Chapter 30

Dylan

Silly boy.

If he’d acted like a romantic and kissed me deeply like he should’ve done first thing, he would’ve found the key immediately. But my man went straight under the skirt and couldn’t help himself after that.

Not that I’m complaining.

“I love you so much,” I tell him again.

He covers my mouth, kissing me rough and deep and moaning as he does.

“Fuck me hard,” I whimper.

He presses me into the cage, and I arch my back as he fucks me, his fingers clenching the cage and his thumbs wrapped around my forearms, holding me.

His hands roam everywhere—up my neck, down my back, squeezing my breasts and then my ass. His grip lands in my hair, his cock hits deep inside, and I inhale sharp, quick breaths, holding each one for a few seconds.

“Right there,” I moan over and over again. “Just like that.”

He slides in and out of me, the cage rocking and clanging with the force, and I lean my head back, begging, “Rub me.”

He slips a hand between my thighs, sliding his fingers in circles over my clit.

“Like that?” he asks in my ear.

I nod, my throat parched. I kiss his mouth again and again, my moans getting louder, and I really don’t care who hears.

My pussy contracts, tightening on his cock, and he growls under his breath. “Baby…”

“You feel me coming?”

“Yeah.”

My orgasm climbs higher until…I freeze, feeling it gather between my legs and low in my belly, raining down, unable to stop.

“Oh, Hunter!” I cry, hanging on as he thrusts faster and harder.

“Fuck,” he groans, squeezing my breasts.

The orgasm fills my whole body with tingles, and my knees almost give out as I hang by the handcuffs.

He brushes his thumbs over my nipples. “I need these in my mouth.”

I can barely open my eyes as I feel him unlock me from the cuffs, spin me around, and lift me up, guiding my legs around his body.

He sits on the weight bench, and I straddle him, taking his dick in my hand and fitting it back inside of me.

I ride him, rolling my hips in and out in long smooth waves. Arching my back, feeling my hair graze my ass as he sucks on my breasts.

“Say it again,” he whispers.

“I love you.”

“Again.”

I smile. “I love you, Hunter. I love you. I love you…”

He growls, pulling my head back up and snatching up my mouth.

I look over, seeing us fuck in the mirror on the wall. He follows my gaze, watching me ride him.

That’s us. It was always going to be us.

“And I want to sleep in your bed tonight,” I say.

He tips his head back. “Yeah…”

Sounds leave his throat, building and growing deeper and harder, and I move my body, letting him look and touch and have anything he wants.

His breathing stutters, every one of his muscles under my hands tightens, and he jerks again and again.

And again, finally letting out a long, single groan.

I lay my head on his chest, hearing his rapid heartbeat against my ear. “I love watching you come.”

“And I love you,” he says back.

I hold him, it hurting to think about being traded back tomorrow. I don’t know if he’s coming home yet, but it feels like we’ll be a thousand miles away from each other. I’ve loved having him next door with no rules interfering.

And eventually, we’ll be even farther away from each other.

“What?” he asks.

I look at us in the mirror, seeing him staring back at me in the reflection.

“Just already dreading next year,” I tell him. “College.”

“Oh, yeah. That.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Kade made a mess with my University of Chicago application, so I need to sort that out.”

I hold him tighter.

“I’m in love with you,” he says, kissing my hair. “And I’m proud of you. You were beautiful on that track. Right where you belong.”

I smile to myself. No matter what happens, it will be hard to be separated by even ten miles, but I’m going places, too, and that’s a perk to be going home, I guess.

In any case, he’s in love with me, and we have winter nights, spring rains, and summer heat to look forward to before next fall.

I try to swallow through the dryness in my mouth as pain hits my stomach. “Oh, God, I’m starving.”

I haven’t eaten anything since the dads’ breakfast this morning.

“Breaker’s?” he suggests.

I nod, and he comes up, wrapping his arms around me as we kiss.

I look over to a shelf, his lips still on mine. “Oh, yay. Towels,” I chirp.

I need to clean up before we eat.

But he glances over to the rack with white gym towels for the football players and falls back against the bench again, laughing. I don’t know why.

I turn around, taking in Winslet’s bedroom one last time. I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep here again, but I know I’ll be close. Hunter will still have his room next door, even though he’s moving home. I’m already daydreaming of Sunday afternoons when it’s raining and we want to disappear for a few hours some place that isn’t a cramped back seat. I’ll miss this house, though.

And I’ll certainly miss that cage. Last night was incredible.

“Dylan, you ready?” Hunter calls downstairs.

Music plays out in the street—someone’s car speakers—and people move in and out of the house, waiting to take me to the bridge and release me back to the Pirates.

“Almost!” I call out.

I swipe the notes off the desk, having saved those for last when I packed up all of my things. It feels wrong to remove them from the house. They’re not mine, but Hawke will want to see them, and someone left them here for me to find anyway. I’ll return them. Someday.

I stuff the notes into my backpack, making sure the window is closed, and scan the room once more as I turn off the light.

