“Smile for the boyfriend,” Carson says.
Funny how I still can. Smiles are so easy when they’re for Griff. I smile. Carson smiles. Griff’s too far away, but I know his eyes have narrowed.
The detective snorts. “I’m always amazed at the way he looks at you.”
Me too.
Carson leans down, his lips so close to my ear the words escape in a hiss: “Think he’d look at you the same way if he knew what you really are?”
He does know. Griff helped me escape my father and Todd. He knows what I was before and he never wants me to go back.
“Think he’d still want you if he knew you were working for me?”
No. Yes. I don’t know and it makes my chest shrink tight. This is what happens when you end up with a hero. He expects you to be just as noble.
And I’m not.
Carson releases my arm, his thumb curving across the spot where Todd rammed in the knife. “I enjoy our little talks. I like seeing everything you’ve got now, gives me more I can take away. We understand each other?”
“Perfectly.”
“Good,” the detective says, and swings away from me, cutting left, cutting right as the students surge around him.
“What was that about?”
It takes me a beat before I can finally turn around, and when I do, Griff cups my jaw. His long fingers reach into my hair, streak chills down my spine.
“Todd,” I say. The lie is sluggish. I’m looking at Griff and can see only Carson. I shake myself. Another problem with heroes: If you confess your secrets, they will want to save you.
I want to save myself.
“They found some additional information,” I add.
Griff frowns. “Anything we should worry about?”
“No.” I smile and it makes him smile. He looks at me like I’m perfect.
What happens if that goes away?
“It’s under control,” I add, and it is under control. That part, at least, isn’t a lie. I will fix this. I will.
Someone jostles Griff from behind and he steps into me, filling my nose with the smell of grass and gasoline and oil paints from his art class. Griff braces one hand above me, shielding me from the crowd. “We still on for tonight?”
I blink. Dammit. How could I have forgotten? “Um, yeah, it’s just that I have this thing I need to do. With Bren. Can we meet up later?”
“Of course,” he says. And kisses me.
I wrap my arms around his neck and he tugs me close, his hands skating over me, dragging shivers across my skin. I feel my heartbeat . . . everywhere. Does it make me pathetic that Griff can burn everything else away?
Everything, but this: Would he want me if he knew?
Yes. Of course. No doubt.
Even though I repeat the words, I don’t believe in them any more than I believe in the fairy-tale ending I’ve been given. There’s no such thing. Or there wasn’t until I met Griff.
Which side of me is worse: the pathetic girl who wants the boy or the pathetic girl who’s afraid of the detective?
I break off our kiss, tell myself I’m breathless from Griff and not because I’m scared. Even though I know that’s what lives at the bottom of this: I’m terrified. I don’t want to lose everything I’ve been given.
I curl my hands into Griff’s shirt. He grins and my heart stutters.
“So I’ll see you later then, Wicked?”
The nickname still makes me blush. “Definitely.”
Another kiss. This one’s hard and fast. By the time my fingers curl into his chest, it’s done. He’s turning away.
Gone.
I chew my tingling lips and reach for my phone, dialing a number I haven’t used in ages and should have forgotten. Stringer picks up on the third ring. There’s no hello, but I can hear his breathing.
“Hey . . . it’s me.” I lean against the lockers, cradling my bad arm.
“Been a long time, girlie.”
“Yeah, it has.” Months and months, actually. Before I went into foster care. When Stringer and I were just good earners for my dad. “I need your help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Roofies. By tonight.”
2
There are worse things than going to Judge Bay’s costume party. At the moment, though, I can’t think of any. Things I can think of?
How Bren looked at me when I asked to come.
How Stringer looked at me when I bought the roofies.
How it shouldn’t be this easy. This is not who I am. It’s not.
And yet both of them looked at me like it is. Bren was so happy and Stringer . . . Stringer wasn’t surprised. I wish he had been.
I keep telling myself I can do this. I will drug Jason Baines’s drink. I will wait until he’s passed out. I will install a hidden tracking app on his cell.
I will be okay.