“I’m so glad you asked, Mrs. Wallace,” Colton said. “It will take a concerted effort to get our movement’s message out, but we can all do our part at home. I plan on marrying soon, for instance, andI expect my wife to bear me between six and eight children, at a minimum.”
“At a minimum?” I started to laugh and then saw he was serious. Worse, my dad was listening intently and nodding.
My smile collapsed, and I saw my mother’s eyes flare, then dart to me. Her gaze caught and held, and then the conversation moved on to politics, business, and what Senator Harrington was going to do for Wallace Industries, and how much money Wallace Industries would donate to the senator’s PAC in return. All of these coded deals and bribes relayed under niceties, nods, and knowing looks.
My dinner arrived—a perfectly grilled halibut—and I could hardly touch it. I itched to find my phone and check in with Xander.
He must be having a better time than I am.
The meal ended and while the parents perused dessert menus and aperitifs, Colton leaned into me.
“It’s a beautiful night out. Would you care to take a walk along the marina, Emery?”
I stiffened. “Oh, I’m fine, thanks.”
My father cleared his throat. “That’s a wonderful idea. You two go ahead, and we’ll order a lava cake for you, Emery.” He turned to the table. “It was hereighteenthbirthday last week.”
Oh my fucking God…
Colton slid my chair back for me. I rose on stiff legs, taking my jacket and handbag with me. We stepped out along the walk beside the dock. Rocks abutted the water, which was fenced off with small wooden posts with iron chains strung between them. The harbor was full of sailboats, their sails taken in, bobbing gently on the water.
Colton strolled beside me, his hands in his pockets. “Emery, I have to say, you are quite a lovely young woman.”
“Thank you. Your parents seem…nice,” I said, for lack of something better.
“Shar is my stepmother,” he said with a small sneer. “She claims she’s never previously married, no children. A pity, but now it’s too late.”
“Oh. Right.”
Gee, that’s not a creepy thing to say or anything.
Colton brightened. “I would very much like to see you again, Emery. Perhaps take you to dinner—”
“I think I hear my phone ringing. Vibrating, I mean, on silent. Let me just…”
I fished my phone out of my bag and turned my back on Colton. I’d intended to call Xander or Harper to save me but stopped, shocked to see I had dozens of missed calls from Harper and twice as many texts from friends and people from school: Delilah, Sierra, Elowen…all of them peppered with exclamation marks. I opened one at random from Delilah.
Where are you? OMG Did you hear??? Dean OD’d!
The blood drained from my face, and the phone in my hand began to shake. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real…
I hit call and Delilah answered immediately, sobbing over a backdrop of chaotic noise.
“Emery!” she cried. “Oh my God, it’s so terrible. Dean Yearwood. He overdosed at the Atlas party. I’m here now. It’s just madness. They think it was fentanyl, but I don’t know. I don’t know—”
“Wait, slow down,” I said, my heart pounding hard. “Dean OD’d? He’s okay, though, right? He’s okay?”
“No, he’s not okay, Em,” Delilah wailed. “Hedied.They just took him away in the ambulance in one of those black body bags…”
My vision blurred, and I staggered back. “Oh, no.”
Colton peeked his head into my line of vision. “Everything okay?”
I stared at him in shocked horror, unable to speak.
Xander.
“Delilah,” I cried, clutching the phone to my ear. “Where is Xander?”
