All The Lies Read online

  All The Lies

  Copyright © 2020 Rina Kent

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Author Note

  Blurb

  Playlist

  Chapter 1 - R

  Chapter 2 - G

  Chapter 3 - Reina

  Chapter 4 - Reina

  Chapter 5 - Reina

  Chapter 6 - Reina

  Chapter 7 - Reina

  Chapter 8 - Reina

  Chapter 9 - Reina

  Chapter 10 - Reina

  Chapter 11 - Reina

  Chapter 12 - Reina

  Chapter 13 - Reina

  Chapter 14 - G

  Chapter 15 - Reina

  Chapter 16 - G

  Chapter 17 - Reina

  Chapter 18 - Reina

  Chapter 19 - G

  Chapter 20 - Reina

  Chapter 21 - Reina

  Chapter 22 - Reina

  Chapter 23 -Reina

  Chapter 24 - Reina

  Chapter 25 - Reina

  Chapter 26 - G

  Chapter 27 - Reina

  Chapter 28 - Reina

  Chapter 29 - Reina

  Chapter 30 - G

  What’s Next?

  Also By Rina Kent

  About the Author

  To those who never give up.

  Author Note

  Hello reader friend,

  If you haven’t read my books before, you might not know this, but I write darker stories that can be upsetting and disturbing. My books and main characters aren't for the faint of heart. I don’t do trigger warnings, but if you need one, then my books are probably not for you.

  If you, however, have read my other books, get ready for another twisted journey with complicated characters and intense passion you all love to hate.

  All The Lies is the first book of a duet and is NOT standalone.

  Lies & Truths Duet:

  #1 All The Lies

  #2 All The Truths

  Don’t forget to Sign up to Rina Kent’s Newsletter for news about future releases and an exclusive gift.

  Blurb

  When lies become the truth.

  My name is Reina Ellis.

  Popular.

  Beautiful.

  Untouchable.

  Problem is, I remember none of it.

  His name is Asher Carson.

  Gorgeous.

  Silent.

  Dark.

  Oh, and my future husband.

  He has three rules for me:

  I’ll bow.

  I’ll break.

  I’ll pay for what I’ve done.

  Problem is, I don’t remember what I’ve done, but I have a clue.

  There was a fire.

  A dead girl.

  And I was there.

  Playlist

  Every Breath You Take – Chase Holfelder

  Amsterdam – Coldplay

  Heartbeat – Point North

  Breakeven – The Script

  Sinner – Deaf Havana

  Into The Dark – Point North & Kellin Quinn

  ¿ - Bring Me The Horizon & Halsey

  Prom Queen – Molly Kate Kestner

  Admit Defeat – Bastille

  Save Me – XXXTENTACION

  In Between – Glass Tides

  Yours – Jake Scott

  Just Exist – Eliza & The Delusionals

  It’s Ok Not To Be Ok – Little Hurt

  Dig – Arrested Youth

  You Know That – No Love For The Middle Child

  Roses – Soleima

  Scream – SAINT PHNX

  You can find the playlist on Spotify.

  I thread my fingers through her identical ones and smile.

  It’s the first time I’ve let go of my shackles and every weight that used to hold me down.

  My family.

  She’s my family.

  We’re the same.

  Same strawberry blonde hair, although hers is shorter. Same skin that appears tanned but isn’t. Same huge blue eyes that mirror the deep ocean and the vast sky.

  We might have lived apart, but we’re still the same.

  We still look at each other like we’re mirrors, like we’re halves split into two different bodies.

  From today onward, my life will be different. I’ve finally found this peace, and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect it.

  We sit on an old bench in a cottage. It’s humid with the scent of pine and grass drifting through the half-broken window. The forest surrounding us feels like a protection against the outside world.

  This is our haven.

  Our sanctuary where no one can find us.

  It brings back memories from the times when Reina and I used to hold each other and hide.

  Back then, we made no sound. We barely breathed.

  We have a lot of catching up to do. I can’t wait to hear all about how she’s been all these years.

  A crunching sound of boots on the ground filters in from outside the cottage.

  We jerk upright at the same time. Our hands become sweaty, and the peace from earlier evaporates into thin air.

  “Are you expecting someone?” I sound as spooked as I feel.

  She nibbles on her bottom lip, her body shaking. “You know, I told you…”

  “What?”

  “I run with a bad crowd, Rai.”

  I grab her shoulders and bore my eyes into hers. It’s strange to stare at myself. “We’ll go to the authorities. No one will hurt you anymore, Reina. We’ll be together like we promised.”

  She holds out her pinkie, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Pinkie swear.”

