But you still graduated.
That counts for something.
And you never know who might have been there to see you walk across that stage.
—Ash
CHAPTER FOUR
SHILOH
Reva cutsout of the bathroom looking like a woman who forgot where she left her own skin.
I’m leaning against the wall with two beers in my hands—one for me, one for her—because I’d been working up to something. Taking my time. Letting the night build the way it should.
But that girl’s not walking like a woman who just took a pee and washed her hands.
Her expression’s dark and a little frantic. Hair disheveled in an unmistakable way that makes my mouth water. The hallway spits her from near-gloom into amber light, casting shadows across her features. Her lips are swollen, like she’s been kissed too hard. Her pupils are blown wide, and her hands keep lifting to her throat, then dropping to her wrist, like she’s checking for something.
Checking to see if she’s still together. Still in one piece.
The facts rattle clinically inside my head before they form a picture—before they make coherence—and the tension in my chest spreads out like armor.
The question isn’t really whether Reva had some kind of…interaction…in that bathroom. It’s whether she was willing or unwilling. Either possibility makes my fingers clench around the bottle necks.
Because I was right here. I was right goddamn here.
But someone else was here, too.
I draw in a slow breath. Something tells me I’m gonna need every bit of defense I can scrape together when it comes to Reva Leigh Hart—aka McEntire—and I haven’t even known her for twelve hours.
But I know enough. I didn’t stumble upon Reva by accident. Coming up on her on the highway was the product of an SOS sent by her guardian, Cal, who was just paranoid enough to tag her location.
He had panicked when he saw how far south she’d traveled from Chicago, and reached out to my friend, asking us to keep an eye on her.
Did that mean fuck her? Probably not.
I wasn’t gonna lose sleep over it, though.
It kind of looked like someone might have beat me to it, though, and the thought of that makes me want to curl my fingers around someone’s neck andsqueeze.
“Everything okay?” I ask low as she nears, holding out a beer like it’s normal. My gaze snags on a red mark on her neck before I lift my beer to my lips and force my eyes to continue moving.
She glances up, a bit of surprise in her expression before she locks it down. Recognition flares. Her swollen lips part and then pry into a trembling smile as her gaze slips away, tracking the bar almost desperately.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
The answer comes too fast.
She takes the beer—thankful, nervous—and guzzles it down in a few hard swallows like it’s oxygen.
The shift from carefree to brittle and wary is immediate and unmistakable, and I battle back a wave of protective instinct that flares like sunrise against the night. Because her reply is reflex, not truth.
As I watch, she inhales and blows the breath out, then licks her lips. She runs her free hand around the back of her neck, then nods to herself.
Setting the beer down, she steps into me. I hold still, barely breathing, as her hands find my shirt and latch tight. She lifts onto the tips of her toes and her lips seek mine—like she’s aiming for something, like she needs to pin me down to reality.
The first brush of her—the taste—intoxicates my grip on sanity and changes it. Warps it.
