Page 136 of Their Wicked Secrets: Untouched, Vol 5 of 6

“Are you sure we shouldn’t take you to the hospital?” I squeeze his hand. “They could make sure you don’t need anything else. And it’s proof of your assault.”

“I’m good. Just tired. They only nicked me, and I don’t have a concussion. I don’t want to be away from you.”

I press my lips together, but it’s his decision. “Is the ice pack still cold?”

The EMT gave him an instant ice pack to keep on the wound.

“Yeah.” Nico rolls his head and opens his eyes. “I’m good, sunshine. Honest. I just wish I would have been able to take one of them out first. They came up from behind. I didn’t even hear them.”

A shiver rolls over me. I’m still not warm enough, but at least I’m not shaking anymore. I lean my head against his shoulder and blow out a breath. They didn’t do anything to my dress or the other girls’ outfits. One less thing to worry about. They didn’t really have time.

I’m ready to just go to sleep, but we need to go down to the station and give our statements. I don’t know what the others saw and we haven’t really discussed it, but Penny keeps rubbing her arm like it hurts.

When I look over at Ashley, she lifts her gaze to mine. We’re not suddenly friends, but we’re also not enemies right now. I believe Eli when he says she’s on our side. She had no reason to help me tonight if she wanted Eli back.

A shiver rolls through me again. Nico rubs my shoulder. “We need to warm you up.”

“It’s the crash.” I snuggle into him though. Do the other girls feel it too? Like we were so amped up and now the danger is over. I just want to sleep.

Eli

“We aren’t just going to let this go too, right?” I say. We’re tucked away in our corner of the locker room. “We don’t know who else he has on his side.”

I glance toward the other players getting ready in the dim light from the emergency lights. Coach said they were working on the backup generator, but it might be a while.

The shower was still warm, but we were told to make it quick so we didn’t run out of hot water.

“He’s been coming after our girl. It’s time to end this.” Jack looks up from the bench where he’s tying his shoes.

“We need to go back through things while he’s busy in the legal system.” Luke runs a hand through his wet hair. “He said our lists of sins can’t be that long. That one of us or all of us did something to make him come after our weakness.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Caden glares. He’s ripe for a fight and isn’t going to get one, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he started one at the party tonight.

Fuck, we all need to blow off some steam. And I don’t think fucking Harper is going to cut this aggression tonight. We might need to see if anyone else is in the mood to fight.

“It means we haven’t dug deep enough.” I slam my locker shut. “It means we’ve been spending too much time thinking with our dicks and not enough time strategizing.”

I’m calling us all out, because all of us have been caught up in Harper from the start. She makes it easy to lose ourselves in her, but even when we’ve focused on our problems, we always get drawn back to her.

No one disputes me. We’ve asked it before but, “Why now?”

Luke lifts his gaze to mine. “Because we have something someone can take from us.”

“But if he’s been after her since that first football game, she wasn’t as important to us then.” Jack rests his head against the row of lockers. “And that knocking shit was just to freak her out.”

“But it did make us closer to her. More protective.” Luke grabs his bag. “The tire...”

“Maybe they thought we were done with her too.” I gather my stuff. “What if that’s not what they wanted?”

“What if they wanted us deeper into this before they struck?” Caden nods like he’s considering this from every angle.

“Tonight we mingle.” I straighten and look at each of my friends. “Someone stays with Nico and Harper, but the rest of us need to figure out what we can. Someone knows something. We just haven’t been open to listen.”

The others nod. Fuck. Tonight’s been rough and I don’t see it getting better. But tomorrow night, we’ll focus all our attention on Harper and giving her a night she’ll never forget.

“It’s time we lead again.” I meet each of their eyes. “Zach’s making a power play, but we can put an end to that by being the leaders they need.”

Luke