped out when I landed.

“He won’t help you,”

Do you normally kidnap your friends against their will and drive them out into the middle of a nowhere for a little fun?”

That crisp November morning when my mother let me hold her and then my father immediately took her out of my arms and laid her next to Trevor, who was just a baby then, too.

Even at three I understood. She was Trevor’s.

I shouldn’t be able to look at her. I shouldn’t love to touch her,

“Hell,” he continued, a hint of a grin on his face, “I’ll do it if I have to.”

“If he can’t,” he said, looking at me pointedly, “then maybe you will. As long as it’s a Crist, I don’t really care.”

He’ll marry her, put a Crist baby in her, and everything Fane will be ours, including Little Rika.

They’d all had each other’s backs tonight, and now they had mine.