Shit, shit, shit.Everything about this was stupid. But I couldn’t turn back. My thoughts tumbled like clothes in a dryer, every spin of the drum yanking me between resistance and compliance. The hallway passed in a blur, until all I saw were Jesse’s broad shoulders and thick, dark hair.
Suddenly, the pressure lifted, and I realized we’d reached the bedroom. I leaned against the door frame as he went to the dresser and began rummaging in the drawers.
The handcuffs on top of the smooth, polished wood had me pushing away from the jamb like it was coated in poison.
“Please don’t put those on me again,” I blurted, the memory of the tingling, restless numbness flooding my mind. The whole time the metal had circled my wrists, my hands had felt like blood rushing back into my fingers after I’d fallen asleep in a weird position.
Jesse straightened, his gaze traveling from me to the cuffs. “I’d never leave you exposed to silver for long. I hesitated to restrain you at all, but I had to know what I was dealing with. If you’d been too far gone, I—” He stopped.
“What?” I asked. “Too far gone how?”
“To help,” he said. “Wolves who lose control before their first shift don’t always come back from it.” He shut the drawer, hismanner suddenly brisk. “I don’t have any sweats in here. Give me a second, and I’ll grab some from my room.”
“Is there a bathroom I could use?” I asked, drawing on every second of those summer retreats. Because my gaze had just snagged on something I’d missed before. On the far side of the room, the moon shone through a window. And outside, the roof sloped to a section as flat as the one at my parents’ house. The bedroom was oriented the same as my room at home, which meant there was probably a bathroom directly?—
“Behind you,” Jesse said, nodding to a door I’d mistaken for a closet. “I’ll be right back.”
“All right.” I turned and went through the motions, opening the door and flipping on the light. I stopped in the center of the bathroom and took three slow, deep breaths. Then I sprang into action, whirling and rushing through the door. I had seconds, but that was okay. I knew this room. I’d done this a hundred times. My heart pounded as I went to the window, shoved it open, and popped out the screen. Then I was through the opening and onto the roof. My breath puffed in the cold as I went to the edge and dropped to the frost-covered grass below. I hit the ground hard, my teeth knocking together, but I didn’t stop.
And I didn’t look back as I sprinted into the night.
Chapter
Six
CALEB
Pounding on my door jerked me upright in bed.
For a second, disorientation swept me as I clutched at my comforter. Morning sunlight flooded the room and sent needles of pain into my eyes, which felt like I’d rinsed them with sand. As I squinted, I caught sight of my crumpled jeans on the floor.
Memories of Jesse and my wild sprint rushed back, making my heart pound almost as hard as when I’d booked it away from his house. For once, luck had been on my side. His neighborhood was more upscale than mine, with wider spaces between the houses, but his road opened onto one of Hale Valley’s main arteries. I’d hauled ass to my parents’ house, expecting to feel Jesse’s fingers bite into my shoulder at any second. By the time I’d scrambled through my bedroom window, my legs had refused to support me, and I’d spent fifteen minutes on the floor before I summoned enough energy to crawl into bed.
“Caleb!” my dad bellowed through the door. The handle rattled, followed by another flurry of knocks.
Fuck.Could he be chill for, like, ten minutes of his life?
“Caleb! Open this door, or I’m getting a screwdriver and removing it from the hinges!”
Nope.
“I’m coming!” I shouted. Leaving the bed, I staggered across the room, stopping only to jerk on a pair of sweats from the clean pile of laundry on my desk chair. When I wrenched open the door, my father lowered his hand. He didn’t even attempt to conceal his dislike as he took in my rumpled hair and bare chest.
“I’ve been texting you for the past half hour.”
“I forgot to charge my phone,” I lied.
His mouth tightened. “You’ve got ten minutes to get downstairs.”
“For what?”
He gave me a look like I was the stupidest person he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter. “Forclass.I’m driving you.”
Everything within me recoiled. “Why?” He never drove me. And what day was it, anyway? I stumbled through the mental calculation, sluggishly landing onFriday. I had public finance with Professor Keating again.
Anger joined the hostility in my father’s eyes. “Watch your tone. As long as you live in this house, you’ll speak to me with respect.” His gaze flicked to my chest. “And I don’t want to see you without a shirt on again.”
“I was sleeping.” Anger stirred in my gut as I held his stare. At the same time, a spurt of amusement shot through me. My father would crumple under the weight of Jesse van der Meer’s gaze. As soon as the thought entered my head, heat spread across my nape.
