It wasn’t one of the contingencies.
Inching forward, I press a kiss to his cheek as Evie struggles to push me away from him, whispering in his ear, a private message for just him. “I love you. I love you so much, but you can’t save me. Not right now. Right now, I’m trying to save you. Trust me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Then I back away, not wanting to leave him, but knowing Trips is right. Our lack of keepers tells me that whatever is waiting for us at the estate is bad.
“Are you sure you can’t run again?” Emma asks, tears glistening in her eyes.
I shake my head. “That was always temporary. They’d almost found us. It’s part of what made us come back. But we regrouped. We have a plan.” I wrap my arms around her, her body trembling. “Keep him safe for me. I trust you. If he has to go to the hospital, bring him. We’ll find a way to deal with the fallout," I lie, not knowing how we'd fix this mess.
She nods against me. “I think he’s going to pull through. He’s young, strong, and healthy. And based on stories, he hardly ever gets sick. But I’ll stay with him until he’s out of the woods. And if he has to go to the hospital, I’ll hold off the cops as long as I can.”
I swallow more tears, forcing something almost smile shaped onto my face. “Never my bail call,” I say.
She responds how she always has. “Always your partner in crime.”
Trips wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me away, the burn of Evie’s glare against my back impossible to ignore, even as I do exactly that.
Wiping the crusty blood from the steering wheel, Trips watches me as I build a wall around my fear, setting it aside to prepare for what comes next. “Do you want to drive?” he asks.
A tiny smile pricks at the corner of my mouth. Trips giving up control over the steering wheel without a good reason is something I never thought I’d see. “Not right now. But thanks for checking.”
He chucks the dirty paper towels in the back, rolls down all the windows, then we climb in, the metallic tang of Jansen’s blood impossible to escape between the upholstery and our own blood-soaked clothes. We warn the poor girl at the frontthat Walker and RJ are on their way, then drive silently back toward the estate—back to a prison of roses and blue walls, back to a warden who’s never happier than when he’s forcing the people around him to destroy the parts of themselves they thought were immutable.
I thought I was smart. I knew it with every ounce of my being.
What we just did wasn’t smart.
Returning isn’t smart either.
Trying to outwit him is the epitome of dumb.
And I’ve lost another piece of myself, lost it to this life, to the future I’m carving out for myself.
But with each long-held truth that falls away, a different woman is revealed.
This woman doesn’t always make the smart choice. No, this Clara makes the strategic choice.
I’m going back to my prison. But if I ever doubted that we needed to play the long game to win against Trips’ dad, his face as he watched me fight to keep Jansen alive has put those doubts to rest.
I’m playing this game to win, because the alternative is death—for everyone I love, either soul or body.
Chapter 3
Trips
Clara’s silence differs from mine. Hers seems to be armor she’s building for herself, resolve speaking in every inhale and exhale.
Rage colors mine. Months of practice managing the fury that lives under my skin, learning to control it so it can’t control me, and I’m ready to snap. I’m just grateful I didn’t take it out on Jansen’s sister. She’s not the one who deserves it. Not at all.
That honor belongs to fucking Smith.
He shot Clara.
That wasn’t the result, but he’d meant to kill her. Had Jansen not fallen from the sky like a goddamn guardian angel, he would have. Smith’s a master marksman. The only member of my father’s staff with better aim is Falk.
That Clara is even sitting beside me, unharmed, is a miracle. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to kill everyone involved.
When Falk pulled a gun from another guard’s holster, sliding it into my palm and dropping the keys in my pocket, before shoving me toward Clara’s ghost-white form on the stairs, my father’s sick grin stretched wide as he took in the chaos in his courtyard, I didn’t think.
