Her eyes widened behind the mask, visible even in the dim light. “Maddox?—”
“Now,” I repeated as she tilted her head back to look at me. “It’s time for you to go home. You’ve caused enough trouble, Hales.” My hand reached for hers, securing our fingers together as I dragged her toward the door, past the crowd and Mason’s questioning glance. I’d hear about it later. He undoubtedly thought I was taking her somewhere to get laid. If he thought about it, though, he would know I wouldn’t have bothered and the cellar would have suited my needs just fine.
She stumbled behind me, her boots catching on uneven floorboards, but I didn’t slow down, not until she yanked on my arm and dug her heels in when we came to the door. “My phone,” she said, breathless. “Maddox, I need my phone.”
I swore, reaching for the basket sitting on the rickety table by the door, already overflowing with black screens and cases in every color. “Find it. And do so quickly.”
She started digging through the pile, pushing phones aside. Her midnight hair fell forward into her face, obscuring her expression. I towered above her, every muscle coiling beneath my skin.
“Captain,” Torin said, appearing at my side with a beer bottle dangling from his fingers as he leaned against the porch railing. “You’re not gonna believe who had the balls to show up tonight without an invite.”
Lingering half inside, half out, I pulled my eyes away from Hales long enough to let Torin know he had part of my attention. “Who?”
“Paisley Tate.”
My head snapped up. She wouldn’t. Not without good reason. I glanced at Hales…she was definitely reason enough for Pais to show her face. “Fuck,” I muttered, forking a hand through my hair. That girl had more guts than sense. “Did you tell Mason?” I asked, knowing the answer would complicate everything.
Torin shook his head. He shoved his mask up onto his forehead so I saw his expression. “Nah. We told her to get the hell out before he spotted her. She didn’t go quietly. Kept saying her friend was inside, that she wasn’t leaving without her.”
My gaze slid back to Hales shuffling through the mess of phones. My guess, Hales was the friend.
Paisley wouldn’t have crashed Raven Night on some rebellious whim. Did she know something was wrong? Had she found out Hales was here and come to save her?
“Got it,” Hales chimed suddenly, holding up her phone like a trophy, relief flashing bright across her features.
“Good.” My hand found her elbow and pulled her up from the floor. “You’re coming with me.”
“What about?—”
“Now, Hales.” The words were laced with urgency I couldn’t quite hide or understand. I just knew I had to get her out of here. Every instinct was telling me she had to go.
We pushed out into the night, toward the sea of cars scattered throughout the woods. The temperature had dropped while we’d been inside, autumn asserting itself, but the sky above was clear, dotted with a million twinkling stars. I steered her to the Jeep parked in the clearing, opened the passenger door with one hand while still holding her with the other, and waited until she climbed in before slamming it shut.
I circled to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. The engine turned over with a rough growl, headlights cutting through the darkness and illuminating the narrow dirt road ahead.
“Should you be driving?” Hales asked, her gaze strained over her shoulder as she looked behind her as if she were searching for something.
It was a valid question. “Normally by now, I’d be blacked-out drunk, but for reasons I can’t figure out, I hardly drank tonight.”
“And that’s unusual for you, I take it?”
I hit the gas. “Very.”
She sat with her hands folded in her lap, fingers worrying over the mask, twisting and pulling at it. “Do you know where I live?”
I kept my eyes off her as I steered us off the trail onto the main road. I couldn’t very well tell her I’d been to her house, that I’d seen her through the window. “Not exactly, but I know it’s near the coffee shop.”
She nodded. “Just a few blocks.” She rattled off directions as we got close, telling me where to turn.
When I pulled up to her cottage, the porch light was on, casting a soft yellow glow over the small yard and the perimeter of the woods pressing in dark and dense beyond. I killed the engine but didn’t move right away. I dragged in a breath, wondering how the fuck I got here, in a car, alone withthisgirl. “You should forget what happened in the cellar.” The words tasted like rust and regret, bitter on my tongue. “You shouldn’t be screwing around with someone like me. My life’s…complicated. Dangerous. People around me get hurt.”
Those strange, mismatched eyes turned to me, making me feel as if she saw more than most people. “Why? Because you have feelings for another girl?”
The question caught me completely off guard. My breath stalled in my lungs, brows furrowing. “How do you know that?”
Her mouth tipped into a faint smile as she shrugged slightly.
I groaned, an assumption already forming. “Let me guess. My brother.” Of fucking course. Mason and his inability to keep his mouth shut when it came to things that weren’t his business.
