Alice's POV

It was snowing.

And Gem seemed to be hating the mere prospect of it judging from the way she kept looking over to one of the lounge windows and growling at the snowflakes tumbling down from the pretty sky outside.

I picked up one of the many sunflowers lying on the marble counter in front of me and caressed a yellow curled petal, before pointing it towards the only black kitten within my vicinity.

"Gem," I said, "you know Ryder's gonna be pissed if he finds you scratching his windows."

My baby cat didn't give me much of a response apart from one of those insistent tiny growls. They weren't scary. They were adorable.

Pushing my hair back behind my ears, I picked up the dark ceramic vase I'd found lying all alone on one of the sleek side tables. It had looked sad and empty and I'd thought the sunflowers would look so pretty in it. Though I knew I should've asked Ryder first before snooping around. It was just that I didn't know where he was, didn't know where he'd gone when he'd left the balcony to answer that phone call, and I wasn't exactly...well, I was trying to distract my mind from what had happened upstairs.

Ryder had received a phone call and I hadn't seen him since. And it was snowing. The penthouse looked so empty and lonely and it was snowing outside.

I gingerly placed the first sunflower inside the water-filled vase. It looked pretty already but also still lonely, so I added a few more flowers until they bloomed together beautifully. It was surreal, still so startling to see them in front of me--to remember that all of them were for me. Me? I'd never had...

I just never had any of this before.

I'd seen it happen. I wasn't stupid and I knew it happened a lot. Flowers being given to my friends and classmates all around me. It used to happen a lot back in high school when I was on the cheerleading team. Boys used to come by all the time, stop by the hallways and give their girlfriends every variation of a gift starting from a flower to a sweetheart box of chocolates.

I'd seen it happen a lot. But never to me. I was the new girl there back in my senior year of high school and even though being on the cheerleading team got me invited to most of the popular parties, I was always mostly just the one tagging along the sidelines.

Always a friend. Who had casual hookups a lot of the time, but never a permanent boyfriend, and who liked getting wasted occasionally. But that was it.

Besides, what Ryder and I had--whatever this was--it wasn't like any of that. He bought flowers for me because he found it hard to say sorry. It was endearing. Sad. It was fine.

Sighing, I stepped away from the sunflowers and the vase, and picked up the mug of peppermint tea that still sat near the barstool, the one Rafael had made for me and the one that had gone cold now. I took a tiny sip and grimaced at the cool taste, apologetic as I went over and drained it in the sink.

And then I washed the mug. Once, twice, and probably would've done it a third time too because my hands were itching to do something, make something all right, fix something. I don't know why I felt the way I did sometimes but it was a strange, heady feeling.

Gem mewled and I was startled at the sudden voice behind me, "What are you doing?"

I nearly lost hold of the mug as I turned around, my thoughts stuttering to a halt when I saw Ryder standing a few steps past the kitchen entrance, looking blank and then confused as his gaze darted from the dripping mug in my hands and then the ceramic vase on the marble counter which was now filled with sunflowers.

"I...um." I trailed off, eyes wide, and heat crawling up my neck. "I didn't want the sunflowers to die. I'm sorry, I know I should've asked you before I took the vase."

Ryder didn't seem too bothered by it, or maybe he was bothered that I'd touched his things and wasn't really showing it outright.

"I'm going out. I have some things to take care of." He looked away, shrugging on a jacket over his long-sleeved tee.

I watched him, then the sky from the window behind him, and pulled away from the kitchen sink.

"Wait," I said.

He looked up.

"Can I come with you?"

"Why." He asked, tone flat. It was almost like a mini whiplash because the Ryder back at the balcony hadn't been like this--detached and confused and devoid of everything--and maybe...maybe something had happened that I wasn't aware of. Maybe all of what had happened upstairs had just been a one-time thing.

I tried to look past the sudden disappointment I felt right then because I didn't even know what exactly I had been expecting.

I shrugged sheepishly. "It's snowing?"

