The Oath We Give (The Hollow Boys Book 5)
The Oath We Give: Chapter 9

silas

I didn’t come here entirely out of the good of my heart.

When I accepted Light’s invitation, I knew Coraline was the spotlight artist.

I knew she’d be here, and I wanted to see her.

After what happened at Vervain and the news of Stephen breaking out, I wanted to make sure he hadn’t contacted her. It made zero sense, but I wanted to make sure she was okay.

Coraline Whittaker is a mystery to this town.

To me.

She is a mirage, a naturally occurring optical phenomenon that bends light rays to produce the image of a girl who is a familiar face but is unknown beneath the surface.

I admire what she turned herself into. How she turned her pain into rage. Bit at the hands of news crews that asked too many questions. Hardened her gaze so that the townspeople would stop approaching her in public.

She became something to fear.

I know what that is like.

How much easier it is to be scary. If people are afraid of you, they won’t risk getting close.

The truth is I don’t know Coraline.

Not really.

Not what makes her laugh or her favorite color. Who she wanted to be when she grew up or if she’s allergic to shellfish.

That’s what makes this…odd for me. Having this connection with a person I hardly know.

I do not know her the way most do, but I know her in a way no one else ever would.

Our trauma is a kindred spirit, emotional turmoil that two strangers on an interwoven path share. We’ve both been running, trying to forget, and the past is punishing us both for it.

Light, being the organizer of this event, was simply a moral bonus for me.

Hedi Tenor had come to my father’s company when she had just started the organization and asked for us to be co-founders. This was a way to tether Hawthorne’s name to something good, the board had said.

I’d refused.

Instead, I cut her a check whenever they need funding or a donation in Rosemary’s name. I didn’t want this organization, Hedi’s work and her pain, to become a marketing tool for Hawthorne Technology.

Those girls deserve to be more than a pity card.

“What do you see?”

I turn just my head to look over at Coraline, standing still at my side. There are several inches between our shoulders, creating a gap. Does she know how obvious it is? How she physically keeps others at a distance, just as much as she does emotionally?

I trace the slope of her delicate nose with my eyes, indigo-colored nails tucking a piece of white hair behind her ear.

What do I see?

A woman who nearly every man in this room has stopped to admire in one way or another.

Not just because she’s the artist but her allure. That has nothing to do with her beauty. A lot of women are beautiful, but this is how she quietly absorbs attention, unaware of the effect she has on others. It’s in the way she walks, gestures when she talks, her posture.

There is a detached glint in her eye that draws her lips in a straight line. It makes her unapproachable, like you don’t want to disturb the thoughts that are swimming in her mind.

And yet…

You can’t fucking help yourself. You almost have no choice but to see her up close.

It doesn’t hurt that the silver dress she’s wearing fits every curve, dips low on her chest, and exposes her left leg to right above the hip, giving a tasteful amount of skin on some but a damning amount on her.

I turn back to the painting, pushing my hands into my pockets.

“A man who thinks too much and says too little,” I say, wondering if my voice still has the same effect on her in this lit room as it did in the shadows of a silent hallway.

“Forbes 30 Under 30 failed to mention you were an art critic.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her slender arms cross over in front of her chest.

“You believe everything you read about me?”

“What little I did read seems to all be a lie.” I don’t miss the way she draws out the word “little,” wanting to remind me of how little she concerns herself with me. “They say you don’t talk much. Yet, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“With you.”

My answer surprises her. Maybe it’s the honesty, maybe it’s her disbelief. It is true that I don’t talk a lot, not to strangers or just for fun, but I like talking to her.

I like knowing my voice wants to be heard by someone, and even though she denies it, she wants to be that someone. I think Coraline Whittaker does concern herself with me more often than she wants me to believe. That there is a curiosity she has toward me because that night at Vervain? When my voice was the only thing keeping her from crashing over the edge?

I felt it.

That connection. The one I felt when I saw her leaving the Sinclair Manor. The one I felt when I visited her in the hospital. That secret language only the two of us understood when she called me. The little string of fate that refused to let me take my eyes off her in that club.

It hummed between us like a secret.

It kills her that she can’t pick up the scissors and cut it.

It kills me that I want more of it.

I shouldn’t be wanting more of anyone. Especially not of her.

“Is that supposed to make me feel special?”

I roll my head to the side, our eyes meeting for the first time tonight. There isn’t an ounce of shyness. She holds my gaze, one dark sculpted eyebrow arched, painted dark red lips forming a line that leaves no room for amusement.

Harshly beautiful, with very few accents of softness on her face.

Her slick brown hair slips behind her shoulders, white streaks in the front tucked behind her ears to showcase the diamonds piercing her lobes. Every movement seems calculated, as if she’d perfected the art of self-preservation in a world that had only taught her to be cautious.

