Chapter 23
Blake
Afew uneventful days crawl by. No new leads, no shocking revelations, nothing to move the investigation forward. The only real progress we’ve made is in our ability to keep our hands off each other for at least an hour at a time—which, to be fair, can feel like a lifetime.
I tell myself we’re just leaning into the whole “partners in crime” thing, except most of our recent activity has involved significantly fewer clothes and absolutely no crime-solving.
By the time Colin’s Halloween party rolls around, we’re overdue for a distraction that doesn’t involve naked negotiation.
The house is already shaking by the time we get there, bass rattling the windows, the porch littered with empty bottles and people in borderline ridiculous costumes.
Colin’s parties always look more like natural disasters than social gatherings, and tonight’s is no different. The living room is wall-to-wall bodies, beer sloshing onto the sticky floor, someone screaming along to a song that isn’t actually playing.
I tug at the hem of my skirt, the pleats flipping up every time someone brushes too close.
I wore this Nancy Drew costume to the other party, but I felt like it deserved an encore.
Why waste the effort of putting together a blazer, pleats, and a perfectly chosen headband when I know for a fact Mads hasn’t stopped thinking about it since the first round?
The magnifying glass clipped to my belt keeps smacking against my thigh, but if that’s the price of accuracy—and of watching his eyes linger—I’ll pay it.
His own “costume” is barely an effort, which somehow makes it worse.
Grey sweats, his usual beat-up jacket, and a crop top that does nothing to hide how solid he is underneath.
The only festive part is the mask shoved on top of his head, plastic face bobbing with every step he takes through the crowd.
It’s fucking disastrous on my ovaries.
The kitchen’s a nightmare of jungle juice, overturned cups, and someone passed out in cat ears lying across the counter. The hallway’s clogged with people arguing about beer pong rules. Out back, a bonfire’s roaring, flames so high I half-expect the fire department to show up.
“Remind me why we came?” I shout over the music as a vampire with plastic fangs and a white-painted face stumbles past.
Mads leans down, voice muffled through the edge of the mask.
“Because Colin’s parties are legendary, and every football team from the surrounding schools shows up for Halloween.
Translation: prime suspect buffet. Also—” he tugs lightly on the bottom of my skirt, grinning when I swat his hand away— “because you look like the hottest amateur sleuth to ever walk the earth, and I’m not missing out on that. ”
I roll my eyes playfully.
The bonfire’s throwing sparks high enough to lick at the branches overhead, the heat cutting through the October chill. Circles of people are sprawled on mismatched lawn chairs and overturned crates, half-drunk and loud, the air filled with smoke and the smell of spilled cheap beer.
Mads steers me toward a spot at the edge, one hand steady at my back like he’s making sure no one knocks into me. Before I can protest, he disappears into the crowd and comes back with two cans. He cracks one open, takes a cautious sip himself, then hands it to me.
“Safe,” he says.
He’s such a dork, but I quietly appreciate him.
The seat beside me vanishes fast, claimed by a group of girls in fairy wings, so I end up in his lap without thinking twice. His arm curls around my waist, pulling me flush against him.
We fall into easy conversation. Inside jokes about practice, complaints about professors, bits of nothing that make me laugh harder than I ever have with anyone else.
Every now and then, he gets up to grab another drink or snag a handful of marshmallows to roast for me, but he always comes back, settling me right back against him.
Friends filter in and out of our circle, yelling over the music blaring from inside the house. The conversation drifts as loosely as the smoke—practice schedules, midterms, who threw up in the downstairs bathroom already.
Eli eventually drops down across from us, his arm slung lazily over his girl’s shoulders. I’ve seen her around before—Riley, journalism major, bright eyes and quick smile, the kind of girl who always looks like she has a recorder stashed somewhere just in case.
I can’t help but laugh to myself at the thought that pops into my head—she’d fit right in with our little Scooby-Doo crew. The Velma to my Daphne.
Tonight, though, she’s a mess—hair sticking to her temples, dirt smudged on her knees, a fresh scratch across her cheek.
Sweat clings to her skin like she’s sprinted across half the campus, but the way Eli’s grinning at her makes me wonder if running around was only part of the story.
She’s animated, talking a mile a minute while Eli hangs on her every word.
“I thought I’d deleted everything—whole projects, gone,” she says, brushing it off with a half-shrug. “But I finally figured it out and got my files back.”
Mads and I trade a glance. Both of us are instantly more alert.
“Wait—how?” Mads asks, trying for casual, but the edge in his voice makes Riley tilt her head at him.
“It was silly, honestly. I kept trying to open the corrupted stuff normally, which just made it worse. What worked was pulling the raw data through a partition reader and rebuilding it in smaller chunks. It takes forever, but the files start piecing back together if you isolate the headers.” She shrugs, sipping her drink.
“Our professors love scaring us with worst-case scenarios, so I went down a rabbit hole. Turns out paranoia pays off.”
My heart kicks. I feel Mads’ hand tighten where it rests on my hip, and when I meet his eyes, I see the same spark of hope that just flared in my chest.
We’ve been stuck for days. But now—now maybe we’re not.
Riley shifts the conversation back to something else, oblivious, but neither of us is listening anymore. We’re too busy silently screaming at each other with our eyes, ready to ditch this whole scene for the chance to try what she just described.
Mads leans down, his breath hot against my neck, voice low enough to cut through the chaos without anyone else hearing. “We’ll leave soon enough. But first—one more thing.”
