Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
All the air rushed from my lungs. “Holy shit.”
Max sighed. “Oh, relax.”
“Holy shit. I can’t—” I fidgeted, practically vibrating with the urge to run from the car. “This is bad. This is so, so bad.”
Another sigh assured me Max didn’t share my feelings. “You’re being dramatic.”
“That’s easy for you to say!” I hissed at him. “You’re not the one in handcuffs!”
He smirked, huffing a laugh and leaning back against the side of the car. “Not my fault.”
“Yes, it is!” I whisper-shouted at him, my voice rising as anxiety slowly shifted to panic. “It’s absolutely your fault for working out so much your wrists don’t fit standard handcuffs, you—Ugh! You big brute!”
With a shrug, he turned his attention to the police cruiser parked behind us. I kept my face firmly turned away.
Even with the flashing red and blue lights turned off now, the last time I’d been near a police car, interacting with an officer, was the night of my dad’s accident.
I squeezed my eyes shut and moaned.
Every move I made twisted the cuffs, digging the metal into the sensitive skin of my wrists.
“He’s going to let us go, right?”
Another shrug.
I growled under my breath. “This is all your fault. If you weren’t being such a stubborn, evasive pain in my ass, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”
He snorted. “Typical.”
“You were the one speeding like a lunatic. It’s not my fault I panicked. You know how my dad died, you asshole.”
Guilt flashed across his features, but he quickly shuttered his expression. “Still a crybaby, I see.”
I ignored this newest in a long line of continued attempts to bait me at every possible turn. Forcing myself to take a deep breath, I slumped against the side of the car.
As we stood there in silence, waiting for the cop to return, I eyed his partner. He hovered nearby, within earshot but not on top of us. That had to be a good sign.
Maybe I wasn’t about to get arrested for lack of restraint.
In my defense, I’d been completely panicked, and the only thing I could think to do to distract myself was focus on something else. Toying with Max and trying to get him to unravel seemed like the most reasonable thing to do.
So, sue me!
I didn’t know leaning over the center console would get us pulled over. And, of course, since life hadn’t thrown me a lemon in a while, Max picked the exact moment we passed a cop car to drop his guard, and I, being the eager beaver that I was, pounced on him.
Just in case it was my only chance to make a move.
It would’ve been fine, too, if the asshole hadn’t made a comment about how much he loooved getting road head.
I had been hidden until then, but I snapped my head up, hit his chin, and he swerved.
Although he’d easily corrected the swerve, I went into full-blown panic once the red and blue lights flashed behind us.
I had no idea what I’d been thinking.
Max’s stubborn refusal had driven me up a wall.
By the time the cops pulled us over, I was hyperventilating with my head between my knees. I couldn’t breathe. And I needed to get out and get some air.
So, I did what anyone in my position would’ve done.
I bolted from the car.
Max huffed a laugh, as if he’d read my thoughts. “You’re lucky I didn’t let them tase your ass.” He shook his head and side-eyed me. “Probably should’ve. Would’ve knocked you out for a bit and saved me a giant headache.”
“You wouldn’t have dared. Electro Play was on my list of hard limits, and as much as you claim to hate everything, you don’t break the rules.”
He narrowed his gaze, smirking cruelly. “Don’t I, though?”
My brow furrowed. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I told you that you needed to leave. I told you Camelot Court was no place for you, and you didn’t listen.
And now? I get the honor of forcing the issue.
Instead of spending time with my soon-to-be fiancée, I’m stuck on the side of the road, making you do what you should’ve done to begin with but refused to do. ”
“How is that relevant to my point? And better yet! You don’t honestly expect me to believe that, do you?”
“Believe what?”
“That you’d rather be spending time with Vivian? That you’re excited about your shiny, new future. Give me a fucking break, Max.” I scoffed and angled my body away from him. “If you want to lie to yourself and pretend everything between us was a lie, go right ahead. But save your breath with me.”
He stared at me, his gaze burning into the side of my face, but he stayed silent until I finally turned back to face him.
“You need to let go of what happened between us, Quinn. The Honor Challenge is over. Courage? It doesn’t matter, and it won’t get you anywhere with me. We’re in the Nobility Challenge now, and—”
I opened my mouth to argue, and he shook his head.
“No.” It came out like an order. “Let me finish. Then you can speak.”
