24. TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FOUR

eighteen months later

" H ey, kitten," Declan whispers.

"Hey," I say, stretching, my voice raspy from sleep. "You're back."

"Of course," he says, brushing my hair away from my face before kissing me. "It's your big day."

I laugh. "Yeah, I guess so. What time is it?"

"It's five-thirty," he says. "We have some time."

He brings his lips to mine again, and I close my eyes, savoring it.

"You smell so good," I tell him, running my hands over his bare chest and down his abs. His formerly flawless skin is—well—still flawless to me. But his body is scarred now, just like mine.

He's been gone for the past five days, and it's been months since we've been apart for that long. Beneath the sheets, I'm naked. Declan's hands run down my body and over my bare tits before one hand grips the back of my thigh and hitches it around his waist.

He rubs my clit with two fingers, deeply but torturously slow, and I melt into the mattress, breaking away from the kiss.

"Fuck…" I whisper.

"You like that?"

"You know I do…you know what I like."

"Are you getting wet for me, kitten?" he whispers, pulling my earlobe through his teeth.

"Yes…"

I reach between us, pulling his boxers down over his hips, and wrap my fist around his hard dick. He moans into my neck and dips his fingers inside my pussy.

"Yeah, you're nice and wet, aren't you, baby?" He pulls his fingers out and brings them to my lips. "Suck," he says.

I part my lips, making eye contact with him as I suck my wetness from his fingers. After he pulls them from my mouth, he adjusts himself between my legs and buries his dick inside me, rolling his hips in quick, powerful thrusts.

"Ahh! Yes…" I don't mean to cry out like that, but I can't help it. I guess I'm too distracted by Declan and how fucking perfect his thick cock feels at this angle because I don't even notice he's awake. Declan groans as he slams his hips into me, holding that leg out further to the side and watching my tits bounce with his thrusts.

"Oh, god…"

"That feel good, baby?"

"Y-yes…"

My head drops back. I'm so close to coming already that I don't realize that's lube running down my ass until the wet head of his dick slots against my hole, and he pushes his way inside me.

"Oh, fuck!" I cry out. "Luca!"

I reach behind me and grab a fist full of his hair, gritting my teeth while they both move inside me.

"Your little ass looked too sweet to resist, baby," Luca says. "And you said you liked surprise sex, remember?"

"Yes," I moan. "I like it."

He has the biggest cock. Sometimes, it hurts, and that feels good, too—different sides of the same coin.

As if he can hear me, he reaches around the front of my body and pinches my nipples hard.

"Ah, fuck!"

"You like that, too, baby?"

"Yes…don't stop. Go faster…h-harder…"

Declan smiles and wraps a hand around my throat, squeezing as he sets the pace, fucking into me faster, both hitting me deeper. It feels fucking perfect. I'm about to come, and I'd tell them as much if I could suck in air. Instead, I plead with Declan with my eyes not to stop exactly what he's doing, and I think he hears me. As he tightens the hand around my throat, I tighten my grip on Luca's hair.

"Isn't she a good girl?" Luca says. "She's about to come on both of us. I'd say you need something for that mouth, but you can't breathe anyway, can you, baby?"

Luca groans, tightening his grip on my hip. He's about to come, too.

"Breathing is overrated, isn't it, Teagan?" Declan says.

I nod just as the orgasm rolls through me, my body shaking between them. I'm still coming when Declan releases his grip on me, and a strangled sound somewhere between a gasp for air and a moan leaves my body.

Declan thrusts deep inside me and groans. "Fuck…your pussy squeezed the cum right out of me, kitten. Ah, fuck, baby…"

He fills me while I'm still shaking and gasping for air.

When he pulls out, Luca rolls me onto my stomach, moving on top of me. He pulls my hair back as he thrusts into me, taking his time until he can't take it anymore.

"Luca…" I whimper.

"Oh, fuck," Luca rasps beside my ear. "Oh shit, that's good. Fuck."

I fist the comforter and kick my legs up when he buries himself deep inside me and comes.

"There you go, Teagan," he says, kissing my neck. "Now you're all full of cum, baby. I'll paint the back of your throat later, too."

