Chapter 8

Hawke

I should’ve asked about her arm, but I’m pretty sure she would’ve hit me. People like that would rather boil to death than let anyone know they need help. There’s no talking to her.

I take out my phone and check the time before dialing. It’s after six.

It takes four rings, but I hear my cousin clear her throat and say in a groggy voice. “Yeah, I’m here. Are you okay?”

I head into the surveillance room, shaking my head as I switch one of the cameras over to our street, Fall Away Lane. “So worried about my safety that you’re sleeping?”

“It passes the time,” she mumbles.

I see her car parked in front of her house, which means her dad needed to get out of the garage early this morning. He’s up already, and I pan over to the house next to theirs, seeing my parents’ porch light still on. They probably haven’t been to bed, but I hope that they have. I don’t want them worrying.

Of course, they will anyway, but they can at least sleep.

“Go to my room,” I tell her, bringing up the local news on the monitor to my left and my social media on the right. “Get my laptop and my spare key in my nightstand. Bring my bike and park it in the old High Street garage.”

“Your parents are going to know I took it, Hawke,” she argues. “They’ll corner me when I get back.”

“Not if you move now,” I reply, typing with one hand and holding the phone with the other. “Wheel it to the end of the block and then start it up.”

“But it’s raining.”

I keep my laugh to myself. I’m fucking running for my life, and she’s whining like she did when I used to steal her Oreos. It’s actually comforting. Helps me suspend the belief that I’m in more trouble than I want to admit. “I love you,” I tease.

“Ugh…” And she hangs up, not satisfied with my response.

Aro appears on one of the cameras, washing her dish and drinking a full cup of water before refilling it and downing another.

I move to my left, scanning the screens and seeing mention in the local paper of access to the pond suspended due to construction but no further details about why. I sift through article after article—my uncle’s case to keep some big developer from buying the old hospital out on Highway 6 and turning it into a casino, the minutes from the PTO meeting, and the exposéon “How Cooperative is a Co-Op? Really?”

But nothing about me. Or her.

Drew Reeves doesn’t want the public’s help finding us.

Great. That can’t be good.

I pull my keyboard up on the riser and stand in front of the monitors, bringing up the county database. I force my fingers to move before I have too much time to think.

The girl is unpredictable. And she has baggage. Lots of it. If she goes back home for those kids, Reeves will have already established footing with her stepfather. He’ll know the second she steps in that house.

Not sure her mother can be trusted. Not many people would turn in their own kid, but I can’t take away both parents right now anyway. Putting those kids in foster care won’t make Aro Marquez more cooperative with me.

But her stepdad needs to go.

240 – Assault, I type out. I add in Domestic Violence, Person with a Gun, Child Abuse, Shooting at Inhabited Dwelling, and…—I think and then shrug—Dead Human Body.

He’ll be in jail a couple of weeks on several bogus warrants before they figure any of this out. And hey, I might get lucky. Some of it is certainly true, and they might be able to prove it.

I link his last known location to the hospital after the gunshot wound last night, and pause over the enter button like I always do when I know I’m about to do something that’s either incredibly clever, or really, fucking stupid. I exhale and hit the key. “Screw it.”

Hitting my social media pages, I see that the story there is the exact opposite of the official news stations. Videos of Aro and me circulate, tagging her and me, and our involvement, which is as clear as day. When I check out her pages, just an Instagram she hasn’t used in over a year and a TikTok account with eight followers and no videos, I fight back a small smile. I’m relieved she’s not transparent about her comings and goings like everyone else on the planet, but she probably doesn’t broadcast her life because what’s there to broadcast? She’s never really had a chance to be a teenager.

I pause a moment, lost in thought. My mind trails from the pond to the gunshot to her hand, and to everything else in the eight hours since we met. I run my hand through my hair, rubbing my scalp and feeling like I want to laugh and puke at the same time. This partnership is going to kill me.

“Whoo!” someone screams.

I blink and look up, realizing it’s a TikTok video.

“When your boyfriend won’t touch you AND runs off with the girl who kicked you in the face tonight…” Schuyler shouts on the screen as I stare at the video of her in front of me. “At least now I know he’s not gay.”

I straighten, locking my jaw as liquid heat runs under my skin.

