Blake flashes me a look of disdain, unimpressed with me clambering all over his upholstery. “My deal?”
“Yeah. What’s your deal?” I ask again, firmer this time. “Because you seemed to love watching me squirm out there tonight. Are you the class bully or something? Who crowned you King of Fairview High?”
Blake throws his head back and softly laughs. “You’re the one being a drama queen. I introduced you and I got you involved in the game by offering you a talking point. Tell me again how that makes me a bully?”
“You weren’t doing me any favors. Why did you have to tell everyone who my father is?”
“Well, personally, I reckon your dad’s acting skills could do with some fine-tuning. TheFlash Pointmovies majorly suck, but a lot of people think otherwise,” he says, shrugging. He drives with one hand slung over the top of the steering wheel, the other mindlessly fiddling with dials on the center console. “So, it seemed a shame to keep everyone in the dark. Besides, I didn’t know it was some kind of big secret.”
“Oh, give it up,Blake!” I nearly spit his name at him. “Don’t act like you didn’t know exactly what you were doing. You’re a jerk. You ruined my night.”
I turn to stare out the window, sending a prayer out into the dark sky that Savannah doesn’t hang around with her cousin all that often, because I really don’t want to be in close proximity to him for the time that I’m here.
Blake doesn’t bother to respond, only chuckles under his breath, and we sit in silence for a minute until, finally, the Harding Estate comes into view. The spotlights running along the walls light up the road in a cool, blue haze. I tug off my seatbelt before Blake has even reached the front gate, ready to make my getaway and hopefully never see him again.
“One Mila Harding safely delivered to her prison – sorry, home,” he states, putting the truck into park.
“Prison?” I echo, bewildered. I mean, sure, the walls are intimidating, and the thought of the ranch being like a prisondidcross my mind earlier. But still, the walls are there for a reason – to protect Sheri and Popeye.
Blake dips his head and peers through the windshield. “Well, yeah. I imagine it feels that way.”
I haven’t been at the ranch long enough to feel locked in yet, so I ignore his musings and get out of the truck. No way does he deserve athank youor agoodbye, so I grab the door to slam it shut.
“Do you have a key for that gate?”
“I have a code,” I say, shoving the door of the truck closed.“Obviously.”
I make for the gate and pull up the notes app on my phone to find the code I wrote down earlier, but I become aware that Blake’s truck is still idling behind me. Why hasn’t he left yet? I hate this feeling of his gaze following me.
Twisting around, I yell back to the truck, “Do you have to stay there and watch me?”
Blake rolls down his window, hooks an arm over the door, then smiles sweetly. It’s the nicest smile he’s given me all night, but it doesn’t hide the steeliness in his voice. “Just making sure you get home safely, as promised. Surely you’d be worth a big chunk of ransom money? If you disappeared right now, I’d be the prime suspect.”
“Go home, Blake,” I order, disregarding him with a flippant wave of my hand. “Bye. Goodnight. See you never.”
I turn back to the gate and take a deep breath, tuning him out, then punch in the numbers Sheri gave me. A shrillbeepemits from the gate and the keypad flashes red, but nothing else happens.
Huh?
I try again – pressing each number on the keypad slower this time to ensure I’ve entered the code correctly, but anotherbeepand a flicker of red light tells me otherwise. Did Sheri give me the wrong code? Did I note it down wrong? Iwasrushing to leave at the time.
Anxiously, I tap my foot the same way I did when I first arrived at the ranch this afternoon, thinking hard. I don’t want to turn around and admit to Blake that I’m currently locked out, so keeping my head down, I swipe through my phone’s contact list.
I am horrified to discover that I do not have Aunt Sheri’s number.
My eyes widen as I check my list again, panic searing through me. Why don’t I have her number? I wrote mine down on a sticky note in the kitchen earlier, but I didn’t think to ask Sheri for hers in case of, you know –emergencieslike this.
“Is there a problem with that big expensive security gate?” I hear Blake call.
“I told you to go home,” I mutter with my back to him. I’m feigning confidence, but right now I am racking my brain for a way to get inside this ranch.
“But aren’t you glad there’s someone here to help you?”
The engine cuts out and I hear the click of his door closing, then footsteps. He stands alongside me and places his hands on his hips, head tilted to one side as he stares at the looming gate before us. Meanwhile, I stare athim, mortified. Could tonight get any worse?
“Maybe you should – I don’t know – call someone?” he suggests.
“Well, yes,” I’m forced to agree. “But. . . I don’t have my aunt’s number.”