“Something like that,” I taunt, never breaking our eye contact.

She wants people to see her as cold, but she can’t hide the warmth in her chestnut-colored eyes. They can’t lie. Despite the air of detachment, that cool indifference to remind others of the distance she puts between her and the world, there are remnants of a softer creature below the surface, only hiding.

That invisible fortress she’d erected around herself protects her from everyone. Including herself, I imagine.

“Did you hunt me down for a thank-you?” she bites out, her eyes slitting into a glare. “Or need an apology for bailing at Vervain? Let me know so I can get it over with, and we can go back to never knowing the other existed.”

I think a part of me might be sadistic for enjoying this. Knowing how unbothered I am by her snark, the stubbornness that makes her mean. I’m not Coraline’s enemy, but I’m a threat.

She knows this attitude isn’t working on me, and it’s bugging the fuck out of her.

It’s cute.

“Why do I make you so uncomfortable, Coraline?”

Her head jerks, eyebrows furrowed like I’ve hit her.

“You don’t,” she says firmly, chin held high.

“You’re tight,” I mutter.

The corner of my lips twitches, just a little, a smirk I’m unable to prevent spreading across my mouth as her eyebrows shoot to her hairline. An undeniable pink flush tints her tan cheeks.

I may not be good with people, but I’m fucking incredible with puzzles.

I’m not her enemy. I’m a threat.

Coraline is attracted to me, and that bothers her. Bothers her so much, I might get the worst of her venom if I push a little too hard.

“Excuse me?” Coraline scoffs, offended or at least trying to be.

“Your posture is stiff, arms are crossed—you’re about to leave nail punctures in your skin if you keep squeezing.” I tilt my head some, catching her releasing the grip of her arms. “Your body is telling me you’re uncomfortable. I asked why.”

A server walks by carrying a tray of bubbling champagne, and she swipes a glass, holding it gingerly between her fingers as she drops her gaze, eyes hooded. “I just want to know what it is you want from me. I’d rather just get it over with. No need for all the foreplay.”

I roll my tongue across the front of my teeth, sucking my teeth. As I nod, giving her silent praise for the volley of sexual innuendo, she stands straight, smug, as if she just moved her pawn toward my back rank, trying to get it promoted to a queen so she can deliver a checkmate.

“What could I want from you?”

“Well.” She sighs, lifting the glass of champagne to her lips and taking a sip. “I owe you two favors now.”

I’m about to tell her that they weren’t favors. Answering the phone and calming her down in the hallway isn’t something I need repayment for. I didn’t do them with the hopes of her giving something in return, but we are interrupted.

“Silas!” My name is a shout, heavy footsteps approaching as I look at Daniel Highland, the firm’s chief marketing officer. “You didn’t tell me you’d be here tonight.”

I grab his outstretched hand, tightening my grip as I shake it.

Daniel is what I call a worm.

Worms are self-replicating malware that spread across networks without a user interacting. Daniel is a worm. He corrupts those who work beneath him, turning them all into mini pompous versions of himself.

When the board votes me in, my first act as CEO is firing him.

He’s harmless physically, but he’s toxic for the workplace. Especially considering he isn’t fond of me taking over or me in general. I don’t have the time or energy to babysit bruised egos at work.

“Running things by you isn’t a part of my job description.” My tone is much dimmer toward him versus the lighter version I’d just had with Coraline.

His grin is slimy, porcelain teeth that look too fake and too big for his tiny mouth.

“Right, right. You’re the boss. Well, almost.” He chuckles, shaking his head a bit. “I ran into your father just before leaving the office. I didn’t even know you were dating someone. No one in the office seemed to know.”

My jaw twitches, tightening, fingers flexing in my pocket. The gun sitting on my hip, concealed by my suit jacket, is practically singing Daniel’s name, a pretty little bullet just waiting in the chamber.

It was that big-ass mouth of his that told most of the firm about my father’s cancer diagnosis before he even got the chance. Daniel assured us that he was just trying to relieve some stress from my old man’s shoulders, but I saw through him like glass.

He’s the kinda guy who enjoys stripping another man of his pride just to feel like a big man.

“I like to keep my private life private.”

“Of course.” He nods, rolling his lips together. “It’s just, with your mental health issues, I don’t know how someone like you will be able to handle a serious relationship. It’ll be a lot on the ol’ brain once you take over fully, won’t it?”

Even if I had schizophrenia, where the fuck does he get off?

Daniel wouldn’t know mental health if it hit him in the face with a rock. Even though I’m sure he’ll commit suicide by fifty from some form of late-term depression.

He has no idea what anyone with that disorder is capable of. What they can and cannot do. To him, it’s simply a villain origin story in thriller movies. In his eyes, I’m a violent, uncontrollable manic. Which could not be further from the truth for those who live with schizophrenia.