He rolls off to the side of me, and Declan leans in, tilting my chin up before kissing my lips. "I missed you, kitten," he says.

"I missed you, too," I tell him, still breathless.

"I'm going to go shower in my room, okay? I'll be right down."

"Okay."

I turn to Luca once he leaves the room. "Do you want me to help you shower?" I ask.

"I don't need help showering anymore," he says.

"But do you want me to help you anyway? Because you love me?"

He smiles. "Well, I do love you so…yeah, I guess so."

Luca kisses me before following me into the shower, and we wash each other's hair like we always do. He uses the grab bars even though he says he doesn't need them. We both know he does—and he knows I don't think any less of him for it. I'm always careful not to drip water on the floor, too.

We spent almost three months in Belarus—that's how long it took to get Luca clean and healthy enough to move. Since then, we've been here in the Maldives. It's quiet—no one bothers us—and now even I get up with the sun.

My family is smaller than it was when I met them; our lives are a lot different, too. I still think about them. Sometimes, I like to imagine that I was wrong about there being nothing and that Brady and Rhett are out there somewhere—in another life or on another plane. They have a picket fence and two kids—one of each—and in their world, none of this ever happened. It wasn't even a phase. It's just a story they tell them…about how Daddy wanted to be a rockstar, but he got this instead, and it was so much better.

And when I missed River and Hazel, I'd picture them selling honey and essential oils at the side of the road in a small town in the Canadian Rockies. In my mind, they had a Christmas tree farm, and they still ran barefoot in the woods and called it witchcraft.

But I don't have to do that anymore. Because right now, they're in the kitchen making breakfast. I know I'm not hallucinating—I don't need to do that anymore, either. I can see them, touch them, smell them…

Still, I squeeze my eyes shut just in case.

"That's too much egg, Riv. It's going to taste like an omelet," Hazel says.

"Well, you do it then."

Once we got Luca clean and moved into our beachfront home, Declan searched for them. And after he found them, he was in Canada for a month before he finally convinced them to come home and let him take care of them like he promised.

He left us with two bodyguards and a doctor, just in case. I was a little worried, but I didn't need to be. Luca and I were fine—more than fine, actually. I think we needed that time together more than either of us knew, and we were both happier and closer than ever before for it. I let him tie me up…a lot. We only fought when we were fucking, and we bought each other rings. Mine's a ruby, and his is a black band. We can't really get married since we're both supposed to be dead, but we pretend we are anyway, and he calls me wifey.

I didn't tell Declan we got high and jumped off the roof into the pool.

And then, he came home, and I had a family again.

"Hi," I say, sitting at the bar across from them. "What are you making?"

"French toast," Hazel says. "With peanut butter."

"And Bloody Marys," River adds.

"How was Russia?" I ask Hazel.

"It was nice," Hazel says. "Declan and I didn't get back until like…two hours ago. We didn't want to miss your show."

I've been a few times myself. Declan and Luca are still recording and releasing songs that won't be played on any big streaming services, but you can find them on the web. Some people still claim they're a hoax or produced by AI, but most of the world seems to have accepted that Declan is out of reach, living somewhere in Russia—alone—making banned music.

And Declan is happy enough with his family and immortality to make up for what he misses from the crowds and touring.

As for the rest of us living in this house…we've all been declared dead.

And everything is peaceful with The Order again. They haven't tried to come after us under the condition that Declan stays out of North and South America indefinitely. I even went to a ritual with him in Moscow; his father was there, too. He wouldn't speak to me directly. It's the only time I've ever met him, and standing in front of him made me want to crawl out of my skin.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't stare straight into the eyes of anyone wearing a gold mask for a little too long—just in case. But Sebastian wasn't behind any of them.

"Mmm…I would have waited for you guys to get back," I tell her. "I'm sure you're tired, and now you're doing all this for me?"

"No way. It's your big day, and we love you. Let me do this, River. You go sit with Teagan."

"Here you go," River says, setting one of the Bloody Marys in her hands in front of me before sitting on the stool beside me. "Extra bloody for you."

"Thank you," I tell her before taking a drink.

She smiles, leaning in and kissing me. She runs her tongue over my top lip before pulling away. "You had a little something right there. Are you nervous?"

