Chapter 8 #2
We continue through a tunnel, and I look behind me for Dylan, but she must still be detained by Hunter.
Afraid Aro might pry for more info on my recent purchase, I search for a change of subject. “Have you ever seen an old black Dodge around town?” I call out to her.
I wanted to ask anyway, and now’s a good time to get information without the whole crew on top of us.
“Old?” She sweeps her hair up into a ponytail. “How old?”
“I don’t know cars that well,” I mumble. “Maybe ’60s or ’70s?”
We push our way out and through more inflatable columns.
After a pause, she finally asks, “Why do you want to know?”
Why aren’t you answering the question?
“I was jogging the other night,” I tell her. “It…”
I don’t want to make her worry too.
“I just didn’t recognize it but thought it looked familiar,” I say, side-stepping it. “You all know everyone with a car, so I thought I’d ask.”
She turns, and I can’t tell if she bought that or not. Aro’s smart.
“There’s a ’72 black Dodge from Weston,” she finally tells me. “An auto-shop car at the high school. Lots of people drive it.”
An auto-shop car…
Okay. That makes me feel better, at least. It was just kids pulling a prank.
A crowd comes crashing in behind me, and Aro hops over a little wall to get out of the way.
A blond head rushes me, and a breath catches in my throat, seeing Lucas, but it’s just Noah.
“Wanna jump?” he asks, leaping up and down.
My face has fallen, but I quickly soften my expression to answer.
Farrow walks past, interjecting, “You just want to see boobs bounce,” he tells Noah.
“Are you talking?” Noah gripes. “Again?”
I drop my eyes, double-checking my breasts are still fully in the top. I wasn’t worried till now.
I start to cross my arms over my chest, suddenly self-conscious, but I lower them again, not wanting to be awkward.
Noah must’ve seen my insecurity because he removes his T-shirt and hands it to me.
I look at it. Then him.
His soft smile reaches his eyes, not a single hint of a hidden agenda written on his face. He’s nice, isn’t he?
I take the shirt, gazing at his tanned chest and thick arms. Dylan says he used to chop a lot of wood, but I wasn’t sure if she meant something sexual.
“Thanks,” I tell him.
I slip the shirt over my head and he darts off, catching Codi as she and Mace fall down a wall.
He grips her waist from behind. “Gotcha.”
She looks over her shoulder, that same doe-eyed, silent expression fixed on him as on everyone, including me at the shop all day.
He sets her down, but no sooner does he let her go than Farrow grabs the waist of her jeans and yanks her back to him.
“Did you ask for his help?” he growls, his eyes on Noah, his mouth next to her ear.
She shakes her head slowly, and I frown, ready to intervene.
She’s Weston. Same as Farrow. I know they’re territorial about their people, but…
“You want him touching you?” Farrow asks her.
Another head shake.
Codi stands frozen, not even trying to get free, and although I spent several minutes in Farrow’s company today, wondering how he can be a criminal, it doesn’t seem like a stretch now. He changes faces quickly.
I reach over to grab her away from him, but in the same instant, he releases her. Following her over the wall, he disappears out of sight.
I realize I’m breathing in short, quick bursts, and I’m more grateful for my new place now. I’ll be keeping an eye on her. I don’t know if that was for Noah’s sake, or if Farrow purposely intimidates her on a regular basis, but I don’t like it.
Maybe Noah is exactly what she needs.
“She works for me.” I walk with him. “You should stop by.”
“I’d rather blow a pinecone than fuck with whatever that was.”
I let my mouth fall for a moment before I break into laughter. I guess with Farrow keeping a leash on every Weston citizen, it might be more trouble than Noah cares to invite. Understandable.
He gently nudges me in my stomach. “Hurry.”
Then he rolls over the wall, somersaulting into the next section.
I like him. He’s easy to be around. Easier than Lucas.
And so is Farrow. He’s flirtier than Noah, but I never dreaded dealing with him when we were together today. He never made me uncomfortable.
Except, of course, during the episode with Codi just now.
I need people around me who aren’t family. Not that I can’t count on every Trent and Caruthers, but for my own sense of autonomy, I need to not need them for everything.
Farrow will stay firmly in the friend zone. He’s not serious enough. I would never be certain if he really liked me, or if I was just a game.
Noah, though… I don’t know.
Maybe…
But…my heart never stops when he looks at me. Not like it does with…
I stop, clenching my teeth. Stop thinking about him! Why is he in every other thought? Damn.
“What do you mean ‘it’s locked?’” I hear Kade snap from somewhere.
I jerk my head toward his voice.
“Carnival Tower!” I hear Hawke grit out. “I just came from there, and it’s fucking closed up.”
I stop and veer to the makeshift window with netting separating me from the outside. I press myself to the wall next to it, hearing them out on the grass.
“I don’t understand,” Dylan says.