Keeping my lips sealed, I forced a breath out my nose to make my annoyance clear. He waited a few seconds to be sure I wasn’t going to interrupt again and continued his big speech.
“You were fun to play with for a little, but—We’re from different worlds, and you could never be what I need.” He emphasized his next statement. “I picked a different path. I didn’t choose you.”
The finality in his tone struck like a punch.
Tears pricked my eyes, and I sniffed them away.
He sighed. “I’m trying not to be an asshole, but I don’t know how else to say it other than to force you to face the truth and stop lying to yourself.”
I sucked in a tight breath.
“You don’t belong in our world. You weren’t born for this, groomed for it, and you don’t have what it takes to survive it.
Do I have to spell it out for you? Draw a list of her skills and assets and compare them to yours?
Is that what it’ll take for you to move on instead of…
” He gestured over where I stood. “Whatever all this is.”
“No,” I croaked, fighting to steady my voice. “I got you, Max. Loud and clear.”
He narrowed his gaze on my face, and with a curt nod, he turned away.
With my head to the right, my hair fell across my face and shielded me from his view. A tear slipped down my cheek, but it should’ve been more.
Because I had no idea that it would only get worse.
The cop returned from the police cruiser holding up my crossbody. “This yours?”
I kept my mouth shut, still fighting back tears and running through what I’d been told to do by Gia’s dad if I got pulled over. Of course, in those scenarios, I hadn’t fled the car like a madwoman in a state of panic.
“Yes, officer,” Max chimed in for me. “Like I mentioned, it’s her crossbody. Her inhaler should be inside with her name on it and everything.”
“I need that if you don’t mind.” I spoke without thinking, then I narrowed my eyes at Max. “Hey, how did you—?”
As if watching a horror movie play out in real life, Max curved his lips into a slow smile that twisted my gut with anxiety, and the officer unzipped my bag to get my inhaler.
“Wait! Don’t!” I cried.
But it was too late.
The officer lifted my inhaler out of the bag, and his eyes widened. After handing the inhaler off to Max, he reached back in and pulled out a small plastic bag.
He held it up for both of us to see. “I’m afraid you’ll be coming with us to the station, Miss Everly.”
I gaped, swiveling my gaze from the small bag of white powder in the officer’s hand to Max Dread.
“That’s not mine!”
I cried out while Max just stood there with a shocked expression. The picture of innocence. I growled, realizing how bad that sounded and pleading with the officer.
“I mean, I don’t even know what that is or how it got there. He’s setting me up! You have to believe me!”
The officer pierced me with his stare.
Then read me my Miranda Rights.
Four hours later, Gia, along with her mom and dad, picked me up from the Mosaic Falls Police Station, where I’d been fingerprinted, photographed for My First Mugshot, and detained for a bogus charge of possession of a controlled substance and possession of a fake ID.
Even though I was twenty-one, and I had no need for a fake ID, it was still illegal to possess one.
Max had hidden that little gem inside my crossbody, too.
It didn’t matter how many times I told the perfectly pleasant officers that I’d never seen that fake driver’s license.
It didn’t matter that the photo used in it matched my application photo for The Quest exactly, and it certainly didn’t matter that I could prove it because Max had conveniently dropped my phone somewhere between taking it from me and getting pulled over.
Wherever he’d hidden it, it couldn’t be found.
He handed the officers the keys without complaint, and save for one compartment that they couldn’t unlock, their search came up completely empty. My phone had disappeared into thin air.
Suspicious, of course.
And I didn’t appreciate the side-eyes I got from the officers over it.
Despite the curses and threats I’d made to Max Dread’s person, he’d remained unaffected. He waggled his fingers as they carted me away and made some bullshit comment about being out of napkins for me to dry my tears.
Then he left me there.
I tried to push the fury aside. Tried to tell myself it was a sick joke. That at any second he’d come waltzing through the precinct doors and clear my name.
He never showed.
As soon as Gia’s parents signed my paperwork, and the friendly officer escorted me around the counter, Gia lunged.
Our arms locked around each other—mine around her waist, and hers around my shoulders. Her hands came up to my head and pulled my face into her. And just as she’d expected, a sob wrenched out of me.
I shuddered from the release.
Holding my breath to contain the rest, I choked back each sob. Squeezed my eyes shut, as if that might stop the tears.
Pressure built inside my head. It cracked my chest. Pierced through the illusion of safety I’d felt with Max since our time at the cabin.
And shattered it.