"Yeah, kind of. I'm kind of worried it'll sound like they hated me—that'll hurt my feelings."

"I'm sure that won't happen," River says.

"And if it does, then fuck them," Hazel says, brushing her now-blue hair away from her face. "They missed out on you. It's their loss."

"Thanks…what's that?" I ask, my eyes settling on an old hardcover book on the counter behind her.

"Oh…here." Hazel turns, grabs the book, and sets it in front of me. "I'm pretty sure you already have this one, but Declan said it was for you and to bring it home. It was sitting on the table at the safe house in Moscow when we got there."

I run my fingers over the front of the tattered cover of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.

Maybe it is for me.

I open the book to the first chapter. Circled letters spell out the words I love you, Teagan . Tears well in my eyes. The rest of the book is annotated with his favorite quotes. That's what he said I was—his favorite song or favorite quote from a book.

"You okay, sweetheart?" Declan asks.

I close the book, set it down on the counter in front of me, and nod. "Yeah, I'm okay."

He wraps his arms around me, holding me tightly against him. I blink once, letting the tears fall quietly and discreetly, soaking into the fabric of his shirt.

"We all love you, kitten," he says.

"I know."

"Missed you, Riv," Declan says, kissing her forehead before he walks into the kitchen. "What have you guys been up to?"

"The usual," she says. "There's been a lot of tourists around lately, though. A few have wandered onto our beach, so we've been hanging out by the pool."

"And practicing guitar," I tell him. "I'm getting pretty good."

"One of you needs to learn drums," he says.

"And Teagan is teaching me how to swim," River says.

"No," Luca says, finally emerging from the bedroom. Most of the time, he still uses a cane, and he can't run anymore. But he isn't in pain, and he can stay on his feet. He swims laps in the pool, and there's a gym for him downstairs. His workouts have changed a lot, but he's able to do enough to help keep him sane. And he is—for the most part—sane. "I've seen these so-called swimming lessons. It's just two brats playing with each other's pussies in the shallow end of the pool. River's not learning shit."

"I resent that," River says. "I can backstroke now."

"I'm sure you can," Luca says. "You can show me that later, Riv."

"Breakfast is ready," Hazel says. "What time is it?"

"It starts in ten minutes," Declan tells her. "You guys go ahead and get your food. I'll make sure the TV is ready."

"I'll make you a plate, too," Hazel tells him. She places her hands on either side of his face and kisses his lips.

"Thanks," he says before leaving the kitchen.

After we all make our plates and Bloody Marys, we head out to the living room. The main living space in our home is beautiful—completely open with light bamboo flooring. The back of the room is made up of folding window doors leading out to a large patio, a fenced-in backyard, a hot tub, and a pool with a waterslide.

Those doors are wide open now. A light breeze moves through the house, rustling through the palms outside, and it smells like saltwater.

"I need to sit by you for this," I tell Declan once he gets the TV ready.

I'm going to need my port for this one.

"All right," he says, sinking into an oversized armchair. He pats the space beside him. "Come here, Teag."

I sit beside him and begin eating my breakfast. The girls and Luca all sit on the sofa; Hazel sets a plate and a drink for Declan on the table beside him as she passes.

And then I hear my name on the television. My heart drops into my stomach.

"And now, on Dateline Investigates …Bloodlust: The Teagan Townsend Story."

I don't think I'm going to be able to eat. I set my food aside and cover my mouth with my hands.

An old photo of me with River and Hazel flashes across the screen.

"Oh my god!" River says. "It's us! That's from my Instagram. We look cute."

"We do look cute," Hazel agrees.

"They could have been a little more creative with the name," I say.

It opens with an interviewer sitting across from my parents, Blakely, and Austin.

In Blakely's lap is a chubby baby girl, old enough to sit up, but it doesn't look like she has any teeth yet. She's wearing denim overalls and a pink shirt with lace around the sleeves and has maybe an inch of dirty blonde hair in ringlets.

"She has a baby," I say softly. "She's a mom."

"You're an auntie, Teag," River says.

I offer her a smile. But I'm not an auntie—not really. I'm dead.

Declan wraps his arms around me and kisses the side of my head. "If you need to pause it or take a break, let me know."

