10. Maddox
MADDOX
The woods were cooler at night, but a bit of summer warmth still clung in the air.
I shoved a low branch aside, feeling it scrape against my shirt before snapping back into place.
The bark was rough under my palm, still damp from earlier rain.
Trucking through the woods at night wasn’t the fucking highlight of my day.
Not even close. Shockingly, that title belonged to the new girl.
I certainly hadn’t expected her to put me on my ass; the memory of hitting the ground flashed through my mind along with the weight of her pressing into me.
The bolt of lust struck me hard and took me unaware.
I’d never met a girl like her, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
Confused, mostly.
How could I feel anything when I was hung up on someone else?
“What the fuck are we doing out here again?” I climbed over a fallen log, pine needles crunching beneath my shoes. “We can’t see crap.” Our earlier search had been foiled by the new girl.
“Looking for shit,” Mason muttered beside me, swatting at a low-hanging branch hard enough that it whipped back and nearly caught me in the face.
I snorted, kicking at a cluster of dead leaves scattered across our path. “Helpful. Like dead bodies or like a trailer full of girls locked in cages? It’s not as if Rusty left a breadcrumb trail behind for us to follow.”
“We got a lead on one of the guards,” my twin said, voice low as he scanned the tree line ahead. “A possible hideout. That’s all I know.”
We’d been in these woods earlier, before football practice, but Hales’s interference had thrown the timeline off. The sun had still been high then, but now, looking for footprints was nearly impossible. What were the chances that she would be in the woods?
I paused, tilting my head as an owl hooted somewhere to our right. “This is a bad idea.”
Mason froze beside me, his hand instinctively going to his pocket. “Do you want to be the one to tell Kreed you’re too scared to roam around in the woods after dark? Or to tell Kaylor?”
I shot him a ruthless glare. “Don’t bring Kaylor into this.”
“Isn’t she the whole reason we’re traipsing around out here instead of under the sheets with some hottie?” He raised his eyebrows, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
I scoffed, stepping over a rotted stump that crumbled under the pressure of my foot. “Is getting your dick sucked all you think about?”
“Yes,” he stated without a hint of shame.
I shook my head, exhaling hard. “I swear, if Brock and the Elite have us on a wild goose chase, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Mason cut in, stopping to yank a burr off his jeans with an irritated hiss. “I’m pretty fucking confident about our ability to handle most jackasses in this town, but the Elite? They’d give us a run for our money. It wouldn’t be an easy fight.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the tension knotted there like rope. “Do we really think Silvia’s out here hiding? If she is, she’s dumber than rocks, and we deserve to find her.”
“It doesn’t matter what we think,” he replied, gesturing ahead with a sweep of his arm. “It’s a lead. We cross it off and move on.”
He wasn’t wrong, but if I took a guess, the only people out in these woods were homeless.
Finding one of the guards would be helpful in our hunt for Silvia.
She was a key player, and we needed her, but I seriously doubted we would find her holed up in a shack.
From what I learned about Silvia, she had standards, and slumming it off the land wasn’t her style, but one of the guards…
I could see them hiding off-grid until things cooled off.
Unfortunately for them, we had unwavering determination.
Giving up wasn’t in our genetic makeup. No matter how long it took, we’d get them.
One by one. They’d pay for what they did.
“Should we split up?” I asked, my gaze drifting to a narrow deer path branching off to the left.
Mason glanced sideways. “Are you kidding? And leave me alone in these woods? Get fucked, Mad. We stick together.”
I snorted. “Now who’s scared of the dark?”
“We wouldn’t be out here like a pair of stalkers if you hadn’t gotten lured by the downward dog.”
I stopped walking, my sneakers grinding against the dirt. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s a yoga pose.”
I groaned. “I don’t want to know how you know that. And she took me by surprise,” I defended.
“I bet,” he said, grinning widely. “So tell me…was it as hot as it looked when she tossed your ass to the ground?”
“You’re twisted.” I shoved past him, my shoulder brushing his.
“And you need to get laid.” He caught up easily, matching my stride. “She was nearly ready to jump you in the woods. Hell, she sort of did, now that I think about it.”
