CHAPTER SIX #2
This might be the greatest lesson of all—finding out that Wyatt, of all people, is here with the men who kidnapped me, collared me, humiliated me.
The men who killed Ryder.
There’s no such thing as safe people. There’s only what people want from you. And what they’ll take to get it.
I close my eyes and press my knuckles into my sternum, trying to tamp down the ache.
I always fucking do this. I see someone kind, someone good, and I believe it. Like it’ll be different this time. Like I’m not the girl who gets abandoned. Used. Passed around.
Like I deserve something more.
But I don’t.
“Maze is fucking hot,” Peach says to Rox. “That silver fox with the clipboard’s not bad, either.”
Rox lifts her sunglasses and squints.
“Oh yeah, that’s Ryan,” she says casually.
She watches him for a beat longer, then shifts her attention to me. Her tone is light, but there’s a careful look to her eyes, like she’s fitting puzzle pieces together in her head.
“You know him, right?”
My pulse kicks.
I thought I knew him. Once. But apparently I don’t know Wyatt—or Ryan, or whatever his name is—at all.
“No,” I say, dropping my eyes. “I don’t know him.”
Because I don’t.
Rox doesn’t say anything, but I can feel her eyes on me, like she’s waiting for something else.
Then she leans back in her chair and only says: “Oh.”
I don’t say another word. Because if I do, I might scream.
By the time the weed kicks in, I feel loose—mellow, a little foggy, but not gone. Not like last night. It's not enough of an escape. My body is warm, my brain a little soft, but I can still think. Still feel. And I don’t want to.
I guess Peach feels the same, because she flips over on the mattress and looks up at Rox.
“We should do Molly,” she declares, grinning.
Rox pushes her sunglasses into her hair and sits up with a groggy smile.
“You’re goddamn right we should,” she says, and Peach whoops. “Say less.”
Then she turns to me, hair wild and glowing in the sun. “Whaddya think, Max? You wanna roll?”
I shrug, casual, like it’s no big deal. I barely know what that means. Other than the occasional joint, I’ve never touched anything stronger. I used to care about my body, my choices, my future. I used to worry. But right now I don’t care about anything except the next escape hatch.
“Absolutely,” I say.
Rox stretches and walks to the edge of the roof, cupping a hand to her mouth. “Maze!”
Down in the yard, the men glance up. Maze grins and says something to Wyatt, then peels off toward the building.
But Wyatt is the one I feel.
He looks up, directly at me. Focused and stern, like he’s trying to tell me something with his eyes alone. Something urgent. I stare back, unwilling to flinch. If he’s trying to signal me, I don’t care. I want him to know I see him. I see everything now.
But when his gaze doesn’t break, my stomach turns.
I blink and look away. My heart’s thudding, and I hate that it is.
Rox drops down onto her stomach and leans off the edge. “Do you have Molly, babe?” she calls down to Maze. “Bring us some!”
She climbs back onto her lounge chair, grinning, and then reaches over to high-five Peach.
A few minutes later, the window creaks open and Maze climbs out onto the roof with a wrinkled sandwich bag in one hand and two bottles of water in the other. Rox greets him with a squeal and a kiss, then loops an arm around his waist.
“Ladies,” he says, gravel-voiced and amused. “Got your happy pills.”
“Bless you,” says Peach, already reaching out.
He crouches down and hands a white pill to each of us, then cracks open one of the water bottles and passes it around to chase it.
“Oh, Max,” Rox says, gesturing lazily between us with her half-smoked joint. “This is Maze. Maze, Max.”
Maze gives me a warm smile. “Nice to meet you—formally.”
I give him a wry smile back, a tacit acknowledgment of the irony of meeting each other when we slept in the same bed, and try not to think about how I’d watched him come in Rox’s mouth last night in the dark.
By the time dusk settles over the yard, I’m high as hell.
Not like last night. not floaty or numb, but wide open.
Buzzed and lit from the inside, like my bones are vibrating with joy.
The edge of hopelessness has dulled to nothing.
Everything feels soft and golden, like the world’s been dipped in honey and filtered through rose-colored glass.
The sky is streaked pink and lavender, the air is warm and thick with the scent of dry grass and sunburnt asphalt. The men—including Wyatt—have finished loading the crates into the storehouse below us and now we’re the only ones outside.
Rox and I are lying face to face on the mattress, grinning, breathless. She’s telling me she can see me—really see me. The strength under the pain. The fire under the wreckage. I’m telling her she’s soft in the best ways, pure and open and free.
Peach is curled up in Maze’s lap, running her fingers along his tattoos like she’s studying them. Occasionally they kiss. Rox doesn’t mind. She barely notices.
My skin feels electric, my heart steady and calm. The world hasn’t disappeared, but the sharp edges have dulled. Everything I was feeling earlier about Wyatt, about the club, about my whole fucked-up life, feels far away. Like something that happened to someone else.
Rox shifts closer, her eyes glassy and bright. Her fingers brush over my shoulder, then stop at the collar around my neck. She tilts her head, considering.
“This thing,” she murmurs, “is bumming me out. Let’s free you.”
Before I can respond, her hands are at the clasp.
Her movements are unhurried but sure, and then it’s gone.
The visceral relief of having the collar taken off makes a shiver go up my spine.
The weight around my neck disappears. The hot skin gets a brush of cool air. I draw out a long, luxurious exhale.
“Better,” Rox whispers. She presses her forehead to mine. “You don’t belong to anybody, Max. You’re a person.”
Emotion swells in my chest and Rox cups my face and kisses my cheek, soft and slow. “I love you,” she whispers.
“Guys,” Peach says suddenly from the lounger she’s sharing with Maze. “I wanna go find Billy.”
She stands up and Maze looks up at her and smiles like she’s made of light. “You look too good not to be in that man’s bed, sweetheart.”
Peach turns to me, momentarily sheepish. “Is that, like…okay with you?”
“Of course,” I say, laughing before I even mean to. “Just…be careful, okay? Protect your heart. You deserve better.”
Peach’s eyes go wide. “No, Billy’s great,” she counters. “He’s so sweet. Like…unexpectedly sweet.”
My brow furrows. I want to scream no he’s fucking not, but Maze stands before I can respond.
“We should all go inside,” he says. “Sun’s going down. Let’s get off this roof before we forget how to climb down.”
I let Rox take my hand and pull me up. We pack up our stuff and it feels like we’re finishing a picnic on another planet.
I pick up the collar and fling it off the roof with a wild whoop.
Rox whoops with me. Maze claps. Peach giggles and twirls. Then one by one, we climb through the window.
And head back down to earth.