"Yes." He looked at me as if it should've been obvious enough. "Why would you want to go out in the cold?"

Well, at least he did make it sound like a question this time.

"It's snowing," I replied pathetically, raising my hands in the air right after I'd placed the mug safely away. "The sky's so pretty."

"Of course, it is." He grunted and turned around, walking out of the kitchens.

I hurried after him, watching his back as he walked past the narrow hallway. "I won't get in your way! I promise. It's just I'm used to the snow whenever it's Christmas ever since I was a kid, but it didn't snow last year because it never snows here. And now that it is for some reason snowing here, I don't want to miss it."

I'd been pretty disgruntled and upset when we'd left the hospital, and when I'd seen all the Christmas decorations around the streets, it had made me even more miserable. The idea of Christmas back home was daunting but it still would've been home.

The snow, the Christmas tree, and the Christmas lights all around the house--I was missing it all just because I didn't think I could be there in my house, stay within the confines of it, with Michael present there.

I'd given up the idea of Christmas at home this year, especially after getting myself injured like this, but I could enjoy the snow at least, couldn't I?

Ryder shoved past the dark burgundy door at the end of the hallway and went inside the room which I knew was his, which also made me hesitate for the shortest of moments before I stepped past the threshold and followed him inside.

"Miss what?" He threw the words over his shoulder. "Getting soaked in cold water?"

"The snowflakes!" I blurted out, although I wasn't really looking at him because I was too busy looking around the room--his bedroom. It was as big as the guestrooms I'd seen upstairs, only a little more spacious, and I let my eyes linger over the huge king-sized bed, the dark rumpled sheets and pillows, the dark, pristine flooring, and the room was warm. It smelled like him, I registered in the furthest part of my head.

"The snowflakes," Ryder repeated.

I cleared my throat hastily and crossed my arms, facing him once again. I nodded when I realized he'd stopped by the huge closet behind him and was looking straight at me with a strange look in his eyes. "You wish to see the snowflakes."

I wanted to ask him to stop looking so confused because it was making me feel strange and giddy and odd.

"Yeah." I nodded, afraid that my head was about to roll off my neck with how fast I was shaking it. "They're pretty."

We stared at each other for a moment too long. I couldn't look away because he wasn't looking away.

I was about to open my mouth and blurt out something embarrassing, something awful which would've totally ruined everything, when he turned around and started rummaging through his clothes.

"Fine," he said.

I blinked in surprise. "Fine?"

He didn't say anything else and since his back was towards me, I let myself look around his room once again--at the bed and the curtains and the windows and then the nightstand, and I saw a book carefully lying there, right in the center--a dark paperback with a dog-eared page visible in between. I stared at it in awe. "I knew it," I murmured under my breath.

"Knew what?" Ryder stopped and frowned at me.

I shook my head, alarmed, and said, "Nothing. It was just--" and that's also when my eyes flickered to something behind him, in his closet, and amongst the shirts and sweaters, I caught a glimpse of yellow hung there. A pale, soft yellow.

One that I'd seen before.

One that I had before.

Ryder, ignoring me and my sudden sense of utter astonishment, pulled out a thick jacket and handed it to me.

"Put this on," he said.

I took it from him, barely registering the soft wool beneath my fingertips since my gaze was still somewhat stuck to the yellow wool scarf hung meticulously at one hidden corner of his closet.

My yellow scarf. My good luck scarf. The last time I'd worn it was when I'd been at Soren's apartment, where I'd found out that he was cheating on me. I'd also met Ryder there for the first time since the incident in that underground cellar.

So much--so much of everything had changed since then. I had seen so many things happen since then. I'd eventually found out about Brooke and Soren. I'd found out about Michael showing up again. And a man named Santiago, who had this sick and twisted idea of justice in his head, was after me now.

But I'd met him again--met Ryder again.

I'd gotten to know him--a little if a lot was still left in mystery. But I thought of him a little more now. And I'd seen him, felt him, my mind had categorized him as someone safe.