The memory surfaced again, those odd eyes locking on mine. I hadn’t noticed before, but I did then, with her face so close to mine, when I’d nearly lost my mind and kissed her. She had two different eye colors, a trait I’d never seen before. “Then you should’ve stayed out of sight.”
“I thought she might be into twins. Admit it, Mad. You’re into her. She’s hot.”
I snorted, the sound ringing hollow even to my own ears.
His brows furrowed as he came to a halt, his hand shooting out to grab my arm. “How many houses border this side of the woods?”
I pulled free, frowning. “I don’t know. Depends how far we’ve walked. I haven’t exactly been paying attention with you yapping in my ear.”
Mason lifted a hand, his finger pointing straight ahead between two thick oaks. “Look. There. Do you see that?”
I followed his line of sight, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. A faint glow cut through the trees. “Yeah. It looks like a light.”
“Let’s check it out, and then we get the hell out of here.”
Agreed.
We moved toward the light, the trees thinning and eventually giving way to a narrow stretch of open ground.
Summer cicadas buzzed all around us, their constant drone vibrating through the air.
A cottage finally came into view. Most of the house was dark, windows black and empty, but a single light burned on the second floor, bleeding through the half-drawn curtains.
“Looks like someone is home,” Mason muttered beside me behind the wide trunk of an old oak.
I didn’t answer because there was movement in the window, and I blinked, unable to believe what I was seeing.
Hales?
What the—
Mason glanced at me, and we shared the same holy-shit expression.
She stood framed by the light, dark hair loose and falling past her shoulders in wild waves.
Her posture was tense, one hand braced against the windowsill as she stared out into the night.
Had she seen us? It seemed highly unlikely, but just in case, I pressed closer to the tree trunk, the bark biting into my shoulder through my shirt.
Just great. The last thing I needed was to be caught peeping in her windows, and yet, I couldn’t look away. I watched her the way you watched a storm roll in, aware you shouldn’t stand there and yet completely fucking unable to stop.
Her gaze held steady on the tree line as if she was looking for something…or someone. The thought sent a thrill through my chest, hot and unwelcomed.
“I can’t say the view’s bad,” Mason murmured, a ghost of a smirk in his voice.
“Shut up,” I hissed. “Did you plan this?”
“You think I arranged for us to end up at her house so you could stare into her windows?”
It did sound far-fetched, but with Mason, I never knew.
Her hand fell from the windowsill as she pushed off the glass and stepped out of sight, the window going empty.
I released a breath. What is wrong with me?
I signaled to Mason that we needed to leave just as we heard a door swing open.
We froze, shielded by a tree. I risked a glance and saw Hales step out into the yard, bare feet hitting the grass.
The air caught the loose ends of her hair, lifting them just slightly as she crossed the yard, growing too damn close to discovering us.
My heart slammed against my ribs. What the hell is she doing?
“Hello?” she called out, her voice carrying across the yard.
Neither Mason nor I moved. He went rigid beside me, his body pressing against the trunk.
Is she insane? What girl in her right mind willingly ran into danger? She had no idea who was out here. What if it were kidnappers? There was only one other girl I knew who had the balls to charge straight into a fire with no thought of getting burned.
Kaylor.
Was that why Hales intrigued me?
Fearlessly, her eyes scanned the woods. “Hello! I know you’re out there!” She ran a hand through her hair. “Fine,” she huffed, aggravated. “Be a pussy. Don’t show yourself.” She flipped off the trees before turning and stomping back inside the house.
Exhaling, my breath came out shaky and uneven.
Mason chuckled. “That was exhilarating. Are we adding stalking to our criminal list?”
“Why not? We’re racking up quite the rap sheet,” I muttered, eager to get the hell away from her house.
He snorted. “Not to worry. We’ve got people on the police force to take care of that for us.”
Didn’t I know it. My father made sure crew members were planted in positions of power. It made it easier for my father to keep his hands clean while everything else stayed filthy. The thought sat bitter on my tongue.
“She’s going to get herself killed or kidnapped,” I muttered. Why was this girl suddenly everywhere I turned?
Shoving off the tree, Mason retraced our steps. “Freckles has balls, I’ll give her that.”
