A Vault of Sins Read Online Free PDF Page A

that.
    Before he can argue with me, I tell Liam Callaway everything. I start with the shooting, about the relief I felt when I killed a man in cold blood, and how that moment was the first time I ever saw a glimpse of the monster inside of me.
    But I don’t stop there. I tell him about the Compass Room. About Casey. About everything.
    ***
    I’m on the couch nursing a beer when Mom sits down next to me.
    “Is he coming back?”
    I shake my head, and the disappointment on her face slices me deep.
    “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I thought it’d be good for you to see him again, you know? But maybe I was wrong . . . maybe . . . you have feelings for that boy you were in prison with, don’t you?”
    I wish I could tell her it’s that simple, that I sent Liam away because I have feelings for Casey. One boy for another. But some problems can’t be so surface—about love or sex or what relationship is best for me. I’m forever beyond that.
    “I told him the truth.”
    “About?”
    About . . . it’s a loaded
about
. “Everything. My life for the past year and a half.”
    A long, dry pause fills the air. “And then he
left
?” She’s afraid that I’ve told him something she doesn’t know. And I did, I guess.
    “Something happened.” I concentrate on ripping the label off my bottle. “There’s this whole new, terrifying side of me I never knew about, not until the shooting. And the Compass Room. It’s like they poked and prodded us in all the right ways just to make us snap. And I did.” My fingers roll the shredded paper into a ball. I wonder what Mom’s expression would be like if she’d seen me with Gordon’s blood soaking my clothes, his corpse in front of me. Liz is trying so hard to uncover video that proves what really happened in Compass Room C, but maybe it’s better if all of that stayed buried. “I snapped.”
    Like the live wood at the campsite. Casey would always tell me to never grab it because it smoked instead of burned, and when you’d try to break it in half it would just bend and bend until it doubled over and couldn’t resist any longer. . . .
    “Evalyn?”
    My eyes focus back on her. “I can’t reset myself.”
    She blinks slowly. “Maybe he’d still love you.
This
you. You haven’t even given him a chance.”
    I know I won’t ever give Liam that chance. No matter what he expects from me, and even if he wants to accept and love the person I am, there will always be a part of me he’ll never understand.
    She waits for the answer I can’t give her. Finally, she sighs. “They’ve found us again.”
    I bite down hard on my bottom lip. “How?”
    “Must have followed Liam here. Apartment manager called me about a half hour ago. Said some reporters were snooping around, asking tenants questions.”
    I know better than anyone that the vicious reporters never miss a shot. With my meet-up with Casey yesterday and Liam visiting me today, the tabs and blogs tomorrow will brim with scandal if they aren’t already. We’re going to have to move. Again.
    I can’t drag Mom and Todd down with me.
    Scooting toward Mom, I wrap her in my arms. I don’t know what the hug means exactly, but it’s just as violent as the ones she’s been giving me lately. I squeeze her tight, an apology for not only screwing up the past two years, but the past twenty-two. I apologize for the quiet, escalating fire of our relationship.
    “I have to leave,” I whisper.
    “I know, baby.” She starts to cry. “I know.”

RFC Flash News Update: January 18
    BREAKING STORY: DIVISION OF JUDICIAL TECHNOLOGY FOUND NOT GUILTY OF PRISONER NEGLIGENCE.
    The case of the century has finally ended.
    Early Friday morning, the Division of Judicial Technology was found not guilty for prisoner negligence.
    The Division was brought to court after Evalyn Ibarra (22), Casey Hargrove (20), and Valerie Crane (26), were extracted from Compass Room C this summer due to what the division called “a minor system