Page 59 of Reveal

“Maybe that’s because every time you’ve been in my bed before, you’ve left.”

“Maybe I’m afraid your mom and dad will come home, and when they tell my parents what happened, I’ll be sent off to reform school for sleeping in a bed with a boy.”

“It wouldn’t matter. We’d still figure out a way to see each other.” He tightens his arm around me and lowers his voice. “We’ve managed to find our way back to each other so far.” He nuzzles his nose against the back of my neck. “I want you to be here when I wake up, Vaughn.”

I love you, Ryker Lockhart.

I don’t voice the words, but every single part of me feels them as the sky outside turns that dull gray that happens in the hours before the sun begins to brighten the sky.

While I don’t say the words, as I fall asleep cocooned in his arms and with the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek, every part of my being feels them.

If I thought him making me need him was bad, now he’s made me want him too.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Vaughn

What was that?

I jolt awake in my bed. Lungs heaving. Mind fuzzy. Adrenaline coursing.

Samantha. Where’s Samantha?

Patting the bed beside me as if I’ve missed her when through the moonlit room I can clearly see she’s not there.

My throat is dry, and for some reason my hands tremble with fear.

Toot. Toot.

I jump at the sound and emit a startled yelp.

The train. It’s just the train is all. A nightmare and the whistle have me freaking out.

But the thump outside my closed door only adds to it.

That and the cry I give when Samantha flings it open and turns on the light.

“Let’s go.” Her voice is on the edge of hysteria yet has a calm urgency to it as I blink to let my eyes adjust to the light. She’s already halfway across our room to the closet before I can really see.

“What do you mean—”

“C’mon, Vaughn. You need to get up right now. We’re leaving.” She yanks open a dresser drawer and takes the first things she comes to—a faded pair of jeans and then a T-shirt—and throws them at me.

“Sam. What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“You need to trust me.” She drops a bag on the carpet with a thud and then proceeds to go to the back of our closet so I can’t see her.

Pushing myself off the bed with my clothes clutched in one hand, worry begins to course through me. “Sam? Are you okay? What’s—”

“Get dressed!” she yells at me without any care that she’ll wake up Uncle James. But it’s when she all but runs out of the closet and I see her face that I freeze.

Her complexion is pale, her eyes are wide with worry, and everything about her seems to be on edge and rushed.

“Sam?” I ask, much calmer now even though my pulse is racing and unease is tickling at the base of my neck. Tears I don’t understand well in my eyes.

“Here.” She pushes a suitcase at me, refusing to meet my eyes or answer my questions. “Grab whatever you want to take with you.”

“For how long?”