  I laugh at the childish gesture and grab her pinkie with mine. “You’re supposed to be twenty-one, but whatever. Pinkie swear, you little girl.”

  “Hey! I’m five minutes older than you.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  A bang sounds on the door. Both of us flinch.

  My heart pounds against my ribcage so hard, it’s the only sound I’m able to hear.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Reina pulls me by the sleeve of my jacket, a slight tremor in her hand. “You need to run.”

  “No. I’m not going without you. Not again.”

  She shakes her head. “Now that Grandpa is gone, if they find out about you, it’s game over. You have to go, Rai.”

  I shake my head frantically, holding on to her with all my might. “I won’t lose you after finally finding you.”

  “You won’t. We’ll always find our way back to each other. After all, we’re…”

  “One.”

  We say the last word together.

  She nods, eyes hardening again. “Remember when we used to play hide and seek with Mom?”

  “I do. We’d go in different directions to distract them.”

  She grins. “Diversion.”

  “Okay, okay,” I mutter with resignation I don’t feel.

  The last thing I want to do after reuniting with Reina is to part from her again, but I have to believe we’ll find each other like we always do.

  “I’ll take the window, you take the door.”

  I pull her in for a quick hug, my chest constricti
ng and full of all types of chaotic paranoias. “I’ll meet you outside.”

  “I love you, Rai.” She ruffles my hair.

  “I love you, too, Reina.”

  The moment I let her go, my heart squeezes so tight it nearly bursts.

  I watch my sister hop up and climb out the window. She’s so agile, which is no surprise considering where she lived all this time.

  We’ll change that. She’ll get her fresh start.

  With one last look, I sprint out the back door.

  When we were with Mom, Reina and I learned something important.

  Never look back.

  If you don’t look back, you run faster.

  If you don’t look back, no one will catch you.

  I sprint through the woods, the smell of earth and the forest filling my nostrils.

  Dirt smudges my white shoes and my breathing deepens as I cut across the distance. I search sideways for a place to hide then notice my bracelet is gone.

  No.

  I come to a halt and break my own rule.

  I look back.

  Flames devour the old wood of the cottage we escaped minutes ago. Smoke and fire erupt in the middle of the forest.

  Someone dressed in black trousers and a hoodie drags Reina back into the cottage as she fights and claws at his hand. Masculine hand. Tattooed hand.

  My heart stammers and my legs weaken. I take a step forward then stop when she meets my gaze and shakes her head.

  She’s pleading with me to remember our vow from all those years ago.

  If one is caught, the other needs to run.

  I made that mistake before. I ran away without looking back.

  That day, I lost my only sister.

  But I’m not a kid anymore. We’re not running away with Mom.

  This time, I’ll save her like she once saved me.

  Energy buzzes into my veins as I charge forward. My fists are balled by my sides. My hair is in disarray around my face, the blonde strands sticking to my temples with sweat.

  I’m only a short distance away when Reina shrieks, “Noooo!”

  Something hard and heavy hits the back of my head. I fall to my knees with a thud.

  Black stars form behind my lids as they flutter closed, filling with tears.

  Through the small slit, I stare at the burning cottage. Her loud, pained screams filter from the inside. The sound is raw and…lethal.

  “R-Reina…” I croak, reaching out a weak hand before it falls limp in front of me.

  All sounds disappear.

  Reina is no longer screaming.

  No longer shrieking.

  No longer…fighting.

  A sob lodges at the back of my throat as darkness swallows me whole.

  Decimation is an interesting process.

  It starts with one crack. Then two. Then everything crumbles and falls apart.

  The art lies in starting that first crack. It has to be precise and to the point.

  It has to be unmistakable and with the purpose to hurt.

  Better yet, it has to come out of nowhere. Victims are easier to handle when they’re ambushed, when their world is flipped upside down in a fraction of a second.

  Today, a process of decimation has started.

  Reina’s life is now mine to own.

  Mine to torture.

  And mine to finish.

  One week later

  Help!

  Someone help!

  Please help me!

  “No one will help you, monster.”

  I crack my eyes open and wince. The back of my head feels as heavy as metal.

  Constant beeping. Smell of bleach and coffee. Classical music.

  The moment blinding white light penetrates my eyelids, I screw them shut again.

  I’m obviously at the wrong place in the wrong time.

  Isn’t there a song about that?

  “Reina?”

  Someone’s fingers force my lids open and shove another blinding light into my line of sight. My pupils burn with the intrusiveness of it.

  “Miss Ellis, can you hear me?”

  “Reina, honey, open your eyes.”

  Reina? Who the hell is Reina?

