Chapter 12
Mads
So much for sleep. I don’t think either of us even tried.
Blake was stretched out on the mattress beside me, staring up at the ceiling with her fists clenched like she was ready to deck someone in her dreams. I kept my eyes shut, waiting for my brain to shut off, but every time I drifted, I saw the glow of that cursed drive and the mess it dragged us into.
Not exactly how I pictured the first time we’d end up in the same bed—her rigid with tension, me filled with dread, both of us lying there like strangers who’d just survived a car crash.
By four a.m., we’d stopped pretending. She brewed the world’s strongest cup of coffee in Colin’s machine, and I spent ten minutes trying to convince her it wasn’t worth drinking battery acid just to stay upright. She ignored me, obviously.
Now the sun’s up and the house feels like a crime scene after the cleanup crew’s been through—quiet, stale, no trace of life except the two of us pretending we’re functional.
We still have to clean the bleachers this morning. Nothing says bonding experience like scrubbing nacho cheese off concrete.
By the time we’re in my car, the sun’s already glaring through the windshield with a personal vendetta.
Blake slumps into the passenger seat with her coffee cradled in her hands.
She looks wrecked—eyes shadowed, hair shoved into a knot that’s half falling out—but somehow she still steals my breath. No one else even comes close.
I start the engine, and the silence hangs. My brain’s running laps around what we saw last night, but I can’t keep staring at the road and pretending it didn’t happen.
Miles’s face is burned into my head. First dead body I’ve ever seen, and it’s not just some stranger on the news.
He’s a student. Our age. A kid who should’ve been at practice, at class, at a party—not lying crumpled on the floor of a basement, surrounded by people who looked more scared of being caught than of what they’d done.
And now it makes sense why that girl passed the drive to Blake. Too afraid to come forward herself, so she found someone else who might. Maybe she thought Blake was smarter, braver, safer. Maybe she just wanted it off her conscience. Either way, she wasn’t wrong to be scared.
Because what’s the alternative?
Someone broke into our flat, maybe even more than once, because her bag had been rifled through, and then the gas incident.
I’m starting to think that wasn’t random.
It couldn’t have been a coincidence, not knowing what I know now.
I don’t know if it was a warning for her to keep her mouth shut or an attempt to silence her since they couldn’t find the drive.
Either way, if the goal was to scare us, it worked—because the only thing more terrifying than handing this drive to the cops now is handing ourselves over with it.
Maybe that Briarwood student had the right idea. Stay quiet. Stay hidden. Pass the evidence to someone else and hope they figure it out. Because if speaking up gets you killed, then silence feels like survival.
I hate that logic. I hate that I understand it. But sitting here, with Blake’s coffee steaming in the cup holder and the echo of that video still rattling in my chest, I can’t shake the truth: we’re already in it. Too deep to walk away, too far to pretend we didn’t see what we saw.
And if we’re going to be in it, I’d rather we’re in it together.
I don’t just want to keep her safe. I want to prove to her that if she’s going to chase this, I’ll chase it too. That we can figure out who killed Miles. We can right this wrong.
“So,” I say, dragging the word out, “this girl who handed you the drive—what exactly do you know about her?”
I hate how little information we have. Some stranger drops a bomb into Blake’s lap, and now we’re carrying it around like we have any fucking clue what to do about it.
If Blake doesn’t have answers, then we’re chasing shadows, and I can’t stand the thought of her being dragged deeper into this without knowing what we’re up against.
She groans, tilting her head back against the seat. “Not much. Maybe her first name, if her username was legit.”
“That’s it?” I glance at her, eyebrows raised. “Not even a last initial? What she looks like? Shoe size?”
She cracks an eye at me. “Do you always ask women about their shoe size?”
“Only the ones who get handed cursed flash drives and then make me their accomplice.”
That earns me the faintest twitch of her mouth. Not a full smile, but I’ll take it. Hell, I’d frame it if I could. It’s the closest I’ve gotten to pulling her out of whatever storm’s going on in her head.
I drum my fingers on the wheel. “So you’ve never even seen her face?”
“Nope.” She sips her coffee, grimacing like it physically hurts. “Couldn’t pick her out of a lineup if my life depended on it. The forum’s all text-based. Everyone hides behind cartoon avatars or just their initials. Rhea could most definitely not even be her real name.”
“Brilliant. That’s reassuring. Mystery woman hands you literally murder evidence, and we’re just… winging it.”