Maybe all because of my good luck scarf, I thought. It was hilariously ironic because the only reason I'd worn the scarf that night when I'd gone to Soren's apartment was because I'd thought it would bring me some luck and I would be able to somehow fix things between us.

Too caught up in my thoughts and memories, I put on Ryder's jacket and inhaled softly. When he passed me a pair of woolen gloves--ones that looked much more expensive and unused than the ones I had back in my dorm--which I could've refused but didn't, and saw me grinning, he furrowed his brows.

"What is wrong with you."

You still kept it with you, I wanted to say. But I was afraid it was too soon and I would ruin everything with just those few words.

I pulled on the gloves over my hands, basking in the sweet warmth, and laughed softly. "I'm just happy, is all."

"Because of the snow." He sounded like he'd tasted something bad. He sounded ignorant and maybe even a little pissed. Not at me, though. I hoped he wasn't pissed at me.

I nodded, eyes wide with excitement. And because of you, I wished to add. But I didn't because I hoped he could see it in my eyes.

•••••

The snowfall hadn't stopped even a little bit and out there already forming, I could see, were thin white blankets over the street corners.

It was exhilarating and familiar at the same time to see the little flakes of snow falling from the cloudy sky because it was childhood and happiness mixed all together. It was a rush of familiarity. For a second, I thought I remembered playing in the snow--all laughs and giggles and happiness and sunshine because I had my mom and my dad and there was this big snowman out in our yard with a fork for a nose because I didn't like carrots and vegetables were all just gross.

I blinked, startled, and looked around the busy street I was currently at. With Ryder, because he was here with me too. I didn't even know if what I'd just remembered was a real memory from back when my mom and dad hadn't divorced, or something I just wished had happened when I was a kid.

I looked up at the pretty evening sky and wished Gem was here with me too. If only she hadn't hated snow so much.

A hand shot out--two fingers dipping inside my jacket sleeve before tugging at it. I looked down from the sky and the snow and over at Ryder as he steered me away from the edge of the road right as a car honked by.

"Sorry," I murmured sheepishly.

Ryder didn't even spare me a glance. "This is stupid."

"What?" I widened my eyes dramatically. "The snow?"

"No." He scowled. "Watching you act so deranged is what's stupid."

"Hey, don't be rude."

Another sharp tug on my sleeve and I stumbled towards him this time, not even noticing that I'd once again steered towards the edge of the streetwalk. Another car honked by and I winced.

"I'll show you what's rude if one more car driver yells at you." He snapped at me, dark blue eyes flashing with warning.

"There wasn't any car driver yelling at me." I pointed out the same moment someone yelled somewhere behind me, "hey, watch where you're going!"

I turned around and apologized even though the car had already driven by.

Ryder gave me another one of those looks.

"But, Ryder," I said and stopped and stared up at the sky. A snowflake landed on the tip of my nose and I sneezed.

"Alice."

"It's so pretty." I grinned. "Don't you see? The sun's about to set."

He stared at me, once again with that strange, bewildered look before shaking his head. "I don't get you."

"You'll see," I told him. "I don't get to do it every day because afternoon classes always get me a little tired, but I watch the sunset through my dorm room window. It's always so beautiful the way the colors spread all along the sky out here. We can watch the sunset together!"

"No." He grabbed my wrist and started dragging me across the street towards a handful of shops that were scattered behind a wide alleyway.

"But you said--"

"I didn't say anything." He cut me off, voice flat. Just like before. Though at least he was touching me this time, warm fingers curled firmly around my wrist, so maybe something had changed after all. "You wanted to come along with me and that's it."

"We can watch the sunset too though," I suggested softly, staring up at him.

"I'm not doing anything other than what I'm actually here for." He snapped, glowering at me. "I have real things to do, Alice, stuff to take care of before it all fucks up. Don't be stupid."

