Poe sighed and shook his head. “Where are you parked?”
He looked only slightly less imposing in the harsh light of day, his tattooed chest hidden by a black T-shirt that barely contained his enormous arms.
I pointed at June’s Honda, parked across the street right where I’d left it. “There.”
He touched my elbow and stepped into the street without looking, like he knew with one hundred percent certainty that no one would run us down.
I thought about trying to give him the slip, racing for the car, driving away before he could get into the passenger seat.
But that would be wrong. They’d won the Hunt, and I’d known what I was getting myself into when I’d signed the waiver.
Plus, as scary as it was to think about living with the three men who’d caught me in the tunnels, it was even scarier to imagine them hunting me aboveground in my everyday life.
My parents had been through enough. This was my debt to pay, and I was going to pay it.
I got behind the wheel of the Honda and fished for the keys I’d left in the console while Poe folded his massive body into the passenger seat. The car had always seemed average-sized to me, but now that Poe was there, his knees practically under his chin, it looked super small.
He looked comfortable despite the lack of space, and I had the feeling he was someone who was comfortable anywhere.Looking at him — the slope of his cheekbones, the cut of his jaw — made me feel funny, scared, and excited all at the same time.
The guy who’d searched me had returned my gun at the end of the Hunt, but the weight of it against my tit didn’t comfort me the way it normally did.
I had the sense that I was in a new kind of danger, one that wouldn’t be neutralized with a gun.
I started the car. “Let’s get this over with.”
16
REMY
“She’s interesting,”I said when we got to the Hummer. It was almost brand-new, a special edition with a matte steel gray paint job that belied the black leather interior trimmed with the smallest amounts of crimson.
Too understated for me, but perfect for Bram.
I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t reply. He felt it too — the pull of the dark-haired girl, whose name turned out to be Maeve — and feelings were something Bram didn’t talk about.
Or have, most of the time.
He got in and shut the door, then started the Hummer. It was an EV, quiet, a stark contrast to my orange McLaren Spider, which roared like a beast.
Bram liked things quiet.
Until he didn’t.
He reached into the console and pulled out a Snickers bar. Bram had a wicked sugar addiction, and Snickers was his drug of choice.
He didn’t bother offering me one even though I knew he had a stash of them in the Hummer, and I opened the glove box and took out one of the protein bars I kept there for emergencies.
“That shit’s going to kill you one day,” I said.
“At least I’ll die happy.”
I flashed him a grin. “Will you though?”
He scowled and pulled away from the curb. He’d removed the sky panels on the Hummer back in May, and warm air blew through the cabin.
“I can’t believe the Hawks tried to grab her,” I said.
“They’re lucky you and Poe got there first.” Bram’s eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses, but I knew he was still pissed from the clench of his jaw and the way he gripped the steering wheel. “Fucking assholes.”
