Chapter 2
June
I could’ve backed out, but I decided not to.
Saying things without thinking was normal for me, but behaving so impulsively was not. I remembered what Blaze had told me in Poppy’s bathroom: It’s easy reading books in your room, isn’t it?
There was a huge difference between my usual, boring, monotonous life and what I was about to do then. Surely there had to be a middle ground, but it sounded like these guys didn’t know any. And I’d never expected so much initiative, or maybe foolishness, from William.
“We have to make a plan. June should distract him until we get to his office. You know that room that he always keeps locked.” Will was excited. His gray eyes shone with impatience as he spoke to James, who kept his eyes on the road.
“I might have a plan,” I interrupted.
“I’ll say it again, you two are completely insane.”
James’s comment cut through the air, but it didn’t deter Will, who continued to rub his temples.
“What are we getting?” I asked.
“Something that belongs to us,” answered a completely and utterly calm William.
“If I come with you, I at least have to know what this is about.”
“A fucking gun.”
James said it without mincing his words, throwing William for a loop. It seemed like James had said it on purpose to spite William.
My jaw dropped. “Sorry, what?”
“Fuck, James!” Will punched him in his solid shoulder.
“You wanted to bring her with us? Great, now start telling your little friend the truth.”
Will shook his head. I saw James’s usual infuriating sneer in the rearview mirror.
“Hunter, you have to stop jerking me around,” I said, then I asked, “Will, what are we taking back?”
William froze. James stretched his arm behind his friend’s seat and kept staring at me in the mirror.
“I just told you the truth. Do you still want to come with us?” he challenged, waiting for my reaction.
Oh my god, so it was true.
“I don’t need to know why you need it. Just tell me one thing: Why do they have it if it’s yours?”
The breeze that came in through the window made me shiver. I stretched my sleeves over my wrists nervously. James blew smoke out the front of the car and finally said something.
“Because they did something for us.”
“What?”
My voice trembled.
“Well . . .”
“James, no.” William quickly stopped him.
“Do you think I’d tell someone like her something like that?”
“What’s wrong with someone like her?”
“She just wants to stick her nose where it doesn’t belong,” snarled James.
Will didn’t have the time to give him a look as I sprang up from the back seat.
“So let me get this straight—they extort you with the races, they have you by the balls because of your gun . . .”
I saw James take his eyes off the road and shoot his friend a disappointed look.
“How the fuck did she find out?”
An uncomfortable Will gulped and started gesticulating. “Okay, yeah, I told her you owe the Austin family money.”
“With drugs too? Is that why you sell them?” I pressed.
“Shut up.”
James clenched his teeth and concentrated on driving without saying another word.
“What did they do that was so important that you put up with all this?”
“Will, make her shut up. I’m serious.”
Then a strange thought went through my head, and I couldn’t keep it to myself.
“Did they kill someone with your gun?”
James hit the brakes so abruptly that I went flying forward.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” shouted William while James got out of the car, yanked the car door open, and grabbed me forcefully by the arm.
He pulled me out of the back seat and flung me violently against the car body.
“Shut your fucking mouth or I swear I’ll shove my dick down your throat,” he hissed, red with rage.
“Let her go!”
I was frozen, shaken, and incapable of saying another word.
Will yanked his friend away, forcing him to let me go. “Are you okay?” he asked, giving me a hug while he rubbed my back with one hand.
“I’ll just say one thing. Your idea is fucking awful,” spat James, turning on his vape pen.
“Well, I think it’s a great idea. June just has to find an excuse to get out of the club, and we . . .”
I saw the veins in James’s neck swell. “You make it sound so easy. Where the hell are we gonna ambush from? We’re in the fucking desert, don’t you see that? There isn’t shit around here.”
I covered my face with my forearm and tried to focus on the scenery.
The sun still wasn’t fully overhead, and the sides of the highway were lined with the typical bleakness of the California desert.
The mountains in the distance flattened into arid planes dotted with just a few cacti here and there.
Will seemed to be in denial about a fact so obvious that it was clear even to me. “You’re wrong, James.”
“Am I? Do you think they wouldn’t notice my car parked outside in broad daylight right away?”
William looked like someone who wanted to downplay the logistical problems and remove any obstacles to do something at all costs.
