8. EIGHT

EIGHT

W hen I open my eyes the next morning, I find myself face-to-face with River.

"Hey, beautiful," she says.

I laugh.

"What's funny?" she asks.

"Not you," I tell her. "It's just that I'm so used to being alone, and the last two days, I've woken up next to someone who wasn't the person I went to sleep with."

"Is that a bad thing?" she asks.

"No. Not a bad thing. It's just different."

She reaches out and pushes my hair away from my face. "You have curly hair," she says.

"Mmm, yep. I didn't feel like drying it last night."

"It's pretty," she says. "It suits you. You know, if you stay with us, you'll never have to be alone again. Not if you don't want to."

"Do you think they want me to stay?" I ask.

"I want you to," she says. "Um, there's food—real food, not blood food—if you're hungry. Brady made breakfast."

"Oh my god, I'm starving," I tell her, pulling myself out of bed. I haven't eaten real food since pizza on the bus yesterday afternoon.

"There's eggs and bacon and pancakes," she says, climbing out of the bed. "Coffee, too."

"Thank god. Do you have a hair tie?" I ask. "This hair is just…I know it's bad."

"It's gorgeous," she says. "But I'm sure Layla has some in the bathroom. Check the top middle drawer."

Sure enough, the drawer is filled with hair accessories. I grab a black scrunchie and pull my hair into a high ponytail.

"You look like a cheerleader," River says.

"Is that an insult?" I ask.

"No," she says. "I like cheerleaders."

"Well, I definitely was not a cheerleader," I tell her. "I already told you—I was a loser who had no friends. For the most part, I operated completely under the radar…until I got sent to an alternative school my junior year of high school. But…that's a story for another time…maybe." I move toward the bedroom door. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah," she says, following me out of the room. "My wife was a cheerleader."

"Wait, Hazel is your wife?"

She laughs. "Yeah. We've been married for over a year now."

"Well, okay."

"What? Is that weird?" she asks.

"No, I think it's adorable," I tell her as we walk into the kitchen.

I take notice of who's there and who's missing—family members and another male and female I don't recognize, no one from the band is present.

"Where's the band?" I ask River quietly.

"They left for the studio early," she says. "I think Declan likes to do it after a party night as a kind of hazing, to be honest."

That's kind of comforting, actually. I could use a break from them—or at least a couple of hours without a De Rossi brother breathing down my neck. I grab a plate from the island and start piling on food, then sit at the table next to Brady.

"So, what do we do for the next two days?" I ask everyone.

"Nothing," Brady says. "We relax. We stay in bed and watch movies, we soak in the hot tub. There's a gym in the basement—if that's your thing. And there are a couple of trails behind the house. One of them leads to a waterfall."

"Oh, really?" I ask. "That sounds cool."

"Really?" he asks. "You don't really strike me as an outdoor girl, Terror Teagan."

"It's Terror with Teagan."

"I said what I said."

"I don't know, doesn't everyone like waterfalls? How far is it? Does anyone have a coat I can wear?"

"You can take mine," River says. "I'll bring it down when I'm done. I'll show you where the trail is, too. It's about a two-mile walk. Just don't wander off because…you know…no phones."

"Thanks," I tell her. "I'll be careful."

I finish my food and, when I'm sure everyone else is done, fill my plate again and eat that, too. River goes upstairs and finds a coat for me like she said she would and brings it down just as I finish.

"Thanks," I tell her. "Have you seen Layla this morning? I think I upset her last night."

"I did," she says. "She said she wasn't hungry, got a cup of coffee, and left. Why? What happened?"

I pull the jacket on over Layla's hoodie, zip it, and then head out the back door behind River. "I don't know. I was just trying to understand why she was so upset; I wanted to help her."

"We all want to help Layla. I wouldn't think too much about it. She's very forgiving; she was probably just tired. Here it is," she says when we get to the tree line. "Just…like I said, stay on the trail. But if you do get lost—if you follow the river downstream, it will eventually take you to the main road in town. It'll take a couple of hours, but it's better than freezing to death at night."

"Thanks. It feels so weird…going places without my phone."

She smiles. "You'll get used to it. Once you do, you'll see the freedom in it."

Freedom.

Isn't that what I told Declan I wanted last night? That it was my drug of choice?

