She stared at Tripp, horror ripping through her.
“Shut the fuck up, Earl,” Tripp snapped, trying to take her by the arm again.
She shook her head and stepped out of reach, not wanting to believe it.Couldn’t accept it.Tripp had loved Peyton like a brother.“Is it true?”She could barely get the words out.Barely heard them over the dull roar in her ears.
But the stricken look on his face, the silent apology in his eyes told her everything she needed to know.
“Oh my God,” she cried, whirling and rushing for the exit.
Her shoulder slammed into someone.She bounced off the man, kept going, pushing past a knot of people blocking the door, her only thought escape.
Tripp had ordered the strike that had killed Peyton.And he’d never breathed a word about it to her this whole time.
She didn’t want to hear whatever excuse he had, especially not with an audience.She just needed to get the hell away from here.And him.
“Willow!”
She ignored his shout behind her.Ignored the stares and murmurs from strangers as she raced past the lineup outside, blinded by a hot rush of tears.Didn’t care that she’d made a scene as she ran up the sidewalk on rubbery legs, nausea swirling in her stomach, a sob locked in her chest.
Darkness swallowed her as she cut down an alleyway.She had to get away.Couldn’t look at Tripp right now or she would explode.She’d trusted him.Let herself fall in love with him.Given all of herself to him.And he’d hidden this from her.
It was unforgiveable.
Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs as she ran, half blind with shock.Driven by the agony of betrayal that burned like fire in her chest.
“Willow, wait!”Tripp’s voice was distant behind her, indistinct as if floated down the alley.
She ran faster.Darted up a side street and down another alley.Down another until she spotted a taxi coming down the road.She ran out in front of it, flagging it down frantically.
The driver stopped immediately, rolled down the window.“You okay?”
No.She wasn’t okay.She was breaking apart inside, a howling storm of grief engulfing her.
She fumbled to get the back door open.Slid inside and hunkered down to hide in case Tripp had spotted her.Managed to tell the driver her address through chattering teeth.
She was shaking hard.Gasping.
Her phone rang in her coat pocket.She ignored it, knowing it was Tripp.
She needed time to process this.To think.
“Do you need me to call anyone for you?”the driver asked.“You look really upset.”
“No.Thanks.J-just an argument.”She didn’t want to talk to anyone.She just wanted to get away from everything and everyone.
By the time the driver dropped her off at her house, the shock had mostly receded.Instead, the cold, hideous truth pushed tears into her eyes.
She opened the door, the beep of the alarm startling her.Quickly inputting the code to shut it off, she grabbed her keys and Rufus’s leash.He was already standing right next to her, tail wagging like mad in greeting.
She clipped the leash onto his collar and hurried him out to her car, put him in the back, the urgency to hurry pushing her.Angrily wiping the tears from her face, she raced up the street.
Tripp would come here looking for her at some point.She wanted to be far away before he got close.Didn’t want him to be able to follow or find her.He’d had all the time in the world to talk to her.Him keeping something so huge from her...
She couldn’t face him right now.
With a shock, she realized that it was still late afternoon.The sun was bright in the western sky.An awful numbness began to creep in as she drove toward it, heading for Shipwreck Cove.
A call came through on her car’s hands-free system.Mae.
