Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
CALEB
Iwoke with my heart trying to pound from my chest. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. Then my brain caught up to my body.
I lay on Jesse’s side of the bed, clutching his pillow with my knees pulled to my chest like I was ready to cannonball over the edge.
I turned onto my back as I got my bearings. The house was quiet with the kind of absolute stillness that told me Jesse hadn’t returned. Outside the bedroom window, the light was the heavy, bloated glow of early evening.
Fuck. How long had I slept?
I sat up, and the sheet stuck to my sweaty back. More sweat dampened my hairline. My heart continued its wild gallop.
And the unease was back—or maybe it had never left. I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to shake the remnants of whatever nightmare had jolted me awake. The details were already fading, leaving only the lingering dread.
Where the hell was Jesse? I needed my phone.
Except I didn’t have it, of course. It was still defrosting on the jogging trail behind the college.
An image landed in my head without warning. The trail appeared, snow-covered and quiet in the amber light of dusk. Nathan Brooks and Aiden Cross walked down it side by side.
Except it wasn’t the jogging trail anymore. It was the path to Jesse’s patio.
The snow had vanished, the pavers dry and clean. The guys’ shoes scuffed against the stone. Fading sunlight turned Aiden’s red hair to fire.
I gave my head a single, hard shake. “Fucked up dream,” I muttered, sliding from the bed.
Nathan and Cross didn’t know where Jesse lived. They didn’t know anything about him. I’d slept too long, and my anxiety-riddled brain had supplied me with the nightmare fuel of Nathan and Cross rolling up to Jesse’s house like they were paying a social call.
I needed to find a phone and call Jesse. Grabbing a sweatshirt from the stack of clothes I’d piled on a chair next to my duffel bag, I yanked it over my head as I went to the door.
Voices froze me in place.
Nothing. The house was quiet. Maybe I was hearing things.
The voices drifted in the air again.
“…told you this was a stupid idea.”
My blood turned to ice. Because I knew that voice. I’d heard it countless times in workouts. In class. On the football field. Nathan Brooks was somewhere outside.
Cursing, I raced down the stairs and crossed the living room on bare feet. I hit the kitchen at a sprint, then stopped so abruptly that my feet squeaked on the hardwood.
Through the sliding glass doors, amber light washed over Jesse’s patio. The pavers were clean, the fire pit cold and dark. And there, exactly the way I’d seen them thirty seconds ago, were Nathan Brooks and Aiden Cross.
Nathan turned in a slow circle, his expression curious as he surveyed the back of the house. Cross stood with his arms folded and his jaw set, his red hair catching the light. Black circles made half-moons under his eyes. A thick piece of medical tape covered the bridge of his nose.
What the fuck were they doing here?
I pressed myself flat against the kitchen wall beside the sliders, my back to the cabinets, and made myself breathe. The kitchen was dark. They hadn’t seen me.
“This is stupid,” Cross said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Nathan faced him, indecision in his blue eyes. “Maybe we just leave it on the porch and go.”
It? My heart thumped harder.
A scowl twisted Cross’s features. “Why are you so obsessed with giving Lawson his phone?” He glanced up at the house. “You don’t even know who lives here.”
Relief blasted me. They didn’t know about Jesse. And they had my phone.
I needed it—but I really needed to get rid of them before anyone saw them standing in Jesse’s backyard.
I pushed off the wall, opened the slider, and stepped outside.
They both startled. Nathan took a swift step backward, confusion stamped on his features as he looked between me and the open slider. Aiden stood his ground, his ugly face even more swollen up close.
Good.
“Hey,” I said, my greeting aimed directly at Nathan. Because fuck Aiden Cross.
Nathan recovered quickly. “Hey, man.” He crossed the patio and pulled my phone from his pocket. “We found this on the jogging trail behind campus.”
“How?” I asked, taking it. The screen lit up, displaying my bland-ass factory setting wallpaper. I’d never liked a photo enough to want to stare at it multiple times a day.
Nathan cleared his throat. “Once we figured out it was yours, we pulled up the Find My app. You must have an AirTag on you or something. It led us here.”
My heart rate scaled a new peak. He was right.
I’d stuffed an AirTag in one of my duffel bag’s inner pockets at the start of the semester after I left it in my football locker one too many times.
The same duffel I’d taken from my parents’ house the night my mom hit me with the frying pan. I’d forgotten about the AirTag.