I close the door and leave, jogging down the stairs. Hunter catches me in his arms as I swing into the living room.

“I don’t want to give you back,” he whispers, hovering over my mouth.

I kiss him. “You’ll be over at your parents’,” I say, kissing him again, “not across the river anymore.”

“But he’ll be here with us all day,” Coral adds, walking past with the garbage bag to take out to the curb.

I sigh at Hunter as she heads out to the porch, and Mace and Codi drift in. “True.”

He’s not coming back to school. His team still has at least four more games, and he wants to be here. He’s just not living here anymore, though. He’s going home to his own room and will drive over here for school and practice.

“You sure you’re okay with that decision?” he asks.

“It’s the right one.”

The Rebels fit him.

“Hunter!” Farrow shouts from the street.

Hunter looks toward the door and then back to me, kissing my hair. “Meet you outside.”

I let him go, and Mace reaches out, handing me my phone. “Halloween party Friday after the game at the rink,” she tells me. “We all put our numbers in.”

“Great.” I tuck my phone away. It makes it easier to leave knowing I’ll be back for Hunter’s game in five days.

“Want me to bring anything?” I ask. I doubt I can get a hold of liquor, but I’m great with pizza.

Coral enters the house again sans garbage bag. “You can bring your dad.”

Mace and Codi laugh, and I wince. “Gross.”

“Bring the gang,” Coral says. “It’ll be cool.”

Codi removes my Pirate jacket and hands it to me. “I know we won, but…”

I shake my head. “Keep it,” I tell her. “I like the idea of it staying here, actually.” I look around to the three of them. “Pass it on to someone else when you’re ready.”

I slip my arms into my backpack and move into the kitchen, checking for anything else that’s mine.

I point to the refrigerator. “There’s some food left that I can’t really take home, so go for it.”

“Are you stealing a shirt?” Coral asks.

I stop, remembering the No Fear T-shirt I found in the closet. I open my jacket and look. “Is that okay? Did it belong to one of you?”

“It was here,” someone else says, and I see Arlet step into the house. “The clothes have always been here.”

She stops next to the others, and we didn’t talk much while I was here. Hunter made sure I knew that she was fully aware it was Kade she was sleeping with.

“Something of hers should be in the Falls, too, I guess,” Arlet tells me.

I smile, appreciating that. I still don’t think I believe these were her clothes, but as long as they’re no one else’s, then we’re good.

“Oh, I forgot my helmet.” I spin around, heading to the kitchen table.

“I’ll take this out,” Mace tells me, grabbing my other bag.

“Thanks!”

They all drift outside, and I grab the helmet Noah brought for me, already having given Farrow back the keys to his bike. I move to the stairwell door, running through the list in my head. “Phones, helmet, vibrator…”

I start to swing the door closed, but I look up just in time.

Not to the left side with Deacon and Conor’s measurements, though. I spot something on the door frame, but this time to the right. I open the door wide and take out my phone, bringing up my flashlight.

“Ready whenever you are,” Hunter says, coming up to my side.

I scan the list of markings, same as on the left. Another record of measurements. Another sibling?

Hunter moves in. “What’s this?”

“I think we missed something,” I tell him.

I read the name in jagged, slanted script. “Manas?”

He studies it closer. “He was older.”

“How do you know?”

“Extra layer of paint,” he replies. “Or two. Look.”

He takes my phone, pointing it lower in the inside of the frame, and I see the earlier markings look like they were barely dug into the wood, but the carving gets deeper and deeper the more Manas aged. I glance at Deacon and Conor’s grooves that appear more pronounced. They have one or two less layers of paint covering them.

I look at Hunter. “Three brothers?”

He shakes his head. “Not necessarily. Could be a previous inhabitant.”

But something starts unraveling in my head.

“You said ‘them.’”

Bastien looked up at me.

“You said ‘a few of us like to think she escaped them.’”

If Conor is really dead, and it’s just Deacon, then who else…

I blink rapidly, staring at the kitchen floor as this feeling starts to puzzle itself together, and I’m not sure where my thoughts are leading, but I know it’s right.

I drop my backpack and run upstairs with my phone.

“Dylan!” Hunter yells.

He runs after me, following as I open the attic door and race up the wooden steps, onto the third floor.

I don’t look for a lamp or light switch, the sunny fall day outside streaming through the windows.

There’s a bed—rather large, perfectly made with sheets, pillows, and a blanket, neatly tucked in under the mattress. I see the rocking chair near the window, the varnish on the wood long since worn away and faded, and the rope tied to a spoke on the back, the other end disappearing out the window.

There’s a bedside table, and I walk over, opening it, but all I see is a padlock. The shackle is closed, and there’s no key.

Remembering the key from the grave, I pull it out of my pocket and try the lock. It doesn’t fit.

I stuff the key back into my jeans and drop the lock into the drawer.

There’s nothing else in the attic.

No empty liquor bottles, no condoms, no pizza boxes, no graffiti. Aro was right. The Rebels don’t disrespect this house.

