“Shut up, Kraig,” Frank says, disgusted. “You’re fucking lucky Dani’s being nice.”
“I have ulterior motives, but sure. So, deal? I need to go home and take the world’s longest shower.” I hold out my hand.
“Dani…” Graham is horrified. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah, Kraig belongs in jail. He’s a monster.” Connor pipes up.
“Shut up,” Grayson hisses at his younger brother.
“No,Grahambelongs in jail. He’s a monster. You found it, didn’t you? You found proof he kidnapped that girl!” Kraig screams.
“He’s right.” Graham shakes his head. “I am a monster. I did kidnap Dani off the street. And if Kraig goes to prison, so should I. I kidnapped you, Dani.”
“After being actually kidnapped, I recant my earlier accusation,” I tell him.
“It was still a kidnapping. You were scared.” Graham looks heartbroken. “I hurt you. I love you, and I hurt you.”
“No one is going to jail. Okay? Let’s all just calm down. Okay, now look—you’ve got me channeling my mom. We’re all going to pretend like this never happened. Ugh, my mom is going to freak out enough as it is. She cannot know about this, okay? The delivery robot video gets deleted,” I tell Frank.
“And you,” I tell the Richmond brothers. “Whatever video you guys took of me in the pit never sees the light of day—mainly because I look like a corpse. And this just never happened. We’re sweeping it under the rug, and we all live happily ever after. The end.”
I dust my hands and just smear dirt around.
“Deal?” I hold my hand out.
“Thank you, Dani.” Frank shakes my hand. His eyes are watery with tears. “I’ll make sure that Kraig is never at any family functions again.”
“It doesn’t matter if he comes around or not.” Graham is backing away from us slowly. “I’m not asking you to choose him over me, Frank. Dani won’t be there. I’m so sorry, Dani, for everything.”
Graham is too far away for me to grab.
“Graham, stop being weird. Just—it’s all right, we’ll work it out.”
“I’ll send you a check for thirty-five million dollars so that you can get a condo,” he tells me. “Don’t tell me where, though. I promise I won’t find you.”
“Graham…” I try to get my freezing toes to work.
“I’m sorry, Dani. I wish I never, ever met you. I’m… I’m done.”
“Graham—one of you, go grab him!”
He skitters back as Spencer advances on him, arms outstretched.
“I’m not mad at you,” I call to him.
“I’m just… I don’t belong here. I’m not supposed to be in this family.” He sounds so far away. “You deserve to be happy. All of you. Have a nice life.”
“Oh my God, Graham!” I shout as he disappears into the snowy woods.
I run my hand through my dirty hair and pull out my phone to call Graham.
“Just leave him,” Grayson tells me.
“He’s out alone in the woods!” I shriek.
“We’ll find him.” Grayson puts an arm up. “Let us take you home. You’ve been through enough—you don’t have to go traipsing around the woods looking for him.”
My phone has a thousand missed calls and tons of text messages from Piper, the last being:
