Page 35 of Temptation
“Oh.” He was stupefied. “I’m not… I’m not very good at this, you know? This whole friendship thing, being honest about shit and stuff, but yeah. Thank you for apologizing, and I’m also sorry for blasting you like that.”
“It’s okay. Water under the bridge, right?”
“Right,” he murmured.
“Damn, are you two going to start painting each other’s nails and talking about the girls you like?” Rowan’s voice came from behind me. When I turned around, I saw his laughing face. “Are you on your period or something?”
“Fuck off, Ro.” Kane grinned. “Maybe we are. You have something against that?”
“Nope.” He lifted his hands in surrender. “Just wanted to check if you’d like me to get some ice cream and shit like that. My hair isn’t long enough for braiding, but I’m sure I could find some wigs for us.”
“Asshole,” Kane murmured and turned toward the fire. “I don’t wanna freeze my ass off, so if you two would like to keep standing here instead of near the fire, please be my guest. But I’m not going to be driving either one of you to the ER when you start coughing up a lung.”
“And here I thought you didn’t have any sense of humor.” I laughed and walked toward the log on the ground and sat down. Kane sat on the other end of the log. Rowan joined us, lowering himself down to the one next to ours. “So, is this the entire Scooby Gang?” I asked.
“Can you stop calling us a gang, please?” Rowan asked, rolling his eyes. “We’re already in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the forest. If somebody actually tried to kill us, no one would find our bodies until next summer.”
“Are you scared, Rowan?” I lowered my voice, trying to sound scarier.
“I swear.” He looked at me. “Stop that shit.”
“He’s skittish,” Kane said from the other side. “When we were kids there was that TV Show, what was it called?” He looked at Rowan. “Ah yes,The Wives of Judas. That shit was scary as fuck.”
“I was only five at the time, you fucker,” Rowan bit out. “Besides, I wasn’t the one that had to sleep with the light turned on for the entire year.”
“Hey! Stop spilling all my secrets.”
“Only if you stop spilling mine,” Rowan bit back.
I was silently laughing, feeling at ease with the two of them. That wasn’t something that happened often.
“Didn’t you want to kill me at the beginning of the school year?” I asked and turned to Kane.
“He wanted to kill every single person who would look at Skylar.” Rowan laughed. “And then you waltzed it, sat in his spot, and stole the girl he was pining after for so many years.”
“Rowan,” Kane warned. “Shut up.”
“What? It’s true. Even your brother knew you were in love with Skylar.”
As soon as those words left Rowan’s mouth, the atmosphere changed, becoming chillier than before, and it had nothing to do with the cold air. Kane shifted in his spot, his eyes frozen on the fire in front of him, and Rowan pressed his lips together as if he swallowed something rotten.
“I’m sorry,” Rowan muttered. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay,” Kane replied, but he still refused to look at us.
“You have a brother?” I asked, intercepting.
“Had.” He shuddered and looked at me. “I had a brother, and the Order took him away from me.”
I looked from Kane to Rowan, and neither one of them seemed to be joking.
“Wait, you’re telling me the Order—”
“Killed him?” Rowan finished for me. “That’s what we think.”
“Zane was the best of us.” A ghost of a smile played on Kane’s face. “I’m not sure if it’s because of our bloodlines or because this town keeps poisoning us, but unlike the rest of us, Zane was always pure sunshine. Always happy, easy-going, never one to complain.”
“And then he disappeared,” Rowan added.