I rolled my shoulders back, trying to shake the stiffness settling there. “Well, she isn’t going to make it easy keeping her out of fucking trouble.”
Mason smirked as I fell in step beside him. “Reminds me of someone else I know.”
No kidding.
What the hell was with all these girls? Between Kaylor, Poppy, Kenny, Paisley, and now Hales, we were doomed. They were starting to outnumber us.
Mason came to a dead stop, and all I could think was what fucking now? “Did you hear that?” he hissed, keeping his voice low.
“Hear what?”
He hushed me, and I nearly gave him a black eye, but the snapping of a twig saved him. My head whirled to my right, catching a flash of movement between the trees, and my gaze zeroed in on a dark figure darting through the shadows.
“Fuck,” Mason said, lurching forward.
“Goddamn it,” I muttered and took off after him, my legs pumping hard, muscles burning as I launched myself into motion.
Branches tore at my arms, the rough bark scraping across exposed skin and catching on my shirt.
The ground dipped and rose unpredictably, but all those fucking drills Coach put us through came in clutch as I ducked and hurdled, avoiding roots that threatened to break my ankles.
I kept Mason in my sights, occasionally catching glimpses of whoever we were chasing
“Stop!” Mason shouted ahead of me, but it was useless. The runner wasn’t about to let us catch him.
We pushed harder anyway. My lungs burned, each breath coming shorter and shallower as my chest heaved. My shoes slid on damp leaves, the slick layer underneath threatening to send me sprawling with every stride. We climbed up a hill, and as I came to the top, I skidded to a stop beside Mason.
“Shit,” he growled. “I fucking lost him.” He bent forward, hands braced on his knees, breathing hard. “Where did he go?” he gasped out between breaths, his head swiveling left and right, searching the darkness.
I scanned the trees, listening for anything, but my ears picked up nothing. Just the ever-present buzz of cicadas and the whisper of leaves shifting in a breeze. “I don’t know,” I said, frustration coiling in my chest. “But Kreed is going to have our balls for losing him.”
“He couldn’t have gone far,” Mason said, straightening slowly, one hand still pressed against his side like he had a stitch. He kept searching, refusing to give up.
“Maybe,” I replied, turning in a slow circle, taking in the dense press of trees on all sides. “Or maybe he knows these woods better than we do.”
Mason wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, dragging his palm across his lips as he caught his breath, the exertion fading from his expression and replaced by hardness. “What I want to know is what they were doing at Freckle’s house.”
“Nothing fucking good,” I replied flatly. I turned back toward the direction of the cottage, my hands curling into fists at my sides, and tried to ignore the way my pulse was still racing for reasons that had nothing to do with the chase.
Mason followed my gaze, his expression darkening as he put the pieces together. “We need to figure out who it was,” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” I agreed, my voice rough. “We do.”
A few minutes passed in silence as we walked back to where we parked. Out of nowhere, Mason snapped his fingers, the sharp crack making me flinch. “I got it,” he announced as if he just had a come-to-Jesus moment.
I glanced at him warily, already regretting whatever was about to come out of his mouth. “I’m not in the mood, Mas, for any of your antics.”
He looked entirely too pleased with himself, ignoring my scowl wholly. “I’ve figured out your type.”
I scoffed. “I don’t have a type.”
“You’re into girls who are attracted to danger. Dark, man.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I muttered, trying to concentrate on the tangled path in front of me. As much as I hated it, as much as I wanted to shove the thought away and pretend it was just Mason being Mason…he might be onto something.
Maybe I did gravitate toward people who didn’t scare easily. Maybe that was who I needed, considering I wasn’t exactly the friendly type. I needed someone who wouldn’t bat an eye at the shit I’d seen.
The shit I’d done.
I clenched my jaw, teeth grinding together as I kept walking, the muscles in my neck pulling taut. The image of Hales in that window burned into my mind, her silhouette framed by pale light, the way she’d leaned into the glass, the way she’d walked barefoot into the night.
I huffed through my nose, and I kept hiking deeper into the woods, away from the cottage and the girl who didn’t know enough to stay inside where it was safe. It was going to be a long fucking night.