Chapter 12

I walked home.

I could have gotten a ride. I could have called Keme. Or Millie. Or Indira. Or Fox. Although, to be honest, I had second thoughts about getting in Fox’s van again (DRAGON MUSK!). I was pretty sure I’d seen a headless doll rolling around in the back.

I didn’t call anybody, though. I walked. The night was cool, but mild enough that I was fine in my jacket. The marine layer had thickened, and the damp felt good against the hectic flush in my cheeks. I passed a little strip of businesses—a pho restaurant (dark), a muffler shop (dark), America’s Mattress of Hastings Rock (dark), and an E-Z Mart (still open). The fog refracted the light from the E-Z Mart’s signage, and the red glow made it seem like the air was on fire.

Nothing had happened. I told myself that as I walked. Nothing inappropriate. Nothing bad. I’d helped my friend get home after he’d had too much to drink. He’d gotten in an argument with West, and West had left and taken the dog, and Deputy Bobby had been overserved, and I’d happened to be there. That was all.

The way he’d felt, sagging in my arms, his fingers twining through my hair.

The way his lips had parted.

The way he’d said, Dash.

And then my brain was off to the races. Maybe it hadn’t been a fight. Maybe he and West had broken up. I mean, Deputy Bobby had said West was gone. And West took the dog. That didn’t sound like a fight to me. That sounded like something more serious. Like, wouldn’t you only say, West’s gone, if you meant you’d broken up? Otherwise, you’d say, West is out with his friends, or West is staying at his parents’ tonight, or—well, anything.

I could hear the frantic energy of my thoughts. It was enough to make me take a deep breath, step back. I had a mental image of Millie’s eyes getting wider and wider as she listened to me.

Okay, I thought. Maybe tap the brakes.

Because Deputy Bobby hadn’t said anything about breaking up. He hadn’t said anything particularly, well, coherent, as a matter of fact. He’d had too much to drink, and he wasn’t thinking clearly, and he was trying to communicate the basics to me: that something was wrong, that he was upset.

And he’d made how he felt perfectly clear at the end, hadn’t he? Do you ever think you might be making a mistake?

I mean, talk about a bucketful of cold water. That question pretty much said it all: Deputy Bobby had been drunk, but not so drunk that he hadn’t realized he’d been on the verge of making a huge—nay, an epic—mistake.

Me.

I’d been the mistake.

Which, fair enough. Considering my track record with men, he wasn’t exactly wrong.

I could have tried to pretend the question meant something else. It would have been less embarrassing, actually, if Deputy Bobby had been asking about me and Hugo, for example. If he’d wanted to know, the way he’d been worrying the question all night, why Hugo and I hadn’t worked out, or what we could have done differently, or (even though he’d been too polite to ask directly) why I wouldn’t pull my head out of my butt and realize how lucky I was to have a shot with someone like Hugo.

Off in the distance, a lone car broke the night’s stillness. The sound faded down the next block, and then only the slap of my steps broke the stillness. I drew in lungfuls of the air: wet grass, wet spruce, even wet Dash as the fog settled into my hair and clothes and misted my glasses. There wasn’t much of a breeze—not enough to clear the air—but when it lifted, goose bumps broke out on the back of my neck.

His hand had been warm and solid and strong.

My phone vibrated, and my first, stupid thought was: Deputy Bobby. But when I checked it, the message was from Cole.

Where are you.?

I stared at the message. Then I locked the phone. As I started to pocket it, it buzzed again.

More messages from Cole.

hey

Dasj

Dash

I saw you

I knowp youw ere here

WHR ARE YOU

The sound of an engine made me glance over my shoulder. Headlights came toward me—more of those blue-white halogen brights, like the ones that had followed me and Deputy Bobby from the Otter Slide. I turned forward, blinking against the sudden brilliance, but it was too late. My night vision was ruined. I honestly didn’t understand why anybody needed headlights that bright. They seemed like a hazard, actually—plenty of times when I’d been driving at night, I’d been blinded by a pair of ridiculously bright—

The engine roared behind me. Tires swished against wet pavement. Too loud. Too close. I glanced over my shoulder. The headlights rushed toward me. I stumbled sideways more out of reflex than anything else. It’s coming straight at you, one part of my brain said. And another part of my brain could only stare in disbelief as the car swerved to follow me. The headlights grew until they swallowed up everything else, until I was blind and floating in that halogen glare.

I threw myself into the drainage ditch and landed hard in wet weeds, the ground spongy and slick beneath me. The car shot past. Its tires clipped the space where I’d been standing a moment before, and the tiny pieces of broken asphalt on the shoulder trembled and skittered. A wall of displaced air and hot exhaust crashed over me, and the growl of the engine filled my head.

And then the car was past.

I picked myself up, covered in drainage ditch ooze and the green stains of broken vegetation, in time to see it turn at the end of the block. Tires squealed as the car slid across wet pavement. No license plate. That was my only clear thought. No license plate, and since I knew jack all about cars, the best I could say was that it was a dark sedan. Then the driver straightened out the car, and it disappeared around the corner and was gone.