Chapter 4

Hawke

“Whose phone are you calling from?” my dad asks.

“Mine.”

“You have a phone I don’t know about?”

I keep my smile to myself, drying the sweat on the back of my neck with a towel and toss it into a bin. “Of course, I have a phone you don’t know about,” I reply.

Jaxon Trent doesn’t raise idiots.

“I can trace it,” he tells me.

“You can, but you won’t find me.”

I hear an exhale over the phone and can just picture my father shaking his head like he does when he realizes the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I wouldn’t say I’m smarter than him, not by a long shot, but any solution to a problem I come up with will have the least number of variables. My father is different. He likes variables. Loves surprises. I don’t.

“Get home,” he says, his voice harder and more urgent. “Goddammit, Hawke. You hit a cop.”

“I can explain.”

“It’s online!” he barks. “People are making up their own explanations. It’s too late.”

I know. And I know he’s right. The longer I hide, the worse it looks. But I don’t tell him that getting myself out of trouble isn’t all I’m interested in. I have cousins in this town. Little ones who will have to go to school with the shit Reeves is quietly pumping into every pool party, skate park, and soccer mom. My dad and Madoc can help, and I might let them, but I’m not ready to make that decision yet. Not until I know what I’m doing.

“I’m okay,” I assure him. “I’m safe.”

“Your mom is frantic.”

They’re probably home from Chicago by now. I’m sure they rushed out of there as soon as they got wind of what happened.

A pang of guilt that I probably should’ve felt with my dad finally eats away at me when he mentions my mom. She never really did anything to make me feel like I needed to protect her, but I always do.

“I’m in Shelburne Falls,” I tell him, knowing he’ll tell her, “and I’m not leaving. But I’m not coming home. Not until after Grudge Night. I need time. I’ll turn myself in then.”

In eight days.

He’s quiet for a moment, and voices echo from down the hall. I turn toward it, watching the door to the gym.

“One decision can change your life, Hawke,” my dad says in my ear.

He’s done nothing but raise me with that thought in mind in everything I do.

“What do I tell the police when they come looking for you?” he asks, just as Dylan, Kade, Stoli, and Dirk burst through the door.

“In about two minutes, you mean?” I tease my dad.

Home is the first place they’ll look.

“Just tell them the truth,” I reply, turning away from my friends and cousins. “You talked to me. I’m around. You don’t know where.”

He won’t have to lie.

“And the girl?” my dad asks. “Who is she?”

I look behind me again, seeing the Rebel enter the room and looking pissed. He saw her on the video? How much footage is online? Jesus. I need to go back to the monitors and do a deeper sweep.

“She’s a nobody,” I tell him.

And I hang up, sticking my phone into my pocket as I turn around and grab my water bottle.

“I knew I should’ve kept this place to myself,” I grumble, not meeting Kade’s eyes.

“I just had to make sure you were serious.” He casts the Rebel a look. “What the hell are you thinking?”

I’m not sure I was thinking at all. I texted him and Dylan a bit ago to let them know the situation. Of course, they rushed over.

The Green Street punk advances on me. “Open the door.”

But I ignore her. Looking at Kade, I uncap my water. “I was thinking that I might not know what I can use her for, but I’ll keep her for a rainy day. I never throw anything away. You know that.”

Laughter echoes around the room.

“Open the door.” Her tone deepens, like she’s trying not to yell.

“Well, she’s here now,” Kade goes on, “and she’s not going anywhere until you’re safe. Can you comprehend the shitstorm she’ll bring down on this place if she’s let go? They’ll know exactly where to find you. Keep it on lockdown and don’t let her out.”

“Open. The. Door,” the Rebel growls.

“Christ…” I wince at her irritating voice. I can only handle one of them at a time. “You make everything worse, you know that?” I tell Kade.

Granted, my actions tonight weren’t my best, but he antagonizes every situation, and him and her in the same room is just going to piss me off.

“Open. The. Door,” she says again.

But Kade moves into me. “No one asked her to come into our town.”

“No one invited her,” Stoli adds.

“I kind of invited her…” Dylan mumbles, and I arch a brow, because that’s the fucking truth.

Of course, it’s not entirely her fault. One way or another that Weston shit always rolls over into Shelburne Falls.

“Did you talk to your dad?” Kade asks me.

“Did you talk to yours?”

