Or maybe that’s what I want to believe.
Maybe she’s as devious as Jarod Cross.
If she really was protecting them, we should have been in on it. Why go behind our backs and do this alone?
More crackling noises erupt. “… how this looks. But I promise you…”
Lips tightening in a frown, I growl, “Mom, I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up.”
“Tell Dutch and Zane the girls are?—”
The line cuts.
I desperately try to save the connection, but it’s gone.She’sgone.
My heart climbs to my throat and beats faster than a Python download. I’d die for my family.Killfor them. I want to trust that Mom is doing this to protect Cadey, Grey, and their unborn babies, but without evidence, I have nothing to bring back to my brothers.
J brushes me aside, and in the chaos of my thoughts, I let her take the keyboard back. She hits the same block that I do and slams tiny fists against the desk, making her mouse jump.
“We’re locked out.” Her eyes burn as if she takes the failure personally. “I’ll try to reverse engineer the two-way connection. Maybe there’s a clue in the code.”
“Maybe.” I hold perfectly still. The emotions I can feel but can’t understand crowd my skull, fighting for dominance. It’slike being stuck in the middle of a storm with blind, relentless rain pounding down on your head and no clue where to turn for relief.
“Hey, don’t panic. You’re going to find them,” J says. The words are accompanied by the light touch of her hand on my knuckles.
It’s the same tone she used when she woke me out of the nightmare.
But this time, I don’t pull her closer.
I wrench back. “I’m not panicking.”
“Yes, you are.” Her eyes dart between mine, searching. “It’s all over your face.”
She’s lying.
Emotions don’t show on my face. Even when the feelings coursing inside are pleasant and I think I’m showing something close to a normal smile, it doesn’t compute.
Growing up, teachers constantly asked if I was okay because my expression never changed between the beginning of the school day, recess, or the last bell.
Girls who kept my attention long enough to worm their way into my bed would hold the sheet up to their naked bodies, hesitation in their voices as they asked if it was good. If I was satisfied. If I enjoyed myself.
Even my brothers stop looking to me when they want to joke about something, knowing they won’t find the big over-reactions that will make the moment more entertaining.
Jinx has the key to unlock doors no one should know about, but she cannot unlock me.
Because not even I have the power to do that.
“I’ll help you in any way I can,” she says, blinking innocently.
“Do you mean that?” I ask.
Her eyelashes flutter and her delicate throat bobs. “Do I mean… what?”
“Will you do anything…” I move into her space, noting the way she inches back. But I don’t let her get far. Grabbing her by the waist, I press my nose on top of hers and breathe over her lips. “I tell you to?”
Her nostrils flare.
The watch wrapped around her wrist blinks yellow. I’ve been noticing that watch for a while now. It’s a monitoring device. The yakuza doctor alluded to her heart rate being “crazy,” so I’m guessing it monitors her pulse. What happens if I send her heart rate spiking too far?