"I'm okay," I tell him.

"This is an extraordinary story," the interviewer says, "of how a quiet girl from the California suburbs went from a true crime obsession to becoming entangled in one of the most disturbing cults of our time and, eventually, met her untimely demise."

"Really? Most disturbing?" Declan says. "I can think of a thousand things more disturbing than our family."

"Shh," Hazel says as more photos flash across the screen. "You're ruining my program. Ah! It's us again!"

"Tell me a little bit about Teagan. What was she like as a child?"

My mom is the one who answers. "She was a good kid. I mean, she wasn't like Blakely. She wasn't involved with sports or extracurricular activities. She was quiet, kept to herself. She spent most of her time in her room, reading books or writing stories. Her grades were good, but she didn't care about school. She didn't have a lot of friends after elementary school, but for the most part, the other kids ignored her or left her alone."

"Until they didn't," Blakely says.

"Were the two of you close growing up?" she asks Blakely.

"No," Blakely says. "We were four years apart and didn't have much in common. After her accident, I tried to be there for her, though. We became close; she moved in with me when she started at Cal State, but we were still so different, and…after you lose someone, you start to wonder what you could have done differently. I wish I'd been more understanding and supportive of her social media. Maybe she never would have started with the podcast stuff, and she'd just be in her room, reading weird shit."

"It wasn't even that weird," I say.

"Let's go back to the accident…" the reporter prompts.

They go back to high school—the letters, the bullying, and the kidnapping. They talk about my alternative school, how I changed while I was there, and what I was like when I returned to my old high school.

That part isn't hard to listen to. It doesn't even feel like it was the same lifetime anymore.

Then, they jump to when I left for the concert and didn't come home. They try to lay out a timeline of what happened, starting with my relationship with Luca and speculate on what happened behind closed doors.

"Who's that?" I ask when they show a clip of a girl with her face blurred, claiming she was with us in Seattle and Portland, that we were very close, and could tell then that the relationship was violent.

"I have no fucking idea," River says.

"Probably some girl Eli picked up who just wanted to feel included," Hazel says. "Maybe they offered her money, but she didn't have anything worth saying. Besides, if we're all dead, it's not like we can speak up and say she's wrong."

They interview a couple of others who claimed to have been close to the band in personal or professional capacities before discussing when the news broke about Heidi and Blakely's trip to Denver.

"That was a sad day for me," Blakely said. "I knew as soon as I saw her that she was gone…I knew I'd wasted my time. I was so angry, and again, I wish I hadn't been."

"We were worried about her but embarrassed as a family," my dad says. "She put us under scrutiny in our community and at our jobs, too, with her behavior. Our reaction was warranted at the time."

"Mmm…I don't know about that," Luca says.

"Sounds fucking gross to me, honestly," Hazel says. "Sorry, Teagan."

"It's okay."

They move on, and another individual I don't recognize comes across the screen. His face is also blurred for his protection.

"I'm a driver in Albuquerque," the man says. "I drove who I now know to be Teagan, River, and Hazel to one of the Gods of Tomorrow concerts."

"It's fucking Carl!" Hazel shouts. "How did they get fucking Carl on this? What the fuck?"

"Oh my god, it is," I say.

"Who's Carl?" River asks.

"The Uber driver Hazel threatened with a knife," I answer.

He talks about how he could tell something was wrong and that I had been drugged and forced to be there. He says he wished he'd called the police, but he believed Luca when he told him he'd kill him.

"Luca De Rossi threatened your life?" the interviewer asks.

"I didn't know that's who it was at the time, but yes," Carl says. "He recited my address and told me something very bad would happen to me if I ever mentioned this to anyone. I was afraid for my children."

"Yeah, you're talking now, though, aren't you, Carl?" Luca says.

"He was a chatty mother fucker," Hazel says.

Everyone laughs but Declan, who instead tilts my chin upward and kisses me lightly on the lips, smiling sadly. I'm sure he's thinking about what really made me so sick in that car. But we're good at playing our game now, and we play a lot.

They move on to Dallas, where they speculate that Luca or Declan killed Heidi's sister, then to my time in jail and the mental institution.

Even that doesn't bother me much.