“Pretty sure I didn’t ask you to dive headfirst into this with me.”
I smirk. “No, but you didn’t exactly stop me, did you?”
She rolls her eyes, muttering something under her breath that I don’t catch.
My chest feels lighter than it should, considering how tired I am and every other fucking thing.
Maybe it’s the way her voice softens when she’s too exhausted to keep her guard up.
Maybe it’s the fact that even running on fumes and being a bit traumatized, she still matches me quip for quip.
“You know,” I say, shifting gears, “you could at least admit you’re glad I’m here. Moral support. Heavy lifting. Comic relief. Very valuable skill set.”
She snorts into her coffee. “You forgot your massive ego.”
“Right. How could I leave that off the resume?”
Her laugh is quick, small. Fucking adorable.
The parking lot’s empty, nothing but a few crushed cans glittering along the path to the field and a fast-food bag stuck to the fence by the wind.
Blake slams her door harder than necessary, muttering something under her breath about us being the only ones to show up as she yanks her sweatshirt over her head.
“This is cruel and unusual punishment,” she says, staring up at the bleachers.
“Don’t worry,” I say, grabbing the rubbish bags and gloves from the trunk. “I’ve got this. You can just supervise.”
She gives me a flat look. “You’ll last ten minutes before you’re crying over old hot dogs.”
We trudge up the steps. The place looks worse in daylight—popcorn ground into the concrete, napkins plastered to the railings, cups rolling around under the seats.
Why is the majority of the population so disgusting? It’s really not that hard to walk a few steps to a rubbish bin.
Blake pulls on her gloves and picks up a rubbish bag. “This is the worst.”
“This is character-building,” I counter. “According to Doc, anyway.”
“Yeah, well. Doc’s lucky she’s cute.”
Five minutes in, I hear her gag. She’s holding a nacho tray, cheese congealed into something that should probably be studied by scientists.
“Tell me it’s not alive,” she says, holding it out like it might bite her.
“Only one way to find out.” I poke it with my gloved finger. The cheese jiggles in slow motion.
She makes a strangled noise and shoves the tray at me. “You’re disgusting. Why would you touch it?”
I grin, dropping it into my bag. “I’ll add ‘stomach of steel’ to the resume, too.”
She shakes her head, but there’s color creeping back into her cheeks, the exhaustion cracking just enough to let her amusement through. I catch it in the curve of her mouth before she ducks back down to grab another piece of rubbish.
We keep working our way down the row, trading jabs about who’s got the nastier haul—her with a stack of mystery-stained napkins, me with something that may have once been a pretzel but now resembles abstract art.
This is the first flicker of normal I’ve felt since last night. Two goofs cleaning up after everyone else, bickering about nothing, pretending the world hasn’t shifted under our feet.
Blake stretches to grab a can wedged under the bleacher seat above us, balancing on the edge of the row. I open my mouth to tell her not to—
Too late.
Her foot slips and she yelps, arms flailing.
I lunge without thinking, catching her around the waist before she goes down face-first into the metal edge of one of the benches. She collides with me instead, hard enough to knock the wind out of my chest.
“Christ, Blue,” I manage. “You trying to die in the line of duty?”
She’s half laughing, half breathless, hands gripping my shoulders for balance. “Not my fault your fans can’t aim their soda.”
I should let go. I don’t. She’s close enough I can see the flecks of grey in her pretty blue eyes, close enough I can smell her detergent and the faint bitter trace of coffee clinging to her lips. Her laugh fades, mouth parting just slightly, and it’s the easiest decision I’ve made all week.
I dip my head and kiss her.
It’s not planned, not careful—just the raw pull of exhaustion, adrenaline, and whatever this is between us.
She makes a small noise—half surprise, half frustration—that goes straight to my cock. I tighten my hold on her waist without thinking, greedy, desperate to keep her anchored against me.
The kiss should be quick. A small thing, easily shrugged off.
But the second she tilts into me, I’m gone.
Heat crashes through me, sudden and all-consuming.
All I can think about is how easily I could push her back against the bench, how much I want to feel her legs wrap around me, how badly I want every part of her pressed closer, closer, closer.
Her arms curl around my neck, and I swear she’s daring me to lose whatever thin grip on restraint I’m pretending to have. I’m down so bad it’s pathetic—I’d throw away every ounce of self-control if she so much as asked.