“Nothing,” Noah snaps back. “I put a stop to it. Get us out of here. She’s having a trauma reaction. She’ll feel better once we’re back in the city.”
Eli’s face tightens. He reaches over me and pulls my belt across my lap. His fingers graze my skin, and I murmur something that might’ve been a protest, might’ve been a desire for more. “Mackenzie, do you want us to take you home? There’s something at Gabe’s you should really see.”
I don’t answer. The truth is, after what Alec did to Queen Boudica, home doesn’t feel safe to me right now. But I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have the words I need to ask.
“Let’s take her to Gabe’s,” says Noah. He picks up Eli’s phone from between the seats and chooses a new song. Pounding blastbeats and black metal assault my ears as Eli jerks the car away and speeds back down the highway. I lose myself in the bleakness of the music, imagining myself in a Norwegian forest, cold and surrounded by wolves and as far from the fucking desert as it’s possible to get.
As we hit the outer suburbs of Emerald Beach, Eli switches the playlist to 90s grunge and indie music, and the boys sing along. I glance down at the phone and notice the playlist is called, simply,Mackenzie.
The playlist Noah mentioned – the one I gave Eli before I disappeared.
I watch Eli as he drives, one hand on the wheel, the other draped casually over the door. He nods his head to the music, and the breeze ripples through his blond hair, whipping loose strands around his face. He’s wearing a grey t-shirt that hugs his muscles, and he looks every inch the fresh-faced, pretty-mouthed boy that every girl wants for a boyfriend.
He still has my playlist.
We merge onto the highway that hugs the beach, turning off to pass bars and shops and co-working spaces until we pull up at Gabriel’s condo.
Gabriel opens the door wearing nothing but a pair of black jeans. My throat dries at the sight of his naked chest and those beautiful tattoos. All that skin begging to be touched. It’s enough to make a girl forget she’s just been assaulted.
I’m crazy. I’m totally screwed up.
“Hey, Mac. You look like shite. Gimmie a sec.” Gabriel leaves the door open and pads up to his mezzanine bedroom. While Noah settles me on the couch and points out the faint outline of the giant dick still visible on Gabriel’s windows, I hear Gabriel talking softly, and a girl’s voice answering. My heart patters in my chest.
Of course, Gabriel has a girl here.I flattered myself when he said he never brought another girl to his condo. I thought it made me special, but it just makes me a gullible fool.Even more reason why you should not trust these guys.
A few moments later, Gabriel leans over the railing, his voice as sweet as triple-chocolate-cherry cake.
“Someone’s here to see you.”
He steps aside, and George stands in the stairwell, her face ashen, her arms covered in cuts and bruises, her cheeks smudged with tears.
That’s not the face of someone who’s just had sex with Gabriel Fallen.
“George, what happened?” I try to rise off the couch to go to her, but Noah shoves me down again.
“Mackenzie, I—” the words catch in George’s throat. Fresh tears well in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Alec and Cleo put around that no one should hang out with you, and I got scared. I should have—”
Her face crumples, and she buries her head in Gabriel’s shoulder. He places an arm around her and glares at Noah. “Apparently, Alec saw the two of you hanging out at school, and with his expert powers of deduction concluded she’s breaking his ridiculous rules. He won’t come after me for hanging with you, but he feels good about attacking a girl.”
“I had nothing to do with this.” Noah’s hands curl into fists. “I wanted Mackenzie to suffer, but if I had any idea of what Alec was really planning, I—”
“What the fuck happened to George?” I yell. Eli winces.
“George works in a vintage store in Brawley where Cleo loves to shop. She overheard Cleo in the changing rooms with her friends last night talking about their nefarious scheme, so she went to school early to warn you. She couldn’t catch you, so she went to the gym and saw them carrying you away. She went to find a teacher, but Cleo got to her first. While the guys took you to the car, Cleo and her snakes beat George up and locked her in the school basement. I only found her because I go down there sometimes to get blazed.”
Realization hits me. In the desert, Alec wasn’t talking about Queen Boudica, he was talking aboutGeorge.Which is odd – he knows I came after him because of what he did to my cat, so why didn’t he acknowledge it?
“Fuck.” My head spins. “George, I’m so sorry. This shit is between me and Alec. Not you. You were never supposed to be involved. You were right to run away from me. I— I’m bad news.”
Her eyes are wide as saucers, and for a moment I think she’s going to run at the window and leap through to freedom. Instead, she shuffles across the room and sits down beside me, curling her feet beneath her. I see she’s wearing Gabriel’s clothes – she’s swimming in an old tour t-shirt and a pair of drawstring sweatpants, but in an adorable way they suit her.
“I shouldn’t have run,” she says. “I just… I already knew about the rule when we went outside for lunch, but I didn’t think anyone would care until I saw Cleo staring at me. She was even worse to me after you disappeared. I didn’t want to give her a reason to—” George swallows. A spasm of pain hits her, and I’m ready to head back out to ram Cleo’s head into a wall. “I’m sorry. I thought you were tricking me. You and Cleo – just like in the old days. You’d pretend to be my friend so I went against the rule and then the two of you would do something horrible to me.”
“I used to be a mean bitch, huh?” I place my hand over hers.
“The meanest.”
I smile, and in that smile I pour all of my cruelty. Cleo willburnfor this. “Let me say this once, and know that I mean what I say. You have nothing to fear from me. This mean bitch is on your side now.”
