“Really? I bet the conspiracy theorists of the internet would have a great time with them.”
Arden ripped the photos in half and dropped them.
Sloan crouched to pick up the pieces. “I told you we have copies.” He looked up at her. “You didn’t know, did you? I saw it on your face.”
“There’s nothing to know. These are all lies.”
Sloan straightened up. His expression was almost sympathetic. “Your new friends don’t trust you with their secrets, Arden. But then, you don’t trust them with yours, do you? There’s no way you would have come down to meet me alone if you’d already told them everything.”
Arden blinked rapidly, hoping she wasn’t about to start crying. She stiffened her spine. “Is that all? You lured me down here to show me some blurry photos of something you claim is a dragon? If this is Grant’s ace in the hole, I’m not impressed.”
“Just one more thing.” He reached back into the truck and held out a phone. “Since you’re not answering your other one and I can’t be driving out here every time Grant has something to say to you?—”
“Are youhigh?” She took it with two fingers as if it was contaminated. “Is this a flip phone? I didn’t even know they made these anymore.”
“I told Grant you’d be more likely to accept it if you knew we couldn’t install a tracking app on it,” Sloan said wryly. “It’s got his number and mine programmed in. When you’re ready to set up a meet?—”
“Which I never will be, so you may as well take it back.”
“—call us. But I wouldn’t wait forever. As you know, Grant isn’t a patient man.” Sloan’s lip curled a little as he said this; Arden knew he had been on the receiving end of Grant’s tirades as often as she had.
It occurred to her that it might be worth following up on that. “Sloan, you can’t possibly enjoy being Grant’s errand boy. Youknowwhy I don’t want to come back.”
“Yeah, but are you really better off living in the woods like this? Come on, just take the deal he’s offering. He’ll buy you a nice house somewhere, and you can spend most of your time there and show up a few times a year for photo ops.”
“If you think I’d ever want that,” Arden said quietly, “then you never knew me, Sloan, and I never knew you, either.”
She turned her back on him and walked away. Her shoulders felt like they were up around her ears. She was fully expecting him to do something—chase her, try to grab her.
Instead, he called after her, “Don’t wait too long, Arden. He’s not going to sit on these forever. I’d say you have a week, maybe less, to say your goodbyes to those people you call friends.”
Arden didn’t answer. She marched back up the road into the woods, and it wasn’t until she was out of sight of Sloan that she finally let the tears spill.
They were tears of anger more than anything. How dare Grant, howdarehe! And underneath it all was hurt: she could understand why Baz and his friends hadn’t told her the truth, and it wasn’t like she had a leg to stand on with everything she was keeping from them, but it was still a reminder that as much as she cared for Baz, she remained an outsider among them.
She stopped at the realization that she was still holding the phone. Arden wound up a throw and hurled it into the woods as hard as she could. It vanished among the leaves and the tree trunks.
Choke on that, Grant.
As she stood still, getting herself together, she became aware of the sounds of the forest. An engine noise on the highway was probably Sloan driving away. It was so very quiet here, and inthat hush, the snap of a twig breaking in the woods made her jump; it seemed as loud as a gunshot.
“Hello? Who’s there?” Arden turned and looked in that direction. For an instant she thought she saw something move in the woods, a dark shadow ghosting between two trees. And then she had to wonder if she’d imagined it.
She began walking swiftly again, glancing over her shoulder now and then. There were wild animals out here, as well as the forest shifter clans. Now that she was looking for it, she kept getting the feeling that someone was following her, but she couldn’t put her finger on whether that was real, or just her paranoia.
Nothing erupted out of the woods at her, and after speed-walking for a few minutes, she stepped in a mud puddle that reminded her to watch where she was putting her feet. She picked her way through the mildly flooded area around the creek culvert, and by that time she was past that, she had begun to relax.
Maybe it was just paranoia, after all.
One thing she did know for sure. Sloan and Grant were right about one thing if nothing else. She was running, and she was hiding, and it was time to stop doing both. Especially with the people she wanted to trust her more than anyone else in the world.
It’s time to have it out. All our secrets in the open.
BAZ
“Have either of you seen Arden?”
Baz had tracked down Fern and Maida to the saloon, where Fern seemed to be earnestly trying to convince Maida that the saloon wasgreat, she could turn it into anything, it didn’t have to be a saloon, it could be a beauty parlor or a spa or ...