I blinked, finally and slowly registering the heaviness in his eyes and the invisible, tense weight on his shoulders. Nothing like he'd looked back at the balcony when there had just been him and I and maybe Gem and when he'd been wrapping a new bandage around my arm. When he'd kissed me.

Something had been said on that phone call, the one he'd left the balcony to answer, and it must not have been anything nice.

"I'm not stupid," I told him, my voice almost a whisper and my eyes not wavering from his.

He stared at me, shook his head, then looked up at the sky, closing his eyes and raking his hands through his hair.

A tense beat of silence passed by.

"You're not, okay?" He said, then scowled. "I...am sorry."

A slow smile tugged on my lips. "It's all right. So, what things do you need to take care of?"

He opened his eyes, looked at me, and I could see the way he looked so confused because how had I forgiven him so easily? I didn't think he realized that sometimes apologies were accepted fast and easy if they were given the same way.

His phone buzzed on cue. Ryder pulled it out of his pocket, though his eyes never left mine.

"There's a man I need to speak to." He stated, glancing over my shoulders on either side. "See that shop over there?"

I followed his gaze to a small trinket shop at the end of the alley.

"Go inside and stay there." He told me. "Don't come out until I come there to get you."

"But--"

"I'll be right across from the shop. I promise."

I nodded slowly, cautiously. "Okay."

It was when I'd crossed the street and stepped past the tinkling doors of the small trinkets shop--alone--that I felt a tiny shiver crawl up my spine. Because when I really thought about it, this was the first time I was really alone and away from Ryder after the scary incident on that bridge.

Ryder wasn't here with me. He was just across the street, I reminded myself, but being away from him and being alone on my own made it all the more daunting. What if, I thought and looked over my shoulder, scanning the unfamiliar faces, what if Santiago was out here somewhere just waiting for me?

"He doesn't know where I am," I whispered reassuringly under my breath. And to emphasize it, to make the words feel real enough, I touched the bandage on my wrist and pulled my fingers away from it just as quickly before I ended up somehow unraveling the bandage all over again.

I swallowed past the fear in my throat and looked around the shop--couldn't help but look around the people already present in the shop, telling myself that they'd been here before me and weren't here for me. None of them resembled the face of that gas-masked man. Of Santiago.

I glanced outside the shop doors and saw the vaguely creepy-looking pawn shop Ryder had gone into. It looked closed from the outside, dark curtains pulled shut over the glass windows.

I was safe here, I found myself thinking, but was Ryder safe in there?

I was pulled away from my thoughts when the friendly old lady, who was also the shop owner, approached me. I made sure to pull down my sleeves over my hands so that the bandage won't be visible.

She was kind as she chatted along with me, probably knowing on the spot I was an anxious customer who'd just stumbled in here without any clue of what to look for. She took it upon herself to walk me around the shop, telling me stories about one trinket after another and I couldn't stop grinning because I think she was making them up along the way.

I still kept glancing over at the pawn shop across the street, wondering when Ryder would leave the shop premises and come here. The old lady noticed and asked me if I was waiting for a friend. I told her about Ryder the same moment he pushed past the shop doors, got out and stood there with fists clenched on either side of him, before marching back inside the shop once again.

She saw him and her eyes widened in recognition. I didn't know if it was a bad thing or a good one that she seemed to find him familiar, and I got my answer pretty fast when she started asking me about him, about Ryder and Rafael.

I was baffled, to say the least.

"I, um..." Was me stuttering and getting a little red in the face when she asked me if I was his partner.

"Oh, don't take it the wrong way, sweetheart," she said. "It's just the boy's way too much of a grump for his own good. That other boy, Rafael, would agree with me. I'm sure he would."

"You know Rafael?" I asked her with a smile when she showed me a dreamcatcher made from seashells.

"I do, I do." She nodded. "He shows up here more often than not, and sometimes with the grumpy one too."