But then they bring up Sebastian and how relieved they were to see that I'd met someone who seemed so nice and so normal when I'd had such difficulties reintegrating after my time at Rancho San Flores.

They have photos of us together at the wedding—even a short video of us dancing and kissing. I wasn't prepared to see that.

I bite down on my lip as my eyes start to water.

"Aww, Teagan," River says.

"It's okay," I lie, choking on the words. "I'm okay. It's kind of nice to see his face, actually."

Declan laces his fingers between mine and squeezes my hand. We never talk about him, but I wonder if it's nice for him, too.

Next, they show pictures of the hotel room—the crime scene—and speculate on what happened there.

"They'd been arguing because she was going to move to the other side of the country, but other than that, nothing ever seemed off. They went back to their room sometime after eleven that night, and she was smiling. They looked happy," Blakely says.

"So, you were the last one to talk to your sister?"

"I was. I was the last one to talk to her, and it was totally normal," Blakely says. "Better than normal, even. It made me hopeful that maybe we could be friends again, but we never got the chance."

"No murder weapon was ever found, nor was your sister's body, and Sebastian was never seen again, correct?"

"That's right," Blakely says. "But we know what happened to my sister, and we know who did it."

"But there is a bit of mystery around it, too, isn't there?"

"We don't want to encourage the conspiracy theories," my mom says. "Those people have made enough of a mess of our lives already."

"But there was another man's blood found at the scene, correct?"

"Yes, but—" my mom starts.

"Take a look at this," the interviewer says.

The screen fades to a grainy surveillance video from the hotel bar where Declan found me the night before. His hat obscures most of his bearded face—no one would ever guess that this was him.

"Look how happy she is to see you," Hazel says to Declan.

"I never thought I was going to see him again."

"What do you make of this?" she asks. "Because a lot of people believe the man Teagan is kissing in this video is Declan De Rossi. They appear to know each other; she embraces him as soon as he sits down. There are some people who think Declan came back and killed Teagan because of what she knew along with her new boyfriend."

Blake shakes her head. "Yeah, but I've met Declan De Rossi in person. I've spoken to him face-to-face—it's not him. And if he did kill her, why did he wait until the next night? Why is he hugging her here, and why do they leave together? Why isn't she scared…or angry at him for what he did?"

"If you look at the full video, Teagan talks to the bartender like she knows him, too. It's just how she was," Austin says.

"But you all described Teagan as shy."

"No," my mom says. "Not shy—withdrawn. She wasn't like everyone else, but she knew how to get what she wanted."

"Anyway, maybe she did know that guy," Blakely says. "I don't know what she did all day when we first got there. Plus, Sebastian was lying about who he was and how they met, too. If he's just an innocent victim, why would he do that?"

The interview segues to a clip about Sebastian Torres, who claimed to be a surgeon in Southern California. They later found out he had been employed by Rancho San Flores while I was there and stopped showing up for work after I left.

The HR director from the hospital describes Sebastian as respectful and a hard worker with a good sense of humor, but after he stopped coming to work, they realized he'd given them a false identity and never cashed any of his checks.

On paper, Sebastian doesn't exist. No one seems to know him, and he hasn't been seen since.

"I think they started a relationship while she was in the hospital, and he became obsessed. I don't know why she chose to lie about who he was or how they met—I guess because it was inappropriate. Maybe she thought he was still working at the hospital and was worried about him getting fired," Blakely says.

"She was lonely," my mom adds. "She talked about that a lot—about how lonely she was. She said she missed being touched and that everyone thought she was a freak. I think she just didn't want to be alone."

"Maybe he was one of Declan's followers, and that's how he became obsessed with Teagan—I don't know. It could be why he didn't want to let her go. But my sister is dead, and Sebastian, or whatever his real name is, killed her. That's what I do know. The other blood in the room was probably his because, knowing Teagan, she probably fought until the bitter end."

"There's another theory," the interviewer says. "That the male blood found in the room belongs to the guy she met at the bar the night before—that maybe he came back, and that's what started the fight, and Sebastian killed them both."

"The reason we aren't so quick to believe that is that no one else went missing or was reported missing in or around the area at that time. I mean, he looks like a normal enough guy. If he's missing, why isn't anyone looking for him? Why wasn't there a hotel room that no one checked out of that still had this guy's stuff in it?" Austin asks.

