I drive for hours on an endless loop of side streets, my hands wrapped around the steering wheel, my mind in the past.
If I’d listened to Juniper back when she said she didn’t know Callum’s dad, none of it would have happened. I’d have convinced Callum and Archer that she was an innocent, dragged into a mess we’ve spent years trying to crawl out of.
Pack Wells. If anyone knew the name of our pack was just a joke….
A red light stops me, and I tap my fingers on the wheel as I wait for it to change, scanning this unfamiliar street. It must be lunchtime. Office workers in suits and jackets stand on the sidewalk, chatting, laughing, smoking, and eating.
The lights change to green, and I continue as a woman steps into a grocery store. She has long, wavy blonde hair and is wearing a white dress and sandals.
Juniper was wearing something like that the last day.
I wrench the wheel to the right. A car horn blares behind me. Ignoring it, I slam on the brakes, unsnap my seatbelt, and scramble out of the car.
I leave the door open and the engine running as I sprint into the store.
Where is…
She’s in the bread aisle, bending to grab a baguette.
“Juniper?” I yell.
She doesn’t turn around.
Makes sense; she hates us all.
I sprint over to her.
“Juniper!” I grasp her arm, and when she turns, I back up, releasing her. “Shit, sorry.”
The woman in her forties, definitelynotJuniper, glares at me with hostile blue eyes. “What the fuck is your problem?”
I back up, shaking my head. “Sorry. I… I thought you were someone else.”
“Maybe confirm that first before you go around grabbing women,” she mutters. Rolling her eyes, she turns away. “Jackass.”
Dark glares and suspicious looks track my path out of the store. A traffic cop has just started writing me a ticket. I don’t even try to fight it. As I sit with my hands on the steering wheel, waiting for him to finish, I stare straight ahead, thinking.
I take the ticket the cop hands me without complaint, and continue to sit and think real fucking hard about how that could have been Juniper, and I fucked things up again.
The box my mom gave me is—luckily—still on the passenger seat. If someone had grabbed it and my mom had found out it was missing, Lottie would be dead.
“Jackass,” I mutter, tilting my head back and meeting my reflection in the rearview mirror. “Fuckingjackass.”
Chapter 18
June
Bang, bang.
Clutching a cleaning rag, I stare at my apartment door, terrified to open it.
Yesterday, a man was yelling in the hallway. He sounded drunk. He was raging, slamming doors, banging walls, and screaming for over an hour. Eventually, a woman yelled from farther down the hallway that she was calling the cops if he didn’t plug a hole in it.
What if that’s him?
After hesitating for a second, I tiptoe to the door. A muscle in my neck twinges from having spent last night sleeping in the tub when something bit me in my bed. I rub it distractedly on my way.
Bang, bang.