A small snicker left my lips when I couldn't really help it. She was describing Ryder as a total grump but I could see the affectionate glint in her eyes. Could it be that Ryder had sent me here only because he knew the old woman who ran this shop? Because she was safe?

"It gets dark out here after midnight--the alley, you see? He was bloodied and disheveled and looked near death the other night I came by because I forgot the house keys in the shop. There was another one of them, an ugly mug right down on his last breath. I just about called the police, you hear me?"

I stared at her with wide eyes, aware of a handful of customers maneuvering around us to exit the shop. "Ryder?"

"Yeah, yeah. He was the one who was bloodied and disheveled." She waved her hand in the air. "But I didn't get to phone anyone because they both were gone by the time I came anywhere near the shop landline."

"The next day his friend Rafael showed up for the first time. A charmer, that boy. He tried to offer me money, can you believe? To forget whatever I saw the previous night." Her eyes widened in disbelief and I started laughing. "I would've ripped him a new one for messing around, but like I said, boy's a charmer and he ended up buying two of my most expensive trinkets before he left. Good at heart, you see. Saved me from one of the mugs who came by to steal from my shop a few days later."

I couldn't comprehend at that point who exactly she was talking about, but it was still a sweet story and I could definitely see and imagine Rafael trying to cover up Ryder's messes. He was a good friend.

The shop owner lady, once she was done relaying her stories to me, told me that I needed to choose something since it was my first time being here, and when I told her sheepishly that I didn't have money on me and that maybe I'd visit her again later when I did have some cash with me, she smacked me on the arm playfully and told me the very first trinkets for her new customers were always free of charge.

Which was sweet of her but also kind of made me feel like I was taking advantage of her and the shop in some way.

Despite what I thought, I still had a small paper bag with two adorable fridge magnets in it when I stepped out of the glass doors.

Ryder stood outside the shop premises, hands stuffed inside his jacket pockets, and waited me out until I walked over to him. His eyes found mine in a brief once-over, though he barely glanced at the paper bag in my gloved hands before walking out of the alley from the opposite direction.

"The old lady inside was nice." I broke the silence as I glanced at him.

He merely grunted in response, eyes narrowed and on the pavement ahead.

"Do you come here often?" I asked him. "Did you know she'd be nice and that's why you sent me there?"

He blinked, jaw tensing. "No."

"It's just that she said she knew you."

He still refused to look at me, staring straight ahead as we walked. I wondered what exactly had happened inside the pawn shop he'd been at while I'd been talking with the friendly old lady. He looked tense as if whatever he'd found inside hadn't been good.

"She knows Rafael." He answered finally. Though he didn't say she didn't know him either. Which would've been a lie because she'd told me she knew him. And Ryder never lied to me, did he? I thought with a strange pull in my chest.

I hummed softly in response and the rest of our walk was silent--tense, but silent. I couldn't help but watch the way he stared ahead but not really at the same time, eyes darting across the street as if searching for a cause of alarm or threat, and yet enclosing it all in his head. Away away away.

He seemed to be caught up in something that was all in his head.

I followed him quietly, not so sure if the quiet snow was exhilarating anymore, and was more than a little surprised when I registered my surroundings after a while and saw that we were heading near the trees and the grass and a...a clear, empty park.

The grass was speckled with snow and the air was getting colder. I rubbed the tip of my nose and stopped when Ryder stopped by the wooden fence securing the small clearing.

There were so many trees ahead. And the sky. The pink and purple and the red and orange up in the sky were mesmerizing. The sun was setting, I realized belatedly and my heart skipped a soft steady beat.

I looked over at Ryder beside me, stared, and told my heart to stop acting so childish. Racing in that giddy way it used to happen during my early teenage years when I had a crush on a classmate.

This wasn't a crush, for God's sake. This was a feeling much more profound than that. A deep feeling of joy because he was out here, Ryder was out here when he didn't have to be, to watch the sunset with me.

Just because I'd asked that from him.

I couldn't say it, couldn't say anything to him--didn't think I should, so I gripped the paper bag in my hands a little tighter and leaned my arms against the wooden fence.

