“What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed, Prep Girl.”
“I can sleep on the couch,” I tell him as he leaves the living room and passes through the hallway. The door to Lex’s office hangs slightly ajar and over Gio’s shoulder, I spot the pictures that still line the side of the wall. Pictures of me. I wonder how often Lex sat in there and looked at my image and thought of me. When did he start collecting them? Right after we had been separated?
Gio’s snort sounds as he steps into Lex’s bedroom, kicks the door closed, and heads for the massive bed that takes up most of the space inside. “Leave you on the couch when I can fall asleep with my face in your tits?” He dumps me unceremoniously onto the mattress. “Not a chance in hell.”
I scowl. “Who the hell said I’d let you sleep with me?”
Gio doesn’t even flinch at my tone. He merely moves to the other side of the bed and pulls back the covers. “You’re not being left alone tonight,” he says, patting the space in front of him as he gets comfortable, nestling down onto the bed. “So don’t even try to fight it. Just come over here and let me cuddle you.”
Cuddle me? Do I look like a Build-A-Bear or something? “I’m not the cuddling type.”
He curls on his side and grins my way. “I am.”
“I don’t give a fuck.” Yanking at the covers and scooting up towards the headboard so I don’t have to get out of bed to slide beneath them, I flip him the bird and turn away from him. The pillow under my head dips and sinks as I lie down and yank the covers up over my shoulder.Asshole.
I close my eyes and let my mind drift off, wanting to be done with the night and all that’s happened. It only takes a few minutes for Gio to make his move. The soft rustling of sheetsand covers moving along with the gentle tug on my side has me tensing. Then, his warm arm slides over my waist, dipping down as he drags me backwards, pulling me across the space in the center of the mattress.
When Gio’s hot, naked chest brushes my back, it threatens to singe me through my clothes. He adjusts behind me, shifting as he pushes one of his legs between both of mine. Opening my eyes, I stare into the darkness of the room—he must’ve shut off the light from the nightstand as I’d tried to first sleep. Now there’s nothing but little dots dancing in front of me as I blink away the blurriness.
“Gio?” My voice is quiet, but still, he responds, cuddling closer.
“Sleep, Prep Girl,” he murmurs against the back of my neck. My hair flutters with his breathing. “I won’t let anyone steal you from me tonight, or ever again.”
The cold organ of my heart thumps to life, another fissure forming through the already cracked and damaged chambers. I bite down on my lower lip to keep it from trembling as the back of my eyes burn with unshed emotion.
They came for me. The words repeat themselves in my head, over and over again, until they’re all I can hear, all I can see. Tonight, I could have died. I could have become a statistic of small-town girls everywhere. Outcast. Unwanted. Lost. Dead.
Even if I’d gotten myself free when Lex and Gio had shown up, knowing that someone had been searching for me, that they had been tracking me, makes the rest of this awful world I’ve been trapped in for too long a little less shitty.
If it happens again, at least I know now—someone will come for me. Someone cares if I live or die.Theydo.
With that in mind, I close my eyes and I let the darkness take over.
6
JULIET
Silverwood Public looks different as Lex pulls into the student lot earlier than usual on Monday morning and parks the SUV towards the back. I know it’s not. The faded redbrick building is the same, as are the few dingy-ass cars poorly parked across the cracked black pavement. There aren’t many this early in the morning, but enough to know the building isn’t unoccupied.
All of that is normal. My perspective is the only thing that’s changed.
I scan the lot and mentally mark where Lex’s SUV had been parked on Friday night, only a few aisles over from the new spot. I can see the top of the stadium from here and though I try not to think about it, the image of what it looked like the night I’d been taken pops into my mind.
Dark and empty save for rows upon rows of cars. Burned-out bulbs in the safety lights at the back of the lot and a soft glow above the stadium. The sounds of people cheering, of the announcer’s voice above everything else. The scent of popcorn and frost in the air. None of it had been on my mind as I’d walked to the SUV. I’d hardly noticed all of those tiny little details. I’d been focused on getting away, on breathing throughthe rise of bile in my throat as I thought about why someone had attacked Gio because of me. Now, I know.
Morpheus might feel safe because I haven’t told anyone about his crimes, but I’m no longer in his sphere and I won’t let myself be again. One secret shame is more than enough for me.
“At least you don’t need to worry about rushing off to work after class,” Gio says as he hops out of the opposite side of the back seat. “You can stick around and watch us get our asses handed to us by Coach after school.”
I shoot Nolan a look and before Gio can see it coming, he smacks him in the back of the head.
“Hey! What the hell was that for?” Gio grumbles.
“For being a dick,” I say. I feel no remorse.
“But I didn’t say anything wrong.”