  There’s something wrong about that name. Completely freaking wrong.

  Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong name.

  The voices continue drifting in and out around me. Someone calls me Miss Ellis. An older voice keeps calling me Reina. And then there’s another presence, someone I can’t quite pinpoint.

  His masculine voice is like a dark forest in the middle of a starless night. It’s deep and rough around the edges as if all the ruthlessness in the world has been injected into it. It’s scary how much a voice can relay.

  It’s almost crippling how much a voice can become a subject of nightmares.

  All the other voices keep asking if I’m fine and telling me to open my eyes, but not him.

  No.

  The nightmare voice is calm, unlike them. He’s composed and speaks with chill-inducing purpose. “Wake up, monster. You don’t get to die just yet.”

  His words register slowly. It’s my brain. The useless thing understands with delay.

  My heart thumps loud and hard at the threat in those words, at what he called me.

  Monster.

  This can’t be true.

  It’s a dream—no, a nightmare. Soon, it’ll all end and I’ll go back to normal.

  Only…what’s normal?

  I’m not Reina or Miss Ellis or whatever the hell they keep calling me. I’m someone else.

  I’m…I don’t know who I am. Reina is familiar, but it isn’t me.

  Wrong. Everything is so damn wrong.

  My trips in and out of consciousness become exhausting. It’s like I’m playing hide and seek with the darkness; only I’m not sure if I’m running away from it or sprinting toward it.

  There’s something enchanting about the darkness…a push, a pull. It’s like a haunting lullaby with ever-changing lyrics.

  I keep trying to avoid the blinding light and the voices. So many damn voices surround me like audible torture.

  They keep heightening and magnifying, and there’s no way I can stop them from assaulting my senses.

  They’re like an unreachable itch beneath the skin.

  Then, one day, when I think I’m about to go crazy, my eyes open. Or maybe my brain finally catches up to that fact.

  The back of my head aches, and so do my limbs. It’s as if someone beat me up with a baseball bat.

  Wait…is that what happened?

  The blinding light renews the urge to close my eyes again, but I don’t. I keep them wide open—as wide as I can considering the circumstances.

  If I close them again, I might never open them back up. I’ll return to the hide and seek game with the darkness.

  I’ll go mad for sure.

  My surroundings are blurry. Mismatched shades of white become more and more defined the harder I focus. A headache lodges firmly at my temples the more I try to make out my immediate environment.

  White walls. The same bleach smell. No classical music or coffee this time, which probably means the man with the older voice who used to talk to me isn’t here anymore.

  “Miss Ellis, you’re back,” a soft voice calls from beside me before an Asian woman’s kind face comes into view.

  Her black hair is tied into a bun underneath her white cap, and some wrinkles surround her pulled brown eyes.

  She checks something on the machines around me and nods to herself with a smile. “I’ll call Dr. Anderson. Do you need anything?”

  I attempt to shake my head, but the stabbing pain at my nape stops me.

  When I say nothing, she asks, “How do you feel?”

  “Like hell,” I grunt in a scratchy, barely alive voice. “Have I been in hell?”

  “You’ve been so lucky, dear. You gave us a fright.” She smiles and leans in to whisper, “Your fiancé hasn’t left your side the entire time.”

&n
bsp; I have a fiancé?

  No, that can’t be right. I don’t have a fiancé. I don’t have anyone.

  Wrong. Everything is just so wrong.

  “It’s rare to see that kind of devotion in college kids these days.”

  College.

  Okay, so my name is Reina Ellis, I’m in college, and I have a fiancé.

  Did I mention wrong?

  None of this adds up in my brain…or is it still trying to keep up with reality?

  When I raise my eyes again, the kind Asian nurse isn’t speaking to me anymore. Her attention is on something—or rather, someone—over my head. “Congratulations on your fiancée’s recovery, Mr. Carson.”

  “Thank you.”

  My spine locks and a shiver shoots down my back, covering my entire body.

  The rough, deep voice with the slight huskiness.

  The nightmare voice.

  The one who called me a monster and…something else.

  There was something else, but I’ve forgotten what it was.

  Hell, I’ve forgotten a lot of things.

  I don’t even remember why I’m here, my age, or my damn name.

  Everything is a blur. It’s like I can reach the answer, but the moment my fingertips brush against it, it turns into fog.

  The nurse says something else, but I miss her words—again, my brain has trouble keeping up. Everything happens too fast, like in some futuristic show.

  Wait, are we in a Black Mirror episode?

  How do I even know Black Mirror and not my own life?

  The last thing I focus on is the door hissing open then closed behind the nurse.