"So, how did your thing go?" I asked him. "Did you... Was it..."

I didn't know how to finish that sentence without provoking anger in him. I was expecting, hoping maybe that he'd tell me it wasn't my business so at least that way I wouldn't embarrass myself even further.

But to my surprise, Ryder only just remained silent for a little while longer before replying.

"It was someone relaying information from my father." He spoke, staring straight ahead into the trees.

I blinked, surprised at the answer, and nodded. "Okay."

He turned his gaze on me. "Okay." He said it like he didn't understand. Like he expected me to ask more.

I wanted to but I just didn't know how.

"Have you lived here for long?" I asked instead. "This part of the city? I just thought you lived back in Hayward because of...you know." Because the only time I'd seen you was in that cellar when you'd saved me without even knowing anything about me, and that had been back there in Hayward. You'd been back there where my family was, where I'd escaped from.

"I lived there," he said. "And here. Why does it matter?"

There is no home, Matias, I suddenly remembered--those words he'd spoken on his phone. The conversation I'd eavesdropped on earlier in the day.

"There has never been a place for you that's just...permanent?" I asked him, refusing to look away from him just like he hadn't looked away from me yet. "You know, like--"

"No."

I nodded, looked away, and cleared my throat. Not a place to call home. Mine was my dorm, I guess, but that'd be going away too, soon.

What really was home? I thought. Not a place. I'd never really had a place to call home either.

"I don't know what home feels like either," I murmured, staring down at the gnarly, halfway-embedded roots of the nearest trees. "I think...there was a home for me back when my dad and my mom hadn't separated."

"Your real dad." He didn't make it sound like a question, but I heard it anyway.

"Yeah," I said, then shrugged and smiled. "I don't remember it, though. I was little. I don't remember my real dad and I don't think he remembers me either."

"You don't know where he lives?" He asked, confused.

I shook my head.

Ryder frowned, let it melt away, then stated, "I can find him for you. If you want."

That caused me to laugh because just those words were simple enough, but ones no one had ever said to me. No one had ever wanted anything like that for me. Endearing and soft and a feeling that was pure warmth.

"No, that's all right." I smiled at him, then felt it tug down at the edges. "You've already done enough for me, Ryder." I didn't say that I was sure, pretty sure, my father didn't want me anyway. Or he would've found me himself. Stayed long enough to explain why he was leaving? I didn't blame him. I never really had.

Ryder didn't say anything although I could see him thinking, calculating, until I asked him, "What about your dad? Do you...not have a good relationship with him?"

I could've seen him stiffen this time.

"No," he said like his words tasted bitter. "Not a relationship. Just an agreement."

I opened my mouth to ask more because I itched to know more, but he spoke before I could've.

"Santiago won't remain hidden for long," he said, changing the topic so suddenly that it left me dazed and blinking for a moment. "You should know that because when you least expect it, that's when he'll come after you."

"That's not scary at all," I murmured, rubbing my gloved hands over my arms as I frowned.

"He's foolishly determined when he fixates on a target but you should not be scared of him."

"I am scared of him. I just don't get why he's doing this. You said you know him. Why does he go after just anyone?"

Ryder tipped his head up to the sky. I watched helplessly at the starting of a black bold line--ink edged into the skin below his collarbone. I wanted to reach out and trace it with my fingertips. I wanted to see.

"He's one of my father's men who went rogue. Left his secure bounds, from under his strict orders. He escaped."

"Your father?" I whispered, furrowing my brows.

"Is every bad thing you can think of." He simply stated, then gave a half-shrug. "A web woven from darkness and he's always right in the middle of it. His life revolves around it. Always had and always will."

"He's..." I started, unsure and uncertain because I didn't know how to ask, how to comprehend everything that he'd just told me. How bad was his father?

"On the other side of the world, querida." He glanced at me, shaking his head. "He's not here."