“We’ll park far away, and—”
“And what? That’s bullshit. How are we gonna turn half the place upside down?”
“Do you wanna go at night? With the bodyguards who are twice our size? Why do you have to be so negative?” screamed Will, as James inhaled deeply from the vape pen.
“I’m being realistic.”
“You were driving thirty miles an hour! Don’t you have the balls to go, James?” His eyes narrowed into two slits.
“What the fuck did you say, Will?”
“Look around, we’re still in the middle of nowhere!”
“Say that to my face,” threatened James, inching closer until he towered over William. Okay, tensions were running a bit high.
“Will, please, he’s just trying to provoke you.” I tried to caress Will’s shoulder to distract him, and maybe make him see reason. “Don’t fight.”
I felt exactly like Jackson right then.
“That never happened before you existed,” James said, staring at me disdainfully.
“Oh, that’s hilarious,” taunted William. “Now you’re blaming her?”
“Because you haven’t seen anything yet, Will. It doesn’t take much to understand that he’ll put her through the wringer with that innocent face of hers.” When James came closer to me, I refused to look up at him.
“Come on, James. Let’s go.”
Will got into the car, and I moved back to the car door.
“Touch me again, and I swear I’ll call the police as soon as I get home,” I hissed.
“Sure. But you know that if anything, and I mean anything, happens to Will, I’ll never forgive you.”
I curled up against the car. I wasn’t afraid of him, but those words hit me like a ton of bricks.
“Enough of this bullshit, James! June, get in the car, let’s go.”
I was never a particularly wimpy person, except during horror films. But when we got to the huge, abandoned parking lot, I desperately hoped that I wouldn’t end up inside the club.
We left the car a few yards away as a buffer and walked to the building. James was oddly quiet. There was nothing around us but dry land, sand, and a sun that burned a little brighter than usual.
It looked more like we were in one of those drug dealer movies that my grandma watched than a horror movie.
An unexpected sound from Will’s phone made us jump.
“It’s Jackson,” he whispered, slowing down.
James and I were walking side by side, and I couldn’t control myself.
“So is it true that they have you by the balls?”
“What part of ‘shut up’ do you not understand? Do I need to spell it out for you?”
“They have your gun, you’re their puppet.”
I bit my tongue when James’s broad shoulders created a shadow over me.
“Listen to me, and listen to me good, princess. I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re with Will or pretending to be the little lost girl and my instinct to protect you comes out. But you gotta understand that this will end badly for everyone. And if you’re with us . . .”
I jumped, maybe because this time he really meant it.
“We’re here.” Will came up behind us.
Austin’s place was almost unrecognizable in daylight.
“What’d you have in mind, June?” William asked, looking at me curiously.
“Fuck, she just got here, and she’s already going rogue. You’ve got ten minutes, Snow White. No more, no less. You can talk to him and convince him to leave. We’ll be waiting on the other side, and we’ll go in as soon as you and Austin are outside,” answered James in my place.
“What if I take longer?”
“Ten minutes. If you’re there for eleven minutes, we’ll already be inside to smash his face in.”
I understood from how my hands started shaking that tensions were getting the better of us, so I said the first stupid thing that came to my head.
“Where’d you put the baseball bat?”
“The baseball bat? Will, do you hear her? She’s gonna hand it to me on a silver platter. What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“You’re the one who’s always thinking about the worst-case scenario!”
“Yeah, right, me?”
“Enough, you two!” William yelled to shut us up. We were already under the now-turned-off neon sign.
“I have to convince him to leave, and I have to keep him busy,” I repeated out loud, but I was actually saying it to myself.
“But how?” At that point even Will seemed a little alarmed.
“I told you. I have a plan.”
“Is someone there?” I called.
The sound of the doorbell took me by surprise. I hadn’t heard it when I went in the first time, maybe because of the deafeningly loud music. Now it was silent.
Everything looked clean and sterile to the point where it didn’t even look like the same place I’d set foot in before.
I recognized the long bar counter and the row of glass bottles arranged on the wall.
I noticed different locked doors. I checked the time on my phone. A minute had already gone by. In my mind, an imaginary countdown began. I went past the bar area to a big dance floor. I moved quickly and took quiet steps.