The noise from the party fades as soon as we leave the bonfire behind, the air colder, quieter, heavy with woodsmoke. We cut back toward the SUV, and I tug at his sleeve like I can physically drag him faster.
“We need to get back,” I remind him for the third time, urgency in my voice. I don’t know why the hell he’s taking his sweet time. It’s not like him. “You heard Riley. We could actually get those files back if we try it her way. Every second we waste out here is—”
“Time I’m spending with you,” he interrupts smoothly, pulling my body against his.
I look up at him, narrowing my eyes. “Don’t try to turn this into something cute. We need that drive, Mads.”
“I know.” He gives me a squeeze. “But I’m not letting this circus ruin my plans.”
I stop dead in the middle of the driveway. “Plans? What plans?”
His grin widens. He reaches up, tugging his mask down over his face, and for a second, I just gape at him.
Then he points toward the tree line, voice muffled behind the plastic but no less cocky. “You know the rules. You’ve got thirty seconds, Blue. Run.”
My stomach drops, a rush of adrenaline kicking in even before my brain fully processes what he’s doing.
“You’re insane,” I hiss.
I don’t think. I just bolt.
The concrete gives way to grass and the grass to hard earth as I sprint past the tree line, branches clawing at my bare legs, the skirt I’m wearing flaring with every stride. The October air makes my lungs seize, but it does nothing to cool the heat building everywhere else.
Behind me, I hear him—his feet pounding, steady and relentless. The crunch of leaves, the snaps of twigs, his breath coming quicker the closer he gets. He’s not even trying to be quiet. He wants me to hear him coming.
Thirty seconds, my ass. But I guess Mads has never been one to follow the rules.
I push harder, weaving between tree trunks and low-hanging limbs, raw anticipation curling low in my stomach.
“Run faster, Blue!” His voice is muffled by the mask, carried on the wind, teasing and taunting.
I stumble over a root, catch myself on a tree, and keep going. The forest is alive with sound—my ragged breaths, his pursuit, the pounding rhythm that tells me he’s closing the distance. Every time I risk a glance back, the flash of white plastic glints between the trees, closer than before.
My thighs burn, my chest aches, but I don’t slow down. Not even when I think of what happens when he catches me. Not even when every step he gains sends heat pooling between my legs.
He stays close. I can hear every crunch of brush under his boots, each heavy step cutting through the night.
But then I’m running farther away from him than I thought he’d let me, until Colin’s house is gone from sight and the noise of the party has faded away.
Just when I think I’ve shaken him, the sound of his footsteps fall in step with mine again.
I let out a shaky laugh, breathless and wild. “You’re not gonna—”
A hand snags my wrist, yanking me back against a hard chest. I gasp, the momentum slamming me into him, and we both nearly topple. His other arm locks around my waist, hauling me tight against him.
“Got you,” he growls in my ear, voice low, dark.
Unfamiliar.
My pulse spikes, his grip locking me in place. My chest heaves, still braced to spin around and find Mads there.
But it isn’t him.
The mask staring down at me is the same blank, too-smooth face from the video. My blood goes cold.
I freeze, every instinct screaming as I thrash against him, but his grip is iron, dragging me back into the shadows between the trees. The panic I feel threatens to pull me under when I realize what’s missing—the sound of Mads.
No sound of pursuit. No words tossed after me. Nothing but silence.
“Our little Nancy fucking Drew.” His voice is distorted behind the plastic.
“What the fuck do you want?” I grunt, elbowing him in the ribs.
It doesn’t seem to affect him.
“You know exactly what I want,” he replies, snarling.
I sling my head back in an attempt to smack against whatever part of him I can reach. “Get fucked,” I grunt.
He doesn’t rush. Each word drops with the precision of a report being read aloud.
“We know you have the drive, Blake. Getting it back has just proven more difficult than we anticipated. Drugging you, tearing your apartment apart…that got us nowhere. The gas leak bought us more time in your place without having to worry about you or your proper little gentleman coming home, but still nothing.”
“There’s nothing on it,” I lie.
“Oh we know. Miles’s nosy bitch of a girlfriend reassured us over and over that it was time sensitive.” He tilts his head, almost curious, almost bored. “It was a pointless attempt at sparing herself.” He shrugs. “Killed her anyway. She knew too much.”
The realization hits me—why she was so desperate for someone else’s help, desperate enough to trust a stranger online. She needed someone to help bring her boyfriend’s murderer to justice. She was trying to save her own life in the process. And she failed.
I am brutally, hopelessly fucked. That won’t stop me from dragging this to the finish line for her.
“You could’ve handed it over. Maybe saved yourself some of the trouble. But you didn’t. You held on. You poked, and poked, and fucking poked.” His shoulders lift in another faint shrug. “And now? Now you’ve got nothing except our attention. The drive wiped itself, yeah? How convenient.”
He yanks me tighter, my back slammed against his chest, the mask scraping over my hair.
“Until tonight. Until I heard your friend explaining how easy it is to bring data back from the dead. I saw the fucking look on your face. I know you still have it, and what you plan to do. And you’re going to tell me where to find it before that happens. ”
I claw at his arm, lungs burning, mind racing. Where the hell is Mads?
The masked man laughs softly, a sound that makes bile rise in my throat. “One way or another, Aster. You’re going to fucking talk.”