Page 52 of Chasing Kit

When Kit finally appeared, he was wearing a black NGU hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. His hair was a mess, but it was damned adorable. He jogged the last few feet, then slid into the passenger seat like he was being chased.

“Hey,” he said, grinning.

“Hey yourself.” My mouth went dry. “You forget how to use a brush?”

He flipped me off, then pulled out a wrinkled bag of sour gummies from his pocket. “Want some?”

“Always.” I grabbed a blue one, popped it in my mouth. The sour taste hit me like a bomb, exploding in my mouth and making me scrunch my face. I didn’t know why I tortured myself. I didn’t hate them, but this was the first time Kit had offered me one and I wasn’t going to say no. “You bring towels?”

“I thought you said we weren’t going swimming. It’s too cold.” Kit held up a cotton bag. “But I did anyway. Just in case. And a change of clothes.”

I almost smiled. How did he think of everything? That was the thing I loved about Kit. He was smart as hell. His intelligence extended past books. He had common sense, too.

He studied me for a second. “You look tired.”

“Long few weeks.” I left it at that.

Kit nodded, chewing on his lip. “Thanks for coming.”

“Not even an option. I needed to see you,” I said, and I meant it.

I pulled away from the curb, tires rumbling over the asphalt. Kit leaned back, pressing his face to the window, and I let the city fall away behind us. For the first time in weeks, my head felt clear.

The lake was waiting.

The city unspooled behind us—blocks of granite and glass and steel, and car-lined streets. Sunlight reflecting off the lake turned every traffic light into a stuttering, blinding glare. Kit stretched his legs in my passenger seat.

I liked the way he sprawled, but he was a little too comfortable for a man who’d killed someone for the first time a few weeks ago. I watched his hands flutter, twisting the candy bag, while his body bounced with every jolt of the road.

I could drive this stretch blind. Out of the rich side, onto the old expressway, then north until the suburbs dissolved into pine trees and chain-link fences. Every ten miles or so, a decommissioned industrial park haunted the shoulder. Some of these ruins were torture spots, others just abandoned. Derek had his own abandoned asylum he used for fun death games that kept the rich happy and entertained. It was Derek’s new money maker.

“Can I put music on?” Kit asked halfway to my favorite spot on the lake.

“Sure.” I tried not to sound surprised. Then again, this was the first time we’d been in a car like this together. We still barely knew each other. There were so many secrets left between us, and it was strange how much I wanted to share everything with him. Tell him all about me and my past, even the parts I’d signed an NDA for.

He scrolled through his phone and cued up some indie crap that sounded like banjos playing underwater. It wasn’t bad. It was just . . . sad. He didn’t say anything for a few songs, just hummed and watched the fog building up on the lake side of the road.

I risked a glance at him. His hands were trembling, just a little.

“You warm enough?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Kit’s voice was thin. “I like being cold. Makes me feel alive.”

I nodded, unsure what that meant but glad for the honesty.

We hit the lakeside turnoff I liked—a gravel lot no one patrolled—and I nosed the Challenger between two faded and empty pickup trucks. They gave us privacy. The wind had turned and the water was gray, peppered with gulls. Nobody else was parked close. There was only the churning sound of the engine cooling and the slow, steady pulse of the lake.

I killed the ignition. Kit leaned his head against the glass, breath fogging the window.

After a minute, he spoke. “Did you know gulls can digest entire fish skeletons? Bones and all.”

“No shit.”

“They just eat ’em. Spines, eyes, everything. They don’t even choke.” Then, he laughed. “Well, the small skeletons anyway. If they come across harder bones, the acid in their stomach can’t break it down, so they cough them back up into a tight pellet. It’s called a bolus.”

I let his words hang. I didn’t want to ruin it by pretending I understood what he was really saying.

Kit peeled off the hoodie and twisted in the seat so his knees bumped the center console. “You ever just want to stop thinking?” His voice was so quiet I almost missed it.