“What don’t you understand?” Hawke sounds out of breath. “I can’t get in. Quinn warned me about renovations she’s planning, so I went to clear out some essentials, and I was locked out!”
Carnival Tower. So that’s what they call it.
I fold my lips between my teeth to stifle my amusement.
“You tried the roof?” Hunter chimes in.
“Oh, yeah,” Hawke mocks. “Should’ve done that. Completely forgot.” Then, in a bark, “Yes, I tried the roof! I tried Rivertown too. The phones are in there, and I haven’t finished gathering the data from the one left at Quinn’s shop!”
I stand up straight. The phone left at my shop? I lock my jaw. Hawke took that phone from Lost and Found?
What the hell is going on? My lungs swell with pain. The fuck?
What other phones? What data? What the fuck are they doing?
“It’s Manas or Deacon,” Dylan speaks up next. “It has to be. One of them left her the phone, just like they’ve kept leaving us phones, so we know they’re around.”
“At least one of them,” Hunter adds.
Manas and Deacon… Are they dangerous?
“Why would they lock us out now, after years?” Aro questions.
“Because they’re using it now?” Hunter offers.
Someone else breathes out, “Fuck.”
Manas and Deacon. Two people they know who have been leaving them phones. For what? Phones like the one that was left at my shop? Old ones?
It’s not these two characters who locked them out of the tower, but someone did leave the phone at my shop. That man the other night. The one in the suit who stayed late and didn’t speak.
He left it for me to find. He has access to the hideout? My chin trembles.
“It’s time to tell her,” Kade says.
“Manas won’t hurt her.”
“And if it’s Deacon?” he retorts.
“It’s not a coincidence that they leave another phone and lock us out right after she returns home,” Hawke states.
My mind swims. Have these men been watching me?
Dylan whispers, “She looks like Winslet.”
My God. I don’t know what to think. It’s all coming too quickly.
“And she just asked me about the ’72 black Dodge,” Aro tells them.
I bow my head, leaning into the wall again. A tear spills over. They’re all having this conversation about me without me. It’s like this secret life they all lived and didn’t include me. Why?
Fucking pairs.
“It was following her the other night,” Aro goes on. “Who’s in possession of it?”
“I have no idea,” Hunter tells her. “I haven’t seen it in a year. I’ll ask Farrow.”
“Discreetly.”
“We should’ve told her ages ago,” Dylan chides. “She’s there a lot and alone. It was never one hundred percent safe.”
“We weren’t sure they were sneaking into the tower,” Hawke argues.
But Kade barks. “Bullshit!”
My mind races with all this new information.
Two men they seem to know, but are scared of, sneak into the hideout and leave clues for them, for what?
That story they’re puzzling together on the wall inside?
How could they be so stupid? To put themselves in danger and me, unknowingly.
It’s like I’m… Like I’m their fathers, whom they didn’t trust to not react.
Damn right, I would’ve. And I did. They’re never getting back in there.
Hawke lowers his voice. “It’s the Night Ride.”
“What?” Aro asks.
“Aro said she asked about the black Dodge,” he points out. “Carnival Tower, Rivalry Week, and The Night Ride. The next chapter.”
What does that mean?
I stand there, listening for more, but I don’t hear anything. I peek out the window, and they’re gone.
I stumble into another bounce house, wandering and lost in thought.
How long has all of this been going on? Hawke talked me out of removing the mirror years ago, before I went away to college.
I can’t even begin to list all the reasons I’m pissed.
And who are Manas and Deacon? I’ll go back into the Tower later, see if I can make sense out of the mystery they have strung together on the wall.
Two strangers concerns me, but if my own family didn’t warn me… And who is Winslet? The girl in the photo rises to the front of my mind.
You make me wanna die.
She was pretty. Where is she now?
There’s a mystery in the tower and strangers coming and going, and my nieces and nephews don’t think I know anything.
I stand there, swaying with the bouncing, and…
They don’t think I know anything.
I smile a little.
What should I do?
Minutes pass, A.J. and James fly through, and we bounce. Maybe I’ll pull a prank of my own on Hawke and the rest. I leap high and race Noah over the rock wall and follow Farrow, both of us somersaulting through a tunnel with a water sprinkler. Maybe I’ll figure out the next chapter he talked about.
I laugh and sweat and let it go, the promise of new nights in my new house ahead of me, and for a second, I let myself stop counting the minutes.
I collapse in an orange tunnel, hair in my face, Noah’s T-shirt sticking to my skin.
The pizza. Shit.
But for some reason, I don’t vault up and out of the bounce house. Dreamy images of my—hopefully—new bedroom with the leaky roof and the raw, unvarnished floor consume my thoughts.
You make me wanna die. His whisper hits my lips.
Yes.
That’s where I would take him. To my new bedroom floor.
“Quinn?”
And I open my eyes.
Lucas? His voice rings in my head like a dream I’m not sure was real.
But then he calls again, just behind me. “Quinn?”