Laughter erupts around her as she straddles Asher Young reverse cowgirl and lets him paw her. “He’s just an asshole who’s forgotten in 3…2…1…”

He reaches around and slips his hand underneath her crop top while she leans back into him, laughing like I’m so easy to replace.

Son of a bitch.

And before I can stop myself, I scroll down, knowing nothing good comes from looking at the comments, but I do it anyway.

Queen!several commenters tell her.

Get ’em, girl!

Sounds like a piece of work. You’re better off!another one says.

He’s gettin’ it somewhere else. I told you!

“Jesus Christ,” I mumble, continuing to skim the comment section like I don’t know better. “Fuckin’ people.”

Asher covers her mouth with his, and my ex is practically dry-humping him. I pick up my phone and dial.

She picks up on the second ring, but neither of us say anything. She just breathes.

“Are you okay?” I almost whisper.

I shouldn’t be calling her. Everything inside me tells me that I’m the one who’s mad. What does she have to be mad about?

But still, she remains silent. Four months ago, I really liked her. Two months ago, I thought she might be the one.

This isn’t my fault.

I swallow through the sandpaper in my throat. “Don’t go somewhere you can’t come back from just to prove something to yourself,” I tell her. “Or to get back at me.”

The video was a shit move. Putting me on blast when she knows I’m not hooking up with anyone else, even though she didn’t say my name, is childish. As if people aren’t talking about me enough. They know who she’s referring to.

But I know what she’s really doing, and I don’t want her to fuck someone and regret it.

“Are you safe?”

“You’re not my brother,” she spits out. “Act like my boyfriend and get jealous.”

I lower the volume on the screen, but I let it repeat over and over again, watching him do all the things to her that I did with her, the only difference being he probably didn’t stop like I did. “Are you with him now?” I ask.

“Are you with her?”

“It’s not like that,” I snap, spinning around from the video and pacing the room. “There are so many other things going on that you don’t—”

“I blew him.”

I stop, falling silent. Images of him getting her like that flash in my mind, and I grip the phone so tightly I hear it crack.

“I kept expecting him to stop me like you always do.” She speaks softly—clear and steady—like she wasn’t drunk at all last night and meant to do everything she did. “But he just gripped my hair harder and shoved himself down my throat again and again, Hawke.”

I don’t breathe.

“I liked it,” she whispers, and I hear the smile in her voice.

I have nothing to say. Am I really that mad? Is that what this is? This brick turning in my stomach? Did I want her back? I let her go weeks ago, knowing she’d find someone else eventually. Does it just hurt more than I thought it would?

“You know why I’m telling you this?” Schuyler says. “Because I know it’s safe with you. You won’t tell anyone. You won’t shame me on social media. You’re a perfect gentleman, which is why I feel like I’ve dodged a bullet.” She laughs a little. “Your fucking would’ve been so polite. I’m glad I realized now how boring you would be in bed.”

I close my eyes, the line of girls all through high school piling up to this fucking cherry on top. Every single one who wondered what was wrong with them when I didn’t try, bitter when I stopped, and some unapologetically toxic when I said no. By my senior year, they stopped blaming themselves and started laughing together about it.

I look over my shoulder, watching her on his lap just like she was on mine last month and knowing she wouldn’t have given him the time of day if I’d given her what she wanted.

“And yet,” I taunt, finally finding my voice. “I’m the one you want, aren’t I?”

She’s quiet for a moment but then finds her words. “I did.”

The corners of my lips turn up in a smile, and I walk back to the monitors, watching him but seeing myself. Seeing myself holding someone I can’t let go of.

“I think about sex,” I say softly. “All the time. I want it.”

I close my eyes again, going deep into that fantasy.

“I want to be in a dark place with someone,” I tell her. “A tight space. Touching her and not being able to put two words together because I can’t see anything else but her.” My breathing turns shallow again, and blood rushes to my groin. “She’s got me on a leash. Time freezes. I need it. Again and again. The warmth between her legs. Her mouth.” I wet my lips. “How every inch of her body is pressed against mine, and still, I need her closer.”

She sucks in a breath, and I grow harder.

“I want it so bad.”

“Me too,” she murmurs.

“Pull up your shirt.”

She hesitates. “He’s sleeping next to me.”

I smile again. “Pull up your shirt.”

I hear her swallow. “’Kay,” she whispers.

I imagine she’s in bed, warm and soft.

“I’m hard.” I breathe in and out slowly. “I’m always so hard when I go into my head and pull down her panties, feeling her lips brush mine. The skin between her thighs. So warm and wet.”

I tip her chin up—the girl in my head—making her look at me, because she’s scared too and she needs me to be strong. She needs me like I’m the reason her heart beats, and what she gets from me, she can’t get from anyone else.

It’s sex and more.

“I bet you’re all muscle, baby,” Schuyler pants. “So hard.”

“I am.” I draw in a breath, aching. “I want that girl who’s in my head so badly. She’s always there. So hot. So good at everything she does to me. I feel like I never want to fuck anyone else. I need her.”

“Yeah…”

My muscles tense, but I relax them, opening my eyes as the images disappear. Schuyler groans on the other end, masturbating, and all the anger I felt a few minutes ago cools.

Sweat dampens my chest, and I look down, seeing the bulge in my jeans.

“The thing is,” I tell her, my tone growing hard, “when that little animal in my head looks up at me and I look back at her… It’s never you I see, Schuyler.”

She stops her little mewls, and I steel my spine, closing out the video on the monitor.

“Your lip looks like it hurts,” I tell her, remembering how swollen it was in the video. “Try a cold compress.”

She sucks in a breath, and I hold back my smile as I hang up.

Every muscle in my body hardens and then relaxes, a shot of warmth seeping into my blood.

She’s lying. She didn’t blow him. That’s why she posted the video. She’s pushing me to react. If I won’t take what she offers, then she’s saving her pride. She’s at home, in bed, alone.

The truth is, I don’t see anyone in particular when I dream of the one. The girl in my head. It’s never a face. It could be Schuyler. Who knows? What I do have, though, is a feeling. Just a feeling. I want what I feel with the girl in my head. Something strong. Something only for me.

Lowering my eyes, I stare at the green drawer of the old steel military desk left behind by whoever was here last. I reach out and open it, seeing a tray of cell phones I found inside and have kept there since. Nokias, Motorolas, flip phones… A lot of eight, once dead until I plugged them in, replaced batteries, worked a little magic… I have no idea who left them here, but I think I know who one of them belonged to.

I grab the black Nokia, the weight about the same as my iPhone, but I flip it open and hit the key pad, bringing up his—or her—last conversation.

Don’t kill her, the owner of the phone messages someone they don’t have added to their contacts. Which means this was either a burner phone or a new one they hadn’t gotten around to setting up yet.

Someone has to, the other replies.

Soon, they assure.

Today.

Tonight, the owner replies.

Both of us, the other one says.Together.

I remember how my heart pumped the first time I read this. I was in this room, finding this place for the first time. My skin crawled, feeling like I was being watched, but that was over a year ago when I found the place, and if anyone in this text conversation is still alive and knows I’m here, they’re letting me be.

For now.

You watch, the other says.

Why?

Because I want her to look at me.

I brush my thumb over the screen.

Only me, he clarifies.

Their phone’s owner responds, Understood.

It ends. There are no more messages that day. That night. Or in the twenty-two years since.

I’d searched all the other phones, half of which were unsalvageable and the other half had no connection to this one that I could find. What the hell happened that night? Did they kill her? He wanted her to look at him. What did she do? Was it revenge?

I want to know, and I want to know how they got here. Who they belonged to. Whoever owned them would be about my parents’ age.

And whoever left them here is probably still out there. I’m not the only one who knows about this place.

But before I can get sidetracked too long, a light pierces the screen to my right. I look up, seeing Dylan turn my bike onto High Street.

“You sure about this?” she asks, handing me my helmet. “Our parents can have this dealt with today.”

I take the backpack with my laptop and the keys, setting them down in the abandoned garage before tossing her a hoodie. “Stay around people,” I order her. “Okay? I don’t know what to expect, and it’s safer to be on your guard. No practicing at Fallstown by yourself.”

She chews on the corner of her lip. “Fine.” And she immediately closes her mouth after the one-word response.

“I’m serious,” I bark, knowing that’s her tell when she’s lying. “You know I’ll see you. I will lock you down in here with me if I have to.”

She knows I have access to all the cameras in town.

“I got it,” she blurts out. “I’m not stupid.”

“Not when you take the time to think, no.”

