Dismissing Dakota | ✓

»34. Erase Me«

a/n: I double updated, read chapter 33 first

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Silvia's P.O.V.

Diana's letters had a new weight to them. I couldn't go back to them without envisioning Hunter in all of her details about her lover, painting him as a vicious mastermind. I was fighting against the revelation, trying to see where I had missed it...how we all had. After finding out that Maven had a boyfriend, I dropped my theory that he was the mystery man Dakota was searching for. But nothing gave me a clue that the father was closer than I thought. It made me wonder, with a wave of curiosity, if his niceness was fake, too.

I didn't know what to think when Sherri told us later said that Diana's delusion was being driven by Hunter's promise of marrying her. I had no way of forgiving him after hearing that. The icing on the cake, per se, was that Sherri had a photo that once belong to Diana of Diana hanging off Hunter's neck, smiling with bright eyes. It hurt, more than ever, to see how in love she looked to me-unaware of the storm and deception in the horizon. On her finger, a dazzling ring appeared on her left hand. The story was real.

I stayed at Dakota's house that night, staying in one of the spare bedrooms. I couldn't face my family-not today. I couldn't walk into that house with everything I knew, with all that I felt, without wanting to scream at Hunter. Heath arrived an hour later, collecting Sherri with his parents. She didn't waste any time to glare at Dakota the entire time while going into the car.

"I'm going to fucking murder him."

"You can't do that, Dakota, unless you want to room with you dad."

His fiery gaze simmered when they landed on me, becoming tinder. "I don't know what to do, Silvia. I've wanted to know for so long, but I didn't think that once I'd find out that I'd wish for the days when I was left in the dark."

"You think it was better to not be in the know? You've been searching."

"Because I didn't think it was Hunter. He took my first girlfriend then my sister. It's difficult to not want to strangle that bastard."

"I have a better idea." I combed back his hair, using the small amount of lighting we got from the lamp on the nightstand. My hand went to the side of his face, and he turned his cheek, kissing my palm. "We're not going to let him get away with this."

"We? You want to help?"

"I do," I nodded, "There's more to the story."

"Or he's just an asshole," he shrugged. "All along I thought Maven was the evil twin, but it took me years to find out that they're equally as bad."

"I'm not going to argue that he isn't." I yawned. "We'll get to brain storming tomorrow on how we're going to pull off my plan. I need to get to bed."

Dakota leaned in, kissing my forehead too fast for me to refuse the advance. I chuckled when he flicked off my lamp and didn't get off the bed right away.

"Alone, Dakota. I'm going to bed alone."

He sighed. "It was worth a shot."

...

Before our first day back to school, I had Heath install microphones on the interior of my car. We were prepared for our mission. Ronnie wanted to come up with a name for the operation, but all of her creations were more laughably awful than usable.

We were still debating on when we should approach Hunter. I wanted to go at the start of lunch, Dakota thought before homeroom, and Heath thought going to him right at the end of school was the best opportunity. We eventually went with my concept, running into him at his locker. He was dangling his backpack off one arm, unzipping it as he walked. Doug and Pierson were to his left and right, talking about the next game they were going to play against Boulder Valley High.