Page 60 of Bells
I tugged my arm away, and he continued to run his tongue over his teeth, under the top lip until a little plastic baggy appeared on the tip. Then he flipped it around the inside of his mouth a few times before popping his tongue back out.
“Come collect your prize, babe,” he mumbled without bothering to close his mouth.
I swiped the little baggy off his tongue, pushed on the sides until the seal broke, and dug the tiny piece of paper out with the tip of a fingernail. He had to fold it a million times to make it fit, but he wasn’t fucking with me. It was another one of Vee’s diary pages.
I shoved it into my pants pocket and huffed. “I fucking hate you, you know.”
“No, you don’t,” he said as he pulled his boxers back up his legs and shoved his arms through the t-shirt he’d dropped on the floor. “Now, let’s go before I keep making you dig around for the one you missed.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CASPER
“What the fuck are we doing down here?” Bellatrix called out from behind me. She made me go first, which was smart. Never knew what sort of devious shit was going through a guy’s head as soon as he got a girl alone.
“Going on a field trip,myshka,” I called back.
I paused to let her catch up to me. She stopped a few steps short of the little cell Donnie left her in the last time we were in this basement, and I spun around to look at her, flicking the flashlight over her face and grinning when she covered her eyes with a hand.
“Show me where you went after you got out of there.” I bounced the light between her and the cell.
Bellatrix crossed her arms over her chest. “Why?”
“Because I asked nicely.”
“You didn’t ask at all,” she huffed, pivoting on her boot heel, turning down one of the hallways, and then disappearing through a hole in the wall in a nearby room.
I had to duck my head to follow her. She paused and glared at me over a shoulder. Even though she couldn’t see me because Iwas the one with the flashlight. I swept it along the ceiling, all the cobwebs hanging down to eye level, the floor which was covered in rat shit, before panning from left to right.
It was a tunnel system. I directed the flashlight in front of us, testing to see if it reflected off something at the other end. It didn’t. It just kept going instead.
Bellatrix was already walking again, so I jogged forward to meet her stride.
“How far does it go?” I hummed from beside her.
“Far,” she replied.
I pulled a candy bar out of my pocket, peeled back the wrapper, and nudged it in her direction. She shook her head, so I shrugged and bit off the top half.
“Your loss,” I told her around a mouthful of chocolate. “I grew up here, you know.” I gestured to the tunnel before hiking a thumb behind us. “Well, not here but back there.”
Bellatrix side-eyed me but she didn’t stop walking. “I know.”
I grinned. I could feel the chocolate sticking to my teeth and used my tongue to lick most of it off. “You got a file on me?”
“Yougot a file onme?”
“Right, well, for the sake of some friendly conversation, pretend you don’t.”
“Wish I didn’t,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Anyway,” I talked over her continued grumbling. “Because of my chair, I never got much of a chance to explore down here. There’s not much I don’t know about Briarwood. But didn’t know about these tunnels.”
Bellatrix stumbled in her steps, pretended like she didn’t, then attempted to walk a little faster. “You were in a chair? Like awheelchair?”
“Guess your file doesn’t have everything.”
“How did you fix your legs?” She was trying her hardest not to look at me. But her eyes kept flicking down and to the sidebefore shooting out in front of us again. She wasn’t worried about watching her steps. She was watching mine. She was curious. Most people were.