Why did I say that?

"You good?" River asks.

"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks. I'll see you later," I say, then turn and begin down the trail.

It's forty-five degrees and sunny—probably warm for a February day in this part of the country. Still, I stuff my hands into the jacket pockets, and my cheeks flush from the cold as I walk through the dense forest of mostly-dead things. It makes it a little more difficult to detect the beaten path, but I must stay on it because eventually, I can hear the waterfall in the near distance.

It's small—maybe five feet high—but the volume of water spilling over is more than I expected. Remnants of icicles drip from the river's rocks, indicating it likely was much colder days ago. There's a small clearing facing the afternoon sun, and I lie down in the brush, enjoying the feel of the sun on my face.

I don't know how long I stay like that, and that in itself is a new experience.

Eventually, I hear footsteps shuffling through the twigs and dead leaves around me.

"Are you dead?" Luca asks.

I laugh. "No, I'm not dead."

He lies beside me in the muddy clearing. "You've been gone a long time."

"Have I?" I ask. "I honestly can't tell. You look even weirder with a coat on, by the way."

"That's hurtful," he says. "I actually felt like I looked really nice in this coat."

I turn toward him and laugh again. "I'm sorry. It's a super great coat. You do look really nice."

"Nope. Too late for that. You already said it."

I look at him and feel something vaguely familiar in my lower gut, and I realize something…I do actually like him. And not just like I wanted to sleep with him—I really like him. I like River, too—I like all of them, really, except maybe Declan. I wonder what they'd do if they found out I was here under false pretenses.

I wonder if I'd be able to produce a podcast that could potentially hurt them after knowing them.

I quickly put the thought out of my head. If they're hurting people—if they're killing them—then, of course, I'll do the right thing.

I'm not a bad person.

And if I'm wrong, then, well…maybe that won't be so bad.

I prop myself up on my elbow. "Let me ask you something."

"Okay," he says, slipping an arm around my waist.

"Why are you in timeout?"

"Timeout?" he repeats.

"That's what River called it," I tell him. "Why do people keep saying you're dangerous?"

"Mmm…I don't want to tell you that," he says.

"Mmm…I'm probably just gonna…" I slip out from under his arm and begin scooting away from him. "Move over here then."

"No, don't," he says, laughing. "Okay, wait. Wait. Maybe…if you tell me something really fucked up about you, I'll tell you."

"How do I know if my thing meets your qualifications for really fucked up?"

He shrugs. "I guess you don't until you do."

I narrow my eyes. "What if my thing is worse?"

"Do you think it might be?" he asks with a smirk.

"I don't know," I tell him. "My friends don't run around warning people that I'm dangerous, so probably not."

"That's because you don't have any," he says.

I snicker. "Okay, yeah. Well, maybe."

"Is your thing illegal?" he asks.

"Kind of. Yes. Is yours?"

"Apparently."

"And you'll really tell me? Like, actually tell me? Because the fact that you're smiling right now makes me doubt you."

"I'm always smiling, though, aren't I?"

"…I think so."

"So then, that should be normal. Not like the coat."

I sigh. I've never had to tell this story out loud before aside from therapy, but I really want this information. If he is crazy, maybe he will just tell me. And the sooner I get the information I want, the better…before I get sucked even further into this rabbit hole.

"Fine," I tell him. "But don't look at me while I talk."

"Okay," he says. He lies back on the ground, looking up at the sky.

"I can still see you smiling," I tell him.

He laughs and covers his mouth with his hand. "Okay, go."

"Okay, so. You know how I said I don't have any friends?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I was a weird fucking kid, okay? I have this sister—she's four years older than me—and she was always prettier and smarter and involved in everything in school, and I was never really anything like that. I was like…the extra. No one ever paid any attention to me or what I was doing—not my family, not people at school."

"Sounds familiar," he says.

"Don't talk," I tell him. "And you're prettier than Declan."

"You keep telling me what to do like that, and I'm going to fuck that mouth of yours."

Jesus. This man.

"Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Yeah, I do. I just…you know what I want to do to you."

"I haven't cried in over three years," I say.

"We'll see."

"So anyway, instead of having friends and a life, I had hobbies. And it started out with horror movies and novels and then I moved on to true crime and serial killers. But I got like…a little too into it. And when I was in high school, I started writing letters to convicted murderers—just to see who would write back. A few of them did, and it escalated quickly."

