“I didn’t ask you to help me.” I cast a sideways look toward the driver, who’s seemingly uninterested in ourconversationin the back seat. “I promise I didn’t say anything about … anything.”
He just stares at me, and heat flares in my cheeks. This is pointless—trying to talk to him when he won’t speak back. I know he can. I think. Unless something happened in the last four years, Bishop said he’d heard him speak.
I shake my head and turn to look out the window.
Night slips by in fragments between the streetlights and blurred buildings. The car navigates the Chicago traffic as we push farther out. Since I’m allowed to look around me, I assume the car isn’t taking me back to EV. So where will he put me? It can’t be allowed to return a girl someone else bid on, right?
The skyline softens and shadows grow, swallowing the SUV as we wind through roads I recognize. The lake house. I almost hope he’s taking me there. It’s safer, calming, and I could use another break.
I wince at that. I’ve been so lucky considering the other girls’ fates.
“You’re going to be okay,” I mumble to myself. My breath fogs the window as I press my forehead to the glass.
You’re going to be okay.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SLADE
Emotions are for the weak.
More of my grandfather’s words rattle around in my head as I watch Thea mumble into the window. It’s a mix of words I can’t understand even though I strain to listen. Her body seems to relax as we weave through the roads toward the lake house. She must remember her first ride here and is grateful she isn’t going back to EV, and my throat constricts as I think about having her back home.
I can’t take her back. This needs to play out. So, I’ll take her to the lake house with me and let her rest.
She rubs at her chafed wrists, then drags a few fingers up and over her tattoo. She swipes back and forth methodically, as if it brings her comfort. I wish I knew the meaning behind it, the dandelion. It’s stupid, this desire to know about a weed this woman seems to have taken a liking to. I snort, and that draws her attention.
“Do you know if Tonya is okay?” she asks. She pulls a chunk of her hair forward and twirls it.
Who’s that? Probably one of the girls, most likely the girl she gave her GHB to.
I shake my head.
It’s not a habit of mine to know the girls’ names.
She whispers to herself again. Something about being ungrateful? Then she twists back to me. She can’t make up her mind, looking at me or out the window. An odd sensation gnaws at me when she shifts her entire body this time. Her knee comes up, bending leisurely to tuck into the seat, and it grazes my hand that rests in the middle.
Withdrawing my hand allows my fingertips to brush along her silky skin, and a spark crackles between us. I have to tuck my hand into my pocket to avoid reaching back out to test my hypothesis. Her nonreaction has me wanting to try again, to touch her again. Harder this time. Why do I want her to feel me?
She studies me, and I do my best to meet her stare.
“Thank you,” she says. “I should say thank you. I think. I don’t know. I mean, you saved me from Bishop, and Ishouldbe grateful. Iamgrateful.”
There’s a “but” hanging in the precipice of her words, and her nose wrinkles and then unwrinkles several times, as if she’s fighting back words. I want to know what she’s thinking, so I lean back and adjust my glasses, waiting for her.
She hovers in this gray area of wanting to say more but never following through. Either she’s scared, considers what she has to say irrelevant, or is being polite. But I want to know what she has to say. I’d like to think she has some strong opinions; she’s just too afraid to state them. Most of the time, people bulldoze over others when they realize said person won’t assert themselves. So instead of releasing her gaze, or her, from the conversation, I raise my eyebrows and gesture for her to continue.
I’ll wait. To hear what shewantsto say, I’ll wait.
She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, thoughtful yet distracted. It’s killing me. I shouldn’t be watching her this closely. I know that. But I can’t help it. Each shift of her mouth, every blink or nervous drum of her fingers—I memorize it asif my mind has rewired itself in the two weeks since she was introduced on that stage.
Damn it, she shouldn’t be on that stage.
None of them should, but it’sextraangering thatshewas. Even more so that she seems to be fairly composed. She wasn’t with the medic, though, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her, appreciating the molten fight uncontained in her expression.
I don’t want to take anything more from her. Not her voice or her choice. Not even this silence.
But that lip.