I mean, his dad’s a lawyer. He can help with the cop.

But Kade whines. “Do you want me to? I’m kind of trying to make him forget how much trouble I am.”

“Hello!” the girl yells. “I’m talking to you.”

I glance over. “Sit,” I tell her. And then I look back at Kade. “I don’t want to involve our parents.”

“You think they’re not already mobilized?” he shouts. “I’m surprised Jared doesn’t have an ankle monitor on her by now.”

He gestures to Dylan who simply laughs under her breath. Dylan’s father is my dad’s half-brother. Kade’s dad is my dad and Dylan’s dad’s step-brother. Dylan and I, technically, are blood, but Kade and I are just as much cousins, even though we don’t share DNA.

“Open the door,” I hear.

I look at Dylan. “Did you bring clothes?”

She holds up a small duffle bag and launches it over to me.

I open it up to see a couple changes of clothes I asked Dylan to bring for the girl. I don’t want this chick looking for excuses to leave.

“Like she’s going to fit in your stuff, Dylan,” Stoli replies with a snide smirk, and I shoot him a snarl to shut the fuck up. I don’t need to hear comparisons regarding the size of my cousin’s breasts to another girl’s.

But Dylan is quick to respond. “But I thought football jerseys are one size fits all.”

Kade, Stoli, and Dirk burst into laughter. “You didn’t,” the latter says, impressed.

Dylan shrugs but can’t hide her own self-satisfied smile at bringing a Pirate jersey for the Rebel.

I shake my head, holding up the bag and seeing the delinquent’s black attire out of my peripheral vision. “Go find somewhere to sleep,” I tell her and toss the bag over.

“You’ll look good in our colors,” Kade jokes.

“Black and orange Pirate booty, baby!” Dylan howls, Stoli rushes over and lifts her high, everyone laughing.

I can’t help but smile at my cousin and how she keeps up. The women in my family are incredible. Not one of them waits for an invitation. Some peoples’ ceiling is Dylan’s floor.

“Under a black flag we sail!” Dylan boasts as the others cheer.

But then something slams into my chest, and I lose my footing. I step back to right myself as the duffle bag I just threw toward the girl lands back at my feet.

My smile falls, the fun stops, and I see Kade step toward the Rebel. “What’s your problem?”

But I hold out my hand, stopping him.

I stare at the bag on the floor. Here comes another fight. I knew she was going to be a waste of time.

“Look at me,” she says.

And I hate wasting time.

“I said, look at me, hijo de tu puta madre.”

My heart skips a beat, but I do it.

Raising my eyes, I look at her. Her hood is off, her dark brown hair hanging down her back and over her chest where it spills out of the cap, and I see a trail of blood running down her neck. I falter. I didn’t notice that before.

There was blood on the mirror, though. It must be on her clothes.

She moves toward me slowly. “You need me, I don’t need you,” she states. “You have everything to lose, I have nothing. I’ll be in prison in two years anyway, right?” She cocks her head at me. “Or dead?”

“Or pregnant,” I add.

But I want the words back as soon as they’re out. I…

I close my mouth as Dylan shifts off to my left, the room so quiet I can hear the town clock chime through the cement walls, one level up, and two blocks south.

She doesn’t say anything, only tips her chin higher as she holds my eyes, but I want to look anywhere but at her. “I didn’t mean that,” I murmur.

“No, no…” She stops me. “Stick to the narrative. It makes all of this so much easier.”

I narrow my eyes, tearing them away. I’m not letting her turn this around on me. Poverty is no excuse to do the things she or any of her pals do. She can make her own opportunity. My dad did.

“Open the door,” she says again.

I hold still.

Now she shouts. “Open the door!”

And I do it. Fuck it. I pick out my phone, tap in the code, and I hear the locks release.

Pivoting on her heel, she makes her way toward the door, but I hear her boots halt. She turns her head to look at me. “My name is Aro Marquez,” she says.

I meet her eyes.

“Aro Teresa Marquez,” she tells me. “And you may not remember me years from now, and maybe no one will think of me and no one will want to, but I was fucking here.”

I freeze.

She holds my eyes for a moment, and then…she leaves, disappearing through the door.

The others turn their eyes on me, and a few moments later, I hear a ceiling door slam shut.

“Hawke…” Dylan whispers. “What the hell?”

I don’t look at her, the scold in my cousin’s voice shaming me enough.