I’d been carrying a tracker ever since. Anyone who picked up my phone could have pulled up that app and watched a little blue dot travel from Hale Valley to Albany. They could have tailed me and Jesse to the restaurant. To his townhouse. They could have watched me come back here.
My parents could have done it.
“You okay?” Nathan asked, watching me stare at my phone. I looked at him, and he nodded toward the screen. “You should probably put a password on that or something.” He threw a glance at the house behind me. “You’re lucky it doesn’t have any water damage.”
“Thanks,” I said, pocketing the phone. I waited for them to leave. When they didn’t, I squared my shoulders. “You can go.”
Cross stepped forward. “Are you fucking serious?”
Nathan cut him a look. “Aiden—”
“Fuck you, Lawson,” Cross said, undeterred. His voice was thick and nasal, which probably had something to do with the tape holding it together. His eyes darkened as he glowered at me. “That’s it? You’re not even going to apologize?”
I shrugged. “That would require me to feel sorry.” And I wasn’t sorry about his face. Like, at all.
His cheeks turned the color of his hair. “You know we lost last night, right?” He took another step forward. “I couldn’t play because of what you did, you fucking asshole. So you screwed us twice, once when you quit like a bitch and again when you jumped me like a fucking psycho.”
The playoffs. Hale Valley had played last night. I’d been so…occupied that I hadn’t thought about football once. At least, not Hale Valley football.
Guilt settled over me. The team hadn’t been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round in years. Some of those guys were seniors. Last night had been their swan song. They’d never lace up cleats or put on pads again.
“Come on,” Nathan said, putting a hand on Cross’s arm. “We gave him the phone. We should go.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You should.”
Nathan’s expression went from concerned to pissed off. “Jesus, Lawson. You don’t have to be such a dick about everything.”
“Sure he does,” Cross said. He shrugged off Nathan’s hand and pinned me with a hateful look he’d clearly been storing up. “Lawson is all about dick. It’s his favorite thing.”
I was suddenly in front of him, my chest brushing his. I didn’t remember moving. Maybe I hadn’t. Maybe rage had carried me there. However I’d done it, I was done absorbing Aiden Cross’s slurs.
“Leave,” I growled, “or I’ll make the rest of your face match your nose.”
Cross laughed, the sound low and nasty. He turned away.
Then he spun back, fist flying. But I sidestepped quickly, and his punch sailed past my ear. Before he’d righted himself, I pivoted and popped him in the jaw.
His head snapped to the side. He staggered but stayed on his feet. Anyone else would have gone down.
He whirled, something ugly and humiliated flashing in his eyes before he came at me again. This time, he feinted, dropping his left shoulder.
Everything slowed.
I tracked the arc of his fist, every detail of the swing thrown into sudden, crystal-sharp focus as if someone had reached into my skull and adjusted a lens I hadn’t known was blurry.
I grabbed his fist and twisted his arm down. A crack split the air, the sound as sharp as a bat smacking a baseball, and I half-expected to hear the roar of a crowd.
Instead, the world sped up, and Cross’s cry of agony echoed around the patio. His legs folded, and he dropped to the ground. He rolled, arm clutched against his chest.
“Fuck!” he shouted. “Oh fuck!”
Strength flooded me. Every nerve ending stood at attention. My hands shook. My jaw ached, pressure building under my gums. Saliva pooled in my mouth. The scent of copper hit my nose. Rich like wine, it coated the back of my throat.
Cross flopped like a fish on the patio, curses and garbled cries spilling from him. A splintered bone protruded from a tear in his shirt. Red spread down his sleeve.
The pressure in my gums intensified. I leaned forward, my chest vibrating.
Because I was growling, I realized. Satisfaction spread through my mind. A wolf paced there, its form not quite visible but present all the same. Like catching something out of the corner of my eye.
Fangs ripped from my gums. The scent of blood thickened—a bouquet blooming under my nose. The wolf in my mind threw back its head and sang to the sky.
A loud gasp jerked my head up.
I blinked, and the patio came back in pieces. Sunlight intruded. The pavers were smooth and cool under my bare feet. The forest waited at the edge of Jesse’s backyard.
Nathan stood a short distance away, his gaze glued to my hand at my side. I lifted it, pain registering for the first time. My knuckles were ripped open. Blood smeared the back of my hand.
But the skin twitched. Slowly, it pulled together and sealed over, the wound healing before my eyes.
And Nathