if one of them is dead.

chapter thirty-one.

Lilith.

I lean against his bed frame, crossing my arms tightly over my chest. Mattheo stops pacing to lean back on his wall across from me.

"How are you alive?"

Starting out with the easy ones I see. That's okay with me, I'd rather not answer the others.

"I was never dead," I state, shrugging. "I disappeared, so people assumed I was dead."

"You were never— Dumbledore told us they found your body. He told us they identified it as you," he says angrily. "And where the hell did you disappear to?"

"One question at a time," I say, and he gives me a warning look. "Fine. Dumbledore lied about that part. They never found a body— at least not mine." He raises his brows and I shrug. "Hogwarts is weird, I don't know everything that happens behind the scenes."

"But you know a hell of a lot more than what you tell us."

"I do," I agree. "I won't lie about that. You already know it."

"Then where did you disappear to?" he asks. He's still pissed, and I don't think that will go away anytime soon.

I sigh, thinking how I want to word this. "I went to a lot of different places."

"And those were?"

He's going to make me say every detail isn't he?

"My house, my city, a few cities around that, somewhere in America, Ireland, this old warehouse with an electrical fence right on the outskirts of my city—" it looks like things are starting to click in his head, "—and Malfoy Manor."

"Malfoy Mano— Lilith, what the fuck?" he asks. "You went to Malfoy Manor, and that warehouse— Holy fucking shit, Pansy wasn't wrong."

"Wasn't wrong about what?" I ask, furrowing my brows slightly. What the hell did Pansy think? I cross my arms tighter around my body.

He scoffs and shakes his head, but I can see the hurt in his eyes.

Shit.

"You really are, aren't you?" he asks, the hurt more there than ever. I've never seen this type of look in his eyes— a look between anger, hurt, and worst of all, betrayal.

It still hurts to see that look and know I caused it, no matter how much I've had to pretend I don't care.

"What?"

"You became one after you said you wouldn't."

"Mattheo—"

"No," he interrupts. "You promised me, Lilith. That was the one goddam thing that I really wanted. Lilith, I didn't want you to become one of them."

"Mattheo, you have to understand—"

"Oh, I don't need to understand," he says, glaring at me. "I trusted you on this, Lilith. I thought you wouldn't betray me like that. I've done the things you asked. This was the only important thing I ever asked of you."

"Mattheo, seriously, I have reasons—"

"Enlighten me, Lilith. Tell me why the hell you became a death eater. Tell me why you went against what I asked. Tell me why you became one of my father's followers."

I sigh. I really hate this, and I know I screwed up, but I did it for a reason.

"I wanted protection," I say, gesturing in the air at nothing. My arms go down to my sides and I rub the spot with the word traitor etched in deep. "I just thought it would be better protection. But it's better than the protection here."

"And what protection is here?" he asks after a moment.

"Only my father," I reply. "And you. I'm sorry to tell you, Mattheo, but the two of you combined aren't as powerful as your father. He would kill all three of us because he would see us as weaknesses to each other." I cross my arms over my body again.

"And Dumbledore?"

"Dumbledore doesn't give a shit about any of us. He only cares about Potter, and he still treats him like shit. He's all 'help is given to people who deserve it at Hogwarts' or some shit, but he lies. None of us matter to him. If help is given to people that deserve it, why doesn't he care about people like Draco? People like us? People that aren't the fucking Chosen One? We mean nothing to him. We always have and we always will. As soon as he can put us out there to die, he will."

He studies me for a moment. "Show me your arm."

"What?" I ask, tightening my arms around myself.

He sighs and his face softens. "Don't you think I should get to see the damn thing?"

I shake my head. "I don't want you to see it, Mattheo. It's bad enough you even know about it. I don't—" I sigh. "I don't want you to see it. Please try and understand."

I don't understand it either, so I don't blame him if he won't understand. But I don't know how much I actually mean that, about him not seeing it, until the words come out of my mouth.

And it's not that I didn't want him to see the dark mark, even though I really didn't want that either. It would break him, and I hadn't thought about that until after I got it.

But the scars. The scars would break him more. And I don't think I could handle that.

He shakes his head, his expression going hard again. "I don't understand. I don't think I ever will."

I walk over to him, and his eyes follow me suspiciously. My hand cups in left cheek and he still has that look in his eyes.

My eyes search his, and I sigh.

"Then pretend you understand. Please. I beg you," I say. "I just want to be able to go back to how we were."

I lean towards him, and I'm surprised that he doesn't pull away when I kiss him. It's slow, and soft. God, how I missed this. It almost makes me wish I hadn't done what I did.

He pulls away after only a second, our foreheads together.

"You should have thought about that before you left."