Not here. That wasn't reassuring, but knowing that Ryder was here with me settled the dread within me a little.

"Tell me, you remember those men and women in white coats, don't you?" He asked me after a few pondering seconds. "The ones who kept you in there. In that underground cellar."

I looked at him, startled to hear those words being said out in the open. Just those few words and I could see them, feel the gritty earth and concrete beneath me. The stale air. The hands over my mouth and my nose and cutting off air just because I wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't--

"How do you think they carried on with what they did, carrying out all those experiments under the false pretense of being researchers, without anyone finding out about it?"

I shook my head because I didn't know and I didn't want to know and I didn't want to think about it--about any of it.

"They were under my father's protection." He stated it so simply, so blandly, that I could only gape at him in horror.

"Your father--"

He stared over at the trees and the emptiness ahead. "No one has ever managed to escape his grasp. Imagine what a blow it must've been to him when one of his own men went rogue on him."

"But...how?" Your father, I wanted to say, ask, demand, he was behind it. Behind those horrible underground cellars. Your father.

But that wasn't fair. That wasn't fair to him, was it? Even though nothing about it felt believable or something that could be real. Something that had happened to me.

"I will ask Santiago that when I catch him." He replied, seeming thoughtful. "I've got a lot to ask him before I hand over his dead body to my father."

I shuddered and looked away, shook my head in disbelief, and then again for good measure.

"That's...horrible, Ryder. You're saying you grew up around all that. Your parents. Your father? You grew up around it all?" Dead bodies and murder and a father who protected people--evil people who did horrible, nightmarish things to random strangers in creepy underground cellars?

He faced me, eyes a cool blue settling on me. "I can see that you're finding it disturbing."

"Of course, I am." I stared at him, wide-eyed. Sad, devastated--this was simply devastating and horrifying. "What about your...your mom?"

Was she the same as his dad? What if she was dead? God, did I even want to know?

He stared at me for a moment, almost as if trying to find something within me. "I'd rather not tell you more if you're going to start crying on me."

I blinked and surely enough there were tears in my eyes. I sniffled and looked down at the ground. "It's just the cold. I'm not crying."

"You do know I don't understand why you're all sad about this, don't you?" He was frowning now. "You asked me about my father. I only told you everything that I did because I don't like lying to you."

"You don't lie to me," I whispered his words and then inhaled shakily. God, how was this my life? Between all the dark and shadows, someone with the coldest of blue eyes who'd seen his own share of nightmarish things, and he said he didn't like lying to me?

There was a soft huff of breath, a scoff of disbelief, before Ryder leaned close and wiped a stray tear from my cheek. I looked up, startled at the warmth on my chilled skin, and my breath hitched when I saw the soft tug of his lips, a small smile purely borne out of disbelief.

But it was simply breathtaking.

His eyes, his lips--Ryder, I thought helplessly. Ryder.

"You are a little bit stupid, Alice." He said. "Even though you keep telling me you're not."

I sniffled again, because my nose was getting runny now, and laughed softly. Sadly. Heartbreakingly.

Ryder shook his head, the smile gone. "We'll never talk about him again. My father. I tell you that I have never lied to you but I don't like speaking about him either."

What about your mom? I wanted to ask. He hadn't answered. He hadn't.

"What you know now is going to be enough." He said, furrowing his brows, before adding, "That's all there is to it anyway."

We both turned back towards the fence and the trees and the snow. And the sun as it melted into the sky, going down and darkening us all.

"That's why you and Rafael are such close friends," I mumbled. "He knows all about your father too."

Ryder sighed aggravatedly. "Acquaintances, querida."

I smiled and pressed the length of my arm against his. He was all warm heat. He didn't pull away.

And the snow continued falling.

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I think I said somewhere that you don't have to read 'that night' for this book to make sense but I feel like a few things (like that whole underground cellar shebang) would make much more sense if you did read that book. Especially the last few chapters.

No pressure tho. Love you guys for all the constant support!! <3