So I had kept my mouth shut.
Because I had steel in my blood, if nothing else.
Tonight, that steel felt molten.
My phone buzzed again.
Tris.
Where are you? Jake says if Edge murders us before graduation, he’s haunting you specifically.
A laugh broke out of me, shaky and sharp.
I typed back one-handed.
Feed store. Two minutes.
The reply came fast.
Don’t move. And don’t die before I see the outfit.
I shoved the phone away and looked toward the road.
Headlights swung around the corner a minute later, too fast, dust kicking up behind a beat-up blue truck that had definitely seen at least three states and one police chase it refused to discuss. Jake was driving, one arm hooked over the wheel, dark hair tucked under a ball cap. Tris leaned halfway out the passenger window, whooping before the truck even stopped.
“Holy hell,” Tris shouted. “You stole the murder bike.”
“It’s not called the murder bike.”
Jake parked crooked across two spaces and climbed out slowly, staring at me like he was trying to decide whether tolaugh, pray, or call a responsible adult. “That bike belongs to your dad, doesn’t it?”
I smiled.
Jake groaned. “We’re dead.”
“Not yet,” Tris said, hopping down from the truck. She wore cutoffs, boots, a cropped black tee, and enough turquoise to bankrupt a tourist. Her hair was braided down her back with red thread woven through it, and her grin was pure bad influence. “Look at her. She looks like vengeance got hot.”
“I hate both of you,” Jake muttered.
“No, you don’t.” Tris rounded the bike and took me in from boots to hair. Her smile faded a little when she got to my face. “Hey.”
I looked away.
Too late.
Tris knew me before I was a Rourke. Before Santa Fe. Before club gates and prep school uniforms and adults talking softly over my head. She knew the difference between angry and bleeding.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
Jake made a sound. “That was the least convincing nothing I’ve ever heard.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Tris crossed her arms. “You stole your father’s bike and summoned us to some rich-kid desert party dressed like you’re about to ruin three bloodlines. Try again.”
The laugh that came out of me wasn’t a laugh.
