Hayato drives off while J stares unseeing into the back of the headrest. I slip the seatbelt over her body, and when it clicks, J startles awake.
“Did Courtney text again?” I gesture to the phone. Now that we’ve escaped Mrs. Codd’s chilly presence, I realize the sound that I had mistaken for J’s watch was actually her phone chirping.
J checks the message and her entire body freezes. She places trembling fingers to the power button of her phone and turns the screen off.
“What did she say?” I growl.
J pastes a smile on her face that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing,” she lies through her teeth. “Everything is fine.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
J
Meet me at the rooftop in one hour, or I’m going to jump.
Kelly’s texts runs circles through my mind as I take the elevator to the highest floor. The doors slide apart, and I cut past a group of doctors and nurses doing late-night rounds.
It takes all my strength to push the heavy emergency exit door open, and by the time, I’m done I’m already breathing hard.
My watch protests when I look at the flight of stairs that leads to the roof. There’s no elevator that goes straight up there.
I brace myself, grab the rail, and take the first stair.
This is stupid. You’re being so, so stupid.
Kelly’s one-hundred-percent setting a trap, but there’s still a small part of me that wants to believe my friend is the victim in all this. Not necessarily because the facts are telling me that’s the case but because I want to believe inmyself.
I gotsucha good vibe from Kelly when we met. It was so easy to talk to her, and it felt like I’d known her forever. My gut has never steered me wrong before, and I pride myself on being a good judge of character. Where did I go wrong with Kelly?
I take another step.
My breath echoes against the empty stairwell walls and bounces back to me.
In the silence, I think about Finn and the fuss he put up to drop me off at the hospital.
“Come home with me.”
“You’re the one who told me I need to come to the hospital,” I argued.
“I changed my mind.”
“Why?”When he did the stony, silent prince routine, I warned him,“Unless I’m being kidnapped, turn this car around and drop me off at the hospital.”
He lookedthunderous, but he took me where I wanted to go. After I got out of the car, I turned around, and Finn wound the window down to stare at me like a supervillain about to run over his victim.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he told Hayato to drive back to the hospital so he can drag me out by my hair.
Too bad.
Finn won’t find me in my room.
I kick the Shadow Prince from my mind and focus on making it up the stairs without destroying my heart.
It takes me thirty minutes to get to the top. I can’t physically stand anymore, and I take a seat to catch my breath. After I’ve recovered a bit, I push the door to the rooftop and step out into the night.
The air is chilly, and I’m glad I’m still wearing my sweater. A stiff wind picks up tendrils of my hair and flings them in my eyes. I shove them back with one hand while searching the rooftop for Kelly.
Giant grey air-conditioning units sit like bulky chess pieces, waiting for the sun and the moon to move them around. City lights blink like tiny Christmas tree lights, winking at the clear,black sky as if begging heaven to replace the stars with their artificial brilliance.