But it’s easier for society to demonize mental health than take the time to actually learn about it.

“Who is the lucky girl, by the way? Anyone from the Springs? I’ve lived here all of my forty-five years. I doubt I wouldn’t know her.”

I knew he’d ask. Why wouldn’t he? He knows I’m lying. At the very least, he’s hoping I am. Anything to get another shot at my job.

I just don’t have an answer or even a lie ready.

“Coraline Whittaker.”

My head snaps to my right just as her smooth hand loops through my arm, holding my forearm, and she leans into my body. The smell of lavender wafts beneath my nose.

She looks up at me, batting her dark eyelashes as if telling me to play along. Is this her way of repaying the favor? Trying to help? Coraline has no clue what she just signed herself up for. What her doing this means to Daniel, to my future.

Could the cursed woman of Ponderosa Springs be my saving grace?

“Lucky girl.” She hums with a smile that doesn’t quite touch her eyes as she returns her gaze to Daniel. “You work with Silas?”

Little needles prick the back of my neck at how she says my name, reminding me how she said it the other night. A feeling I believed long gone pools in my gut.

Desire.

Desire to hear her say my name again.

Gasp it. Moan it. Scream it.

My teeth sink into the inside of my cheek as Daniel’s eyes widen slightly, just now taking in her presence, shocked that she even exists, I’m sure.

“Indeed.” He clears his throat, shaking off the surprise but still eyeing her in a way that makes me uncomfortable. “I just saw your mother, Regina, before she left. She didn’t mention anything about you having a boyfriend.”

Her sharp nails burrow into the fabric of my jacket as she puts on a charming smile, straightening her spine.

“Stepmother,” she corrects. “Some people aren’t keen on discussing others’ private affairs. But it seems you are? A bit gossipy, isn’t it?”

Daniel’s smug smile seems to melt away, his eye twitching and masculinity deflating at the way Coraline looks down her nose at him, even though she is several inches shorter, even in heels.

This world taught her how to wear her wealth, then punished her for it. But it doesn’t take away how she owns it, like a shield.

“Huh,” he hums, furrowing his eyebrows. “Regina has always seemed like the kind of woman that is quick to share exciting news. Her stepdaughter getting engaged seems pretty exciting to me.”

There it is.

This is going to go over like shit.

My little white lie about having a girlfriend had spiraled into me telling my father I’d already been planning to propose. I’d panicked—he was grilling me, demanding to meet an imaginary girl.

I told him what he needed to hear so he didn’t need to worry. I’d be able to figure it out, and he could continue to focus on the slim possibility of getting better.

I took over Hawthorne Tech to relieve stress, not give him more. I will not fail him, not after everything he’s done for me. I can’t.

So if that means lying? I will.

There is nothing I won’t do for the people I love.

“Quick engagement, I’m assuming? Great timing for you though, Hawthorne. Right before the board decided not to declare you CEO because of your marital status.”

The idea of shooting this guy in the face has reached an all-time high. But he’s the least of my worries.

I have a woman on my arm playing the part of fake fiancée she didn’t sign up for, digging her nails into my arm, ready to bolt to the nearest exit. Panic makes her fingers shake, and I know she’s starting to feel the walls of this room close around her.

Carefully, not wanting to scare her more, I slip my arm from hers and curl it around her waist instead so that I can tuck her safely into my side. It’s easy, like I’ve done it a million times before.

My large hand splays across her entire hip, the warmth of her body spreading along my side. She gasps a little, a quiet noise in the back of her throat. I take my time, maybe because this might be the only time I’m allowed to get this close without being bit.

She turns her head to look up at me, deep brown eyes shimmering from the lights. There is a softness that exists in her when her guard is down, and it’s just as breathtaking as her rough edges.

Gently, I tuck a piece of hair just behind her ear before stroking a knuckle down her cheek. Hands that have done vicious things should not be allowed to touch things so delicate.

“When you know, you know,” I say calmly, the lie slipping from my tongue like water.

She’s hyperfocused on my face, and I refuse to break eye contact, even when Daniel makes another dull comment.

“No ring yet?”

I shake my head, picking up a strand of her white hair, rubbing it between my fingers, still looking at her as I reply.

“We’re waiting to pick one out together.”

My eyes tell her to keep looking at me, not to look away. Just keep looking at me. Daniel doesn’t exist, and she’s okay.

There is this need in me to tell her that she’s safe with me. That for some reason, I know I’ll let nothing bad touch her. Not when I’m around. It’s probably because of her trauma, that connection between us.

“Well.” Daniel clears his throat. “Caroline, it was a pleasure to meet you. I’m sure I’ll see you at the company fundraiser?”

“Coraline.” I snap my head, glaring, saying her name as more of a growl. “We’ll be there.”