She overcompensates, because she’s Jared Trent’s daughter. If she’s not as good as him on the track, then they say it’s because she’s a girl, and that’s the message she picked up on really early in life. It’s been balls to the wall ever since to prove everyone wrong. Hopefully it doesn’t get her killed someday.

The door creaks behind me, and I look to see Aro enter, having followed me. The old fire house is three roofs down from the hideout, so we just climbed up, out, and back in. All without being seen.

I pull out my laptop, examining it to make sure it didn’t get wet, and then pull out my phone, texting Kade.

Be careful today, I tell him. Don’t make anything worse.

“Here,” I hear Dylan say. “It’s what I owe you.”

I glance up and see her hand Aro a roll of cash.

I make it fun, he replies.

I shake my head, rubbing my face.

I start to type, but then I hear Aro curse in Spanish, followed by, “Now that I’m on the run and you feel sorry for me? I don’t need your charity, Trent.”

I cock a brow as I crack my neck. I’ve had enough fun, I type.

“No, you need a bath.” Dylan scrunches up her face as she plugs her nose, looking at me. “She smells like the fish pond.”

Oh, Jesus.

Aro launches for her, but I grab the hood of her jacket and yank her back. Dammit. Can I have just five minutes here?

You need to be the responsible one now, I punch the buttons on my phone, telling Kade.Please.

I grip Aro’s coat as she tries to squirm out of my hold, but I wait for Kade’s reply.

Fine.And I don’t feel at ease with his one-word reply any more than I do when I get it from Dylan.

I tuck my phone away and release the Rebel, but I move forward before she can rearrange my cousin’s face.

“Talk to Hunter,” I instruct Dylan. “Tell him to keep St. Matt’s away this year. We’ve got enough to deal with from Weston, and I don’t want him involved in all this, too.”

Grudge Night is a huge draw for all the high schools in the area, but everyone needs to lay low this year.

Dylan purses her lips, looking away. “Like Hunter cares. Grudge Night is so far off his radar, I’m sure he’s not the least bit interested in our petty games.” She folds her arms over her chest. “He left me on Read the last two times I texted.”

“That’s fine,” I tell her. “He doesn’t have to respond to get the message.”

Hunter is Kade’s identical twin, but he’s not a Pirate. He was, but now he’s a Knight. He transferred to our other rival school last year—he and Kade never got along, and I guess he just needed distance. He lives closer to Chicago with their grandfather.

Dylan peels off her wet hoodie and puts on the dry one. “Hunter has forgotten we exist,” she says. “You should be worried about Kade.”

“When am I not worried about Kade?” I slip my arms through the backpack.

She doesn’t know I was just texting him, but we both get the message. Kade looks for any reason to fight. He revels in it, and he doesn’t much care that he constantly stresses me out.

A honk sounds outside, and I jerk my head.

“Relax.” Dylan pulls on the hoodie as we both peer out the garage door windows. “It’s just Noah.”

“Like that’s going to make me relax.”

Noah Van der Berg idles out at the curb, straddling his motorcycle, a custom, top-of-the-line piece of machinery built by his dad and brother as a gift to him when he signed to be on Jared’s racing team.

The guy is super nice, like being dashing is his fucking job.

I glare. Jared is the most high-strung, rage-infused, alpha male I know. Worse than my dad. How can he let a twenty-two-year-old blond with a six-pack sleep across the hall from his daughter?

Dylan laughs under her breath, dropping her voice into a pouty little coo. “Aw, poor Hawke, having such an attractive cousin like me,” she teases, not taking my concern seriously. And then she rolls her eyes, “Not everyone wants to have sex with me. Lighten up.”

Whatever.

She pulls open the door and saunters out to her new housemate in the rain. I guess I should be thankful. He was nice enough to pick her up and save me the trip of taking her back home.

He’s like a brother. Yeah. That’s what a brother would do. It’s fine.

But I scowl as I watch him drive off with my cousin.

A second later, Aro comes to stand next to me. “The Garmin on her wrist,” she says, looking out the window with me. “Does she know she’s being tracked?”

My face falls. Fuck.

The only person who recognized my Christmas present to Dylan last year—and that it does a lot more than just count your steps—was my dad.

Aro glances at me. “You’re funny.”

And then she turns, walking away.