Her Silent Revenge novel Chapter 117

Fuck.

It's so easy for her to say that, and it unlocks something in my chest. "Missed you, too, Lady Bug. I wouldn't be anywhere else. How are

you? How's Arlo?"

The question I need to ask and almost don't want to know.

It feels like Schrodinger's cat. If I don't ask, he might be fine. He might be recovering. The ugly truth doesn't have to exist if I don't call for it.

But dammit, I need to know.

She doesn't cry, but her chest heaves. For a second, I wonder if she'll have the breath to tell me.

Her hair falls limply around her face. She takes a strand and pulls it roughly, twisting it around her delicate fingers.

"Salem?" I tilt her face up so I can read it properly, searching in her eyes for answers the way astrologers watch the stars.

She releases a shuddering breath.

"I… I don't know," she says, still twisting her hair around. "It just doesn't make sense. We were out and it was a normal day, Patton."

Fear grips my chest and I inhale deeply, all I can do to keep my voice level.

"Look at me," I tell her, and finally she focuses, two pinpricks of awareness gleaming through the shock. "What did the doctor tell you? What happened?"

She presses her lips together so tightly I can't see them. I grit my teeth with effort.

It's not that I want to rage at her—hell, I want to wipe the sadness from her eyes and make sure she never feels it again—but there's this jagged vibration in my chest that needs to come out.

She inhales and wipes her dry, red eyes.

"It was a normal morning," she says quietly. A whisper, really. I pull her closer so I can hear her. "I swear he didn't eat anything awful. He didn't have anything I didn't."

"So they think it's food poisoning?"

"No, it's…" She swallows so hard I see her throat dip. "More like regular poisoning."

"What the fuck?" I barely remember to keep my voice down as other people look at us. "What do you mean, regular poisoning?"

"I don't know. I don't know! One minute, he was fine. The next, he's throwing up everywhere and I couldn't—" She tears at her hair. I catch her wrists to hold them still, pressing them gently to my chest. "I should have known something like this was bound to happen," she says, more quietly this time.

"Salem—"

"We know I'm bad luck. It follows me everywhere. I just thought it would hurt us, not Arlo. I didn't think it would ever come after him."

I resist the urge to shake her.

She can be here with you while I figure out what happened." "We were over there for brunch."

My heart stalls.

"You were?" My eyes narrow. "But so what?"

"I just don't want your mom worrying about it or thinking she had anything to do with this. That's impossible."

"It's her grandkid, Salem. Even if she doesn't know it." Even if Arlo doesn't know, either. "Please. I need to tell her."

Salem paces away from me, her shoulders hunched, and I grab my phone. Then she turns, her mouth hard. "So you're going to call her anyway?"

"I don't have a choice," I bite out. "Hell, if anything, that's where I need to go. What if he got into something at her house?"

"But what? He was with us the whole time!" she hisses.

"I don't fucking know. A plant, a chemical, something." I'm no expert on poisons, that's for sure.

But there must be something.

"He wasn't anywhere near any plants. He was with us in the room the whole time and he had the same cake we ate!" Her voice is so urgent and she wraps her fingers around my arm as she pleads. "Please don't. You can't tell her."