"Of course they did."

"So, I'm going to wrap this up as fast as I can. A few things happened. The first was that I left a journal with some of the letters and…details about what I had been doing in English class, and someone made photocopies and posted them all over the school. They made videos of me crying; they went viral. The teachers called my parents. School, for the next couple of days, was torture—they literally tortured me—and then the administration decided that the best thing to do was expel me for the rest of the year because I'd become too much of a distraction. Nothing ever happened to the other kids who did that to me, though.

"My parents enrolled me in this alternative school and ended up selling the house to stop the letters because they were afraid, and I wasn't allowed to go anywhere or do anything. And the last thing that happened was that one of those people got out of prison, found me, and abducted me. The police found us the next day and shot him dead in front of me."

"Jesus. I wasn't expecting that."

"You want to know the worst part? The fucked up part I've never told anyone before?"

"Yeah…"

"He didn't really abduct me. I went with him…willingly."

He removes his hands from his face and turns to face me, his green eyes lighting up. "Really?"

"I never told anyone, though. There wasn't any point. And…I never flew under the radar again. When I realized people were always going to be paying attention now, I started dressing differently, started doing my hair and makeup, and started making a fucking scene. When I went back to regular school my senior year, the popular girls made a game out of trying to make me cry on camera, and I never fucking cried again. They did, though. When I fucked all of their boyfriends."

"Teagan," he says, reaching out and caressing my cheek with the back of his hand. "I think we might be soulmates. I'll tell you my thing now."

"Okay."

"A few months ago, I met this girl," he starts. "And this is going to sound worse than it actually is, okay? I mean, did your boyfriend ever kill anyone? I wasn't going to kill her—"

"Hey! Dumbass!"

I look over Luca's shoulder and spot Declan standing with his arms folded, no jacket of course, because he probably isn't human, with Rhett at his side.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing? Are you a fucking idiot?" he asks.

His tone drips with rage, his eyes hard. Luca pulls himself to his feet and I do the same, my eyes darting between the two brothers as I start to worry one of them might swing on the other.

"I'm not—"

"I heard you," he says. "Do you want to go to jail?"

"I…" I start. "He didn't tell me anything. I won't tell anyone."

"See?" Luca says. "Teagan's cool. She'll probably find out anyway if she hangs around long enough."

"God, you really are fucking stupid. Teagan's cool until you piss her off, too. Then what?" he asks. "And she won't be sticking around. Two-stop rule—we're leaving her in Seattle with the skanks Eli brought home."

"Fuck this," I say. "I'll just leave right now. I'll get a cab or something. Luca, why do you let him tell you who you can talk to and who you can fuck? I thought my relationship with my family was messed up, but it is nothing like this."

I stuff my hands into my pockets and storm off toward the house, but I only make it a few steps away before Luca grabs me by the collar of my jacket and turns me around.

"You have no fucking idea what you're talking about," he growls. "So just shut the fuck up. You don't know shit about me or my brother. Got it?"

"Yeah," I say weakly. "Yeah, I'm sorry, Luca. I got it."

He smirks, his tone, again, changing completely. "That's better. I warned you about that mouth, didn't I?"

"Y-yes."

He releases my collar and gently cups my cheeks with his hands before kissing me on the mouth. It's soft, sensual. I wait for Declan to stop the interaction, but he doesn't.

When he pulls away, he rests his forehead on mine and says, "I'm sorry about that. But…thank you for telling me your secret, Teagan. I think we understand each other a lot better now, don't you?"

I swallow hard, my heart pounding. "Yeah, I think so."

I understand that Luca is dangerous, like they said. He's probably the one responsible for Bridget's death and maybe another girl, too, from the sound of it.

"You look so sexy when you're scared," he whispers into my ear. "Be careful with that."

"Go back to the house, Teagan," Declan says. "And you're not leaving again—not until I tell you to."

I don't argue. How could I? I'm in a secluded area in the woods with three men more than twice my size.

Desperate to be back inside the home with the rest of them, I take off down the path back to the house. I don't hear them follow.

And when I get far enough that I can no longer hear their muffled voices or see their silhouettes when I look back over my shoulder, I run.