As my wrecking ball of a colleague leaves, I feel her pulling away from me, slipping through my grasp. Just as I expected, she moves toward the exit, fleeing just like she did at Vervain.

Running from me, unaware that the chase is one of my favorite parts.

I follow behind her, walking slower so by the time I’m outside of her studio, she’s got a cigarette between her red-stained lips, digging around for what I assume is a lighter.

Reaching inside my jacket pocket, I pull out a pack of matches. I hold them between my fingers, offering them as a way of trying to make peace before the war truly begins.

She takes them from me, striking one up and lighting her smoke. Her back rests against the brick wall outside, head tilted toward the sky as she inhales a lungful of smoke before releasing it into the night.

“Did you do that on purpose?” she asks, taking another hit. “Set me up so you could cash in for one of your fucking favors?”

The harshness from earlier has returned tenfold.

I feel my jaw tighten, angry for no reason, angry that she thought I’d use her. But she doesn’t know me. What else is she supposed to expect?

“What makes you think I don’t already have a fiancée?”

Coraline rolls her head to look at me, holding the cigarette between two fingers. The air seems to tighten, charged with undeniable tension. The weight of her anger bears down on me, the elegant slopes and curves of her face illuminated by streetlamps, the skin of her leg exposed to the night air.

“If my soon-to-be husband held me the way you did at Vervain, I’d kill him. This place tells stories. Stories of the evil you’ve done and the wicked traits you carry, Silas Hawthorne.” Her words catch the night wind, drifting like the tendrils of smoke. “Disloyal isn’t one of them.”

There is an urge to be transparent with her, to let her know I’m not what they say I am. An urge to speak and be honest, because I think…

I think Coraline knows what it’s like to have the world make assumptions about who you are before you have the time to figure it out yourself.

Ponderosa Springs loves a story. The scarier, the better. They told her she was a victim, that she would always be a victim. A cursed woman that had a habit of replaceing herself in toxic relationships, as if she consented to being kidnapped. They told me I had schizophrenia, that I had to be in order to cover up a crime I’d once seen as a child. A man whose silence spoke to his mental illness and not his fear of never being believed.

We stand here as two people given narratives we didn’t want, trying to make some truth out of the words someone else wrote.

“My father has cancer,” I tell her honestly, because for the first time in a long time? I feel like I can. “I have to be married to take over a company with my last name. If I don’t, then we lose it.”

Coraline nods, flicking the ashes onto the ground.

“So it’s money related,” she hums, making assumptions she shouldn’t.

“It’s family related.”

A scoff echoes from her lips just before she takes another puff, talking around the smoke.

“What’s it like to have the last decent family in this piece-of-shit town?”

“I know you had no clue what you just walked into, Coraline. But this arrangement could benefit the both of us. With Stephen breaking out, I could help—”

“I do not need you to protect me from him.” She pushes off the wall, a fire burning in her at the mention of his name. “I don’t need anyone to protect me from him.”

“It’s not protection I can offer you, Hex.”

The nickname slips out before I can catch it.

“Yeah? Like what? Money?” She shakes her head, a grim smile on her lips. “I have enough with my last name, thanks, hotshot.”

I run my palm down the front of my mouth. Goddamn, she’s fucking stubborn. So sure of herself before I correct her.

“Revenge,” I say swiftly. “I can offer you a chance of revenge.”

And protection, but I won’t tell her that part. She needs to feel like she’s the one in control. I don’t mind giving it to her, for now.

She keeps her mouth shut for a few minutes, like she’s debating her next words, weighing her options before she flicks the cigarette onto the street. I watch her reach into her purse, picking up a tube of lipstick and a compact mirror.

Coraline takes her time, tracing the lines of her mouth. The gentle curve of her lips seems to invite the touch of the applicator. There’s an intimacy in simply observing.

Carefully, she rubs her lips together before running her pinky along the corner of her mouth to swipe off the excess.

“I don’t need it.”

The tiny mirror clicks in her palm as she shuts it, making me blink from the trace of her lips.

“Needing revenge means I still give a fuck. I’m out of fucks to give about Stephen Sinclair.”

I stand on the sidewalk perfectly still as her heels click with every step she takes toward me. I don’t think I could move if I wanted to, not with the way the shadows bounce off her skin and the determined look in her eye.

There is something about this woman. Something I can’t comprehend but want to grab with both hands and squeeze until her body burns with the red marks my hands leave.

“I’m sorry about your father, Silas.”

Her small palms run along the edges of my jacket, dusting off nonexistent lint from my shoulders. The movement is fake, but her eyes shine with sincerity.

“But no.” She gives me a toothless smile, quick, delicate. Denying me with grace. “You don’t want to be attached to someone like me. This is me returning another favor. If you believe anything this town tells you? Believe that I’m cursed.”