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“Why?” I whispered,“Why?”

“I told you, Idaho” Mason’s expression looked harshly triu as you were at Oak Park, it would always be like this”

“But what about…?”

Everything

What about the protection they’d offered me from other bullies? What about Mason’s concession that ood as theirs? What about the moments we’d shared—the looks, the little touches, the secret truths? Had all of that been bullshit? Hoas the possible?

He shrugged, a cruel s his lips “Don’t you remember, Hildebrand? I also told you life in our world isn’t all sunshine and roses But you chose to step into it You said you could handle it It’s not ”

Nausea turned my stomach as my world flipped abruptly on its axis for the second time this year

“You made me trust you…” I whispered “You made me… care about you”

“We didn’thard He curled his lip, soreen eyes “You did it You chose to believe what you wanted to believe And it’s not surprising, considering who your mother was, that you were so easy to ruin All we did was let you show your true fucking colors”

Tears burnedmy vision blur as I stared at the four of them Cole stood next to Mason with his arms crossed, feet spread wide and a completely blank expression on his face Finn looked more serious than I’d ever seen hiht, his hands fisted at his sides as his nostrils flared

They looked like I’d seen them that first day—like a powerful, impenetrable wall, an unstoppable force

“But why this?” I whispered What they’d done was so elaborate Convoluted and cruel on so many levels I couldn’t wrap my mind around it “Why did you make me think… ere you ever nice to me?”

I knew they could be assholes I’d known that all along But the other sides to them that I’d seen—those couldn’t all have been a lie, could they?

Mason shrugged “Because shit isn’t siiven, and the past doesn’t get swept under a rug You wanted to play with us? Well, ere playing the long gay”

A game