“That’s it isn’t it?” he asked, appearing by my side as I unzipped my duffle and pulled out my toiletries bag.
“No,” I spat. “At least, I don’t think any of that is true.”
I guess she could have had a crush on him.A sour feeling burned in my stomach at the thought of them together and I rolled my eyes to myself for being jealous over something that probably never even happened.He’s not a pervert, Nox. She was like a baby compared to him when they were neighbors.
“Okay, then what the hell, Enoch?”
I spun on my heel, my face flushed with irritation as I stared into his eyes.
“I’m not telling you. I’m not going to break Shiloh’s trust just so you don’t feel left out like a six-year-old on the playground.”
Hurt flashed across his face, and I regretted my harsh words immediately.
“Okay, Jesus,” he sighed, pushing past me and heading back out front.
I slammed my fist against the locker.
I was acting like a dick, and once we’d cooled off, I’d apologize to Jae, but I wasn’t ready to yet when he had knowingly pushed me to the edge. I decided against taking a shower and closed up my bag in a rush to leave before any other drama played out.
This was just one secret, one of many I knew Shiloh was holding in. I was surprised they didn’t seep out of her skin like beads of sweat. If I wanted to help her carry the weight ofthem, I needed to get myself together before they drove a wedge between Jae and me.
Twenty
October 22, Friday
Shiloh
Iblinked. My eyes were still slightly puffy and difficult to keep open. I tracked the blurry movement out the window my head was leaning against. My lips and fingertips were still numb from hyperventilating, so I knew little time had passed between my panic attack and now. Long enough for someone to carry me into the car and drive away from…there.
When Adrian showed up in my bedroom telling me it was time to take the blood oath, I thought it was going to be some weird ritual where I had to drop some of my blood into a cup like a horror movie. I wasn’t expecting the needle in the arm, again.
I wasn’t prepared for what the final portion of my initiation would entail. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of blood I would be sacrificing to join the family. I wasn’t prepared to hold that g—stop.
My stomach cramped and I pushed the memory away. Buried it so deep that I could convince my brain to forget it ever happened. That it wasn’t real. Thatnoneof this was real.
Since my flesh initiation, the guilt had grown, festered, crawled so deeply into my DNA that I had convinced myself that I deserved this. And now, after what I’d done to save my own skin…fuck, I didn’t deserve to get out. Los Siete was where I belonged.
I rolled my head to face the driver, relieved to find that it was Adrian.
“How,” I paused, having to clear my scratchy throat.Had I been screaming? Shut up. Shut. Up. Nox. Nox is holding my hand. I’m okay.I held that mental image in my mind before starting again. “How far away from home are we?”
He looked over at me, something akin to pity and grief marring his features and the bile rose in my chest.
“Dad?”
I watched Adrian’s arm go slack against his side, the gun slipping from his grasp and hitting the concrete floor with a clatter.
My stomach rolled as Carlos removed the second man’s head covering.
I clenched my jaw, my lungs constricted and begging for oxygen as I stared at Adrian’s stricken expression.
“Don’t.”
He licked his lips, turning his attention back to the highway. We weren’t in Bumfuck, Nowhere anymore. “Ten minutes.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to distract myself from my thoughts. It was only the second time I had ever left Granby. The first being when we took a field trip to the state capital in elementary school. I remembered the fact that he had asked me to pack a bag of my things and realized that it seemed pointless if we were going home the same day.
“Why did you make me pack a bag?”
