"Reniella De Vega?" He sneered, looking down his long nose at me. The dark circles under his eyes were prominent and I was glad he had lost sleep over Ross's adventures. "Jesus, you two. Stand apart for Christ's sake, you look like lovers or something." 

The bitterness in his voice, I assumed, was directed towards me. It was probably because I was poor, far from perfect for his little boy. If I thought Zobel boys were all the same, their parents were even worse. Mr. Rivera had always been a grumpy bastard. 

"Get inside now. You better be quiet, I'm warning you. If you wake your mother up, I swear to God, Ross. You hear me, boy? We'll talk about this later." The big man hissed through clenched teeth. He placed a strong hand onto Ross's shoulder and with a swift push, he rushed his son into their home.

Mr. Rivera and I watched Ross's retreating figure as he traveled deeper and deeper into their house. Only when he was truly out of sight did the man turn to me. His eyes gave me a once over, hiding his emotions behind the hard expression. 

"I know you mean well, Reniella, but stop following him around. Ross's a fragile boy, he gets attached easily and I can see it in the way you stand, you're just like Avery. When you leave, it'll cause more damage than necessary. I hope you'll be wise about it," he suggested. His voice was deathly monotone and scarily controlled but my anger boiled. How dare he speak to me like that. I wasn't going to leave as my mother had. I could never be like her in that aspect. 

But, I didn't argue. Instead, I turned around silently and retreated to the car knowing that that had been the second time in one day I'd been compared to my mother. 

I fell deflated into the vehicle. Raven had already fallen asleep by then. With her mouth agape, she rested her head against the glass of the window as soft snores escaped from her lips. I turned the music down slightly and made sure it wasn't too heavy metal so as not to wake her up. She'd had a rough day and deserved to sleep for a bit. 

I could feel Deshawn behind me strongly. It felt like heat from a fire and it hit me in the back as I drove. Try as I might but I couldn't concentrate on what was going on in front of me, my body was hyper-aware of him behind and it turned my cheeks a light shade of scarlet. I could practically feel his deep breaths on the back of my neck that bred the earthquake of goosebumps. 

I ignored it, though. I didn't talk to the boy or feed into this paranormal reality I thought impossible just three days ago. 

I shook Raven awake when we arrived home and by now I was wide-awake. She, however, was the opposite. I had to lug her to the front door and while fishing the keys out of my pocket, Raven groaned and mumbled inaudible nonsense in my ear. 

Half-awake, I dragged her up the stairs quietly and made sure she took off her makeup. As the designated best friend, it was my job. I gave her some pyjamas and discarded the weed-smelling dress into my washing basket. Making sure she'd drunk some water and taken a tablet, I settled her into the other side of my bed. Raven crumpled up into a ball and fell straight to sleep again. If her mother could've seen her, Mrs. Galan would have freaked out. I just hoped her hangover wouldn't be too extreme. She was a lightweight and usually, after a night out she looked to be on her death bed the next morning. 

My mouth had been shut since arriving home but my mind was wide awake, crawling and desperate for answers. About Deshawn, Amalia, Taron, Ross, Anything. 

I turned off the lights and fell into the place beside my best friend, releasing a breath. Her snores filled the silence and the stream of light from the street lights outside highlighted my fingers as I lifted them into the air. 

"Deshawn?" I called knowing he was there somewhere. 

A hum buzzed through the silence in response, coming from the ground below. Carefully, as not to wake Raven, I turned on my stomach to look down at Deshawn on the floor beside my bed. He rested comfortably with his hands behind his head and eyes clamped shut. 

"Amalia wasn't exactly bothered by the fact that you'd died," I commented. 

His eyes opened lazily where he lifted a brow for me to continue. 

"I mean, something must have happened, right? Taron said you said stuff about her, it clearly still haunts her. So what did you say to her that stung enough to not mind you dying to get rid of it? What did you do to Marco too? What happened that would lead to your best friend saying something so horrible?" I said barely above a whisper. My voice carried carefully to him on the floor and his lips pulled down into a frown. 

"Some people just aren't on your side to begin with. I think she would've been grateful for my death regardless of what I had said." 

"But what did you say?"

He sighed. His eyes swirled with a blazing emotion. It could've been sadness, regret or surprise, I wasn't sure. Each one clouded over the other until all I could see was the warm honey-brown colour. 

"For us in Zobel, money means nothing. We've all got too much of it to make a difference. Our currency is secrets and, believe me, that girl had a lot of them. She was drowning in them. She told me anything and everything." He lifted himself into a seating position. Crossing his legs, he leant against my wall and began clicking his fingers into place.

"When we broke up, I was bitter. I'm usually pretty laid back but she does something to me. She drives me crazy and not in a good way. Every time I pull away, she comes right after me all over again and I don't have the heart to say no. It's a bad habit. After cheating on me with my best friend, I went over the edge. I had to make sure she wouldn't come back this time because I couldn't trust myself to say no. So, I spilt some of her secrets. They were only innocent ones, I just wanted to scare her. I needed her to understand that if I felt like it, I could've exposed them all without hesitation. I needed that fear to play on her mind, I wanted her to know that I could ruin her life." 

Deshawn cowered in the shadows with his head in his hands as he rubbed away the guilt. I had to squint past the darkness to assess his every move. I needed to know how he genuinely felt about the situation. Did he truly care about the amount of distress he had caused Amalia? Would he have released all her secrets if he was still alive and allowed to?