Anyway, I’m just glad that I managed to convince Chas to let me go with X to the house; I appreciate the boys’ help, but this whole situation very clearly rests on me and my ability to perform the Slayer’s wishes. Chas can’t save me from everything, and poking around a vacation home near a lake isn’t a big ask.
He grabs my arm just before I peel away from him and Kimber.
“Be careful, Little Sister. Don’t get yourself into trouble.” Chasm releases me, but I can’t respond with Kimber stepping closer to listen, so I just nod and move over to X instead.
He opens my door for me before climbing in, that stupid podcast playing as he turns the car on. I very quickly turn the volume down to zero.
“How was school today?” he asks, his voice tight and strained. We both know why, but there’s no point in talking about it. We did what we had to do; Parrish will be unchained from the bed and given a chance to shower. What next? What the actual fuck are we going to have to do to buy more time?
“I was jumped again this morning,” I offer up, and Maxx slams on the brakes at the gate so hard that I almost go flying, bracing myself against the dash with my right hand. I glance over to see him staring at me. “Keep driving, please.”
With an even sharper frown, he does, taking off out the gate and onto the road.
“What do you mean by ‘jumped’?” he clarifies. Dressed in a black wifebeater and jeans, Maxx looks … really, really fucking good. I make myself not notice any of it and turn back to look out the windshield. My mind drifts to my sister as it always seems to do in every single freaking down moment that I have. If I didn’t have so many balls up in the air right now, I’d be obsessing about it.
“A bunch of girls tried to throw me off the third floor of the parking garage,” I explain as calmly as I can, trying and failing to not be afraid of that statement. Would they have actually hurt me or was it all for show? I have no idea. It shouldn’t be a hard question to ask, should it?
“Are you fucking kidding me?” X growls out, his voice darkening in the way it did when he was worried about me trying to pull one over on the Vanguards. A protective streak. For me. I bite my lower lip and then find myself even more annoyed because I’m doing it.
“Lumen’s got them on the attack, apparently,” I explain. I didn’t see her or Danyella once today, but that’s the only explanation that I have. Why else would they come after me so suddenly and so aggressively? The whole school now knows that one, I set the fire. And two, that Parrish and I slept together the night before he went missing.
A rumor that only Danyella or Lumen could spread.
Gods help me if they learn about the car situation, too.
“This is getting dangerous, Kota,” X tells me, his expression grim as he stares out the window. Rain begins to fall, spattering gently against the windshield as Maxx flicks on the wipers. “Parrish is important, but so are you.”
“What does that even mean?” I ask him, glancing over to see him clenching his jaw.
“It means that you need to be more careful.” He gets that sort of, like, dad voice or whatever the hell it is on again.
“You’re nineteen, not ninety. You’re supposed to my ally, not my parent. Chill out.” I turn back to the windshield, but if Maxx is that worried, and Chasm is that worried, I should probably be worried, too, shouldn’t I?
He grits his teeth at me but decides to keep the rest of his thoughts to himself.
“Let’s do the lake house first,” I suggest, and he nods, heading in that direction.
More specifically, we drive to the skatepark I’ve pulled up on my phone’s GPS. I can see why Chasm wasn’t aware of it. It might be close to his property, but it’s in a completely different direction than anyone would normally drive if they were heading to Whitehall or Medina proper. It’s off the main road, buried in a small neighborhood at the edge of the woods.
As Maxx pulls up to the curb beside the park, I look out the window and catch sight of the house with the wind chimes.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, staring at the home across the way before turning back to the park. “I was here that night. I was …” The words die off as I stare at the scene out the window and wonder why I didn’t think to look this up before. If I had, and I’d known that my dream wasn’t really a dream at all, how different would things have been? Would Parrish be safe? Would he be here with us even now?