"One last question: Obviously, because of her association with the De Rossis, there has been a lot of talk and speculation about what happened, but what do you want people to know about Teagan's case?"

"I want the conspiracy theories to stop," Blakely says. "I want The Church of Tomorrow to stop posting photos and stories online claiming they've seen Declan and Teagan alive. I want them to stop using her image because she had a family, and it hurts us. Teagan isn't a god. She's a murder victim."

My parents nod in agreement.

"And I want police to find this man," my mom says. "Someone knows who he is or was and where he is now. I want him caught."

"We're healing as best we can," my sister says. "We celebrated her birthday together last year and buried a little box of memories at Teagan's favorite beach. But we want him caught so he can't do this to another family."

The baby starts to cry, and Austin passes her back to Blakely.

"I hope for all of your sakes that day comes," the interviewer says. "And do you want to introduce your little one?"

"Yes," Blakely says. "This is my daughter, Evelyn—she's eight months old. Evelyn was Teagan's middle name, so we named her after her."

"Aww, Teagan, that's so nice."

"Yeah, it is," I say, tears streaming down my face. "It's really nice."

The interviewer thanks them all for being there, wishes them well, and the credits roll.

I've come full circle now—from true crime junkie to true crime victim. I wonder how often these shows have gotten it wrong the way they did with me.

"Are you okay, angel?" Luca asks.

"I'm fine."

"You're sobbing, baby. Are you sure?" He gets up and crosses the room to me, wrapping me in a hug. "It's okay. You're a mystery now—you're immortal. It was pretty cool, actually."

"No, I know. I really am okay. It was nice to see them—and they seem happy like I said. The baby is cute, too."

"Do you miss them more now?" River asks.

I shake my head. "No. I don't really miss them. I miss the idea of them—if things could have been different. But I have a family who loves me. I'm happy."

"Well, what do you want to do today?" Declan asks. "Do you want to go out? We can do whatever you want—if you just want to be alone, that's okay, too."

"Can we all go out on the boat?" I ask. "And bring a lot of alcohol?"

"Of course," he says.

"You and Riv can show us those backstrokes you've been working on," Luca says.

We all go to our rooms to change and get packed before piling into the SUV and driving down to the docks. After we find a place to drop anchor for the day and relax, I finally get Declan alone, cornering him beside the beer cooler.

"Declan?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think Sebastian watched it?"

"Probably," he says. "I'd be surprised if he didn't, wouldn't you?"

"And the book…it was just sitting there? You haven't seen him?"

"No, honey, I haven't. I would tell you if I did—I promise. It looks like he found us, though."

"Do you think we'll ever see him again?"

"I don't know, baby. It'd be nice."

"Yeah, it would."

He opens a beer and hands it to me. "What else do you need, kitten?" he asks.

"Nothing," I tell him. "I'm okay. Um, actually…do you know when his birthday is?"

"No, I'm sorry, baby. I don't."

"Yeah, okay. Thanks." After kissing him, I return to my spot, stretched out across the back of the boat between Luca's legs. I try to smile because I am better than just okay—I am happy. No one gets everything they want, and I have so much to be grateful for.

I used to think I was incapable of love, but the truth was I just hadn't met anyone yet who was capable of loving every part of me—that I could show myself to. Now, I've done it over and over again.

After a couple of drinks, I show him my backstroke.

And Declan makes River put on a life jacket because she still can't swim.

We stay out until the sun sets, and when we get home, I take that annotated copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray to my room, flip through it, and let myself miss him. Hazel prints out a picture of the baby for me, and when I get tired, I crawl into Luca's bed.

"Hey, wifey," he says, wrapping his arms around me.

"Hi, baby."

He presses a kiss to my lips and closes his eyes, instantly falling asleep.

And I'm okay. I haven't hurt anyone, and I've only really wanted to a couple of times. Most days, my mangled insides feel whole. I have a place and a purpose, and I'm free. I'll never have to be alone, and the world has color again. We got away with it, and we'll never get caught—not even by Death—for a very, very long time.

And that is fucking poetry.