A whine sounds behind me, and I look over my shoulder to see Hunter checking a window to make sure it’s locked. The floorboard underneath him creaks again as he shifts on his feet.

I cross the room toward him. “Stop.”

He faces me, and I nudge him back just a little as I squat down and lift up a floorboard. A newspaper sits inside, and I remove it, opening it up.

Pictures spill out, and Hunter dips down to grab them. I stand up, inspecting them with him.

Two brown-haired boys, one crying and one gazing at the camera with big blue eyes. Same age, same face. “Twins,” Hunter whispers.

The other picture is of a woman at a picnic table outside. She wears a simple dress, and the table is covered with food. Deacon and Conor look about thirteen years old as they sit on the bench seat.

“Twins,” I say, pointing to the boys and guessing Deacon is the one who looks pissed about something in this photo too. “Deacon. Conor.” Then I point to an older boy propped on the edge of the table who looks about sixteen. Black hair, brown eyes. “Manas.”

Manas wears the No Fear T-shirt on my body now.

“Oh my God,” I breathe out. “There were two brothers here with her, but not the twins. Conor did die.”

He did commit suicide.

I meet Hunter’s eyes. “It wasn’t Conor and Deacon texting on those phones. It was Deacon and Manas.”

I don’t know if Hawke or Kade filled Hunter in, but he doesn’t ask me to explain.

The brothers who went after her were the twin who survived and the older brother.

I look at Manas in the picture. He’s the one in the notes who comes down from the attic.

Something about the way he’s perched on the edge of the table in the picture just like….

“Your parents were around?” I asked Bastien.

“No.” He shook his head. “I still couldn’t come and go as I liked, though. Siblings.”

Younger siblings.

I study the newspaper, seeing the headline for the flood the night she probably disappeared.

A picture of water spilling onto the river banks and covering the streets in the mill district stares back up at me as images flood my head.

Resting on the edge of the table, just like…

Just like he leans on his desk at school.

“Oh my God,” I whisper.

He lightened his hair to dark brown, and he’s more than twenty-five years older than he was in this photo, but that’s him.

“Can we stop at the school?” I ask Hunter.

He nods. “Yeah.”

I snap a quick picture of the newspaper and the photos for Hawke and put everything back where I found it. The phones, the notes…someone is feeding us.

But they didn’t give us these things. I’ll leave them here.

We hurry to the school, Hunter getting me inside through the auto shop. The bay door is easy to maneuver open, and we slip inside, running immediately upstairs.

Hunter grabs my hand, taking the lead, and we stop at Bastien’s classroom, the door wide open.

Before I even enter, though, I can see that nothing is right. We walk in, slowly absorbing the bare walls, the empty desk, and the clean whiteboard. No lamp. No container of markers or pens. No posters of student work on the walls.

As if the room has always been abandoned.

“He’s gone,” I say.

Did he know I would figure out who he was?

Or was he scared of something else?

“What are these?” Hunter asks.

I look as he holds up an envelope from my desk in the front row. I walk over and notice all of the desks have envelopes on them.

I take the one in Hunter’s hand, seeing it has my name and my address at home.

“Letters,” I tell him. “Letters we wrote to parents…that we never intended to mail.”

He looks at the front of it again, then turns it over. “Open in twenty-two years,” he reads.

I stare at the inscription that I didn’t write written on the back flap. Twenty-two years?

He moves between the desks, picking up a few others. “They all say that.”

I look around, hoping to find some other clue. Why did he leave? Is he guilty?

Is Deacon with him?

They must’ve left the cognac on Conor’s grave. New Orleans.

Hunter comes to my side again. “Open the letter now.”

“I know what it says,” I tell him. “I wrote it.”

“So why does he want to open it again in twenty-two years?”

I think back to his lectures on the rivalry and discussions on community pride and what we perpetuate generation after generation.

“Because we weren’t writing them to our parents,” I finally say, understanding. “We were writing them to us as parents. Because we change.”

Like my parents and his parents probably have. My dad was a lot like me. Now, the idea scares him.

“Why not twenty years, though?” he presses. “Why twenty-two?”

“Because he…” I swallow and shake my head. “Because he lost her twenty-two years ago.”

He wants us to be in our forties, like he is now.

I fold up the envelope and slide it into my pocket, leaving the classroom for the last time.

Hunter takes my hands as we stroll down the hallway. “You think he’ll be back?” he asks.

“I hope not.”

But I say it with a little smile. If he is guilty of something, I’d like to know more before I wish him caught.

And if he is guilty of her disappearance—or death—he and Deacon are dangerous. Better gone than near us.

I think I’ll miss Mr. Bastien a little.

I’m not sure I would like Manas Doran, though.

Hunter wraps his arms around me and picks me up, walking us down the hall. “You need Rebel gear for my game Friday.”

I groan. “Oh, are you sure?”

Maybe Aro has a T-shirt I can borrow, but still…

He laughs, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’ll make it worth it.”

Flutters hit my stomach as I think about the costume I can change into for the Halloween party afterward. Win or lose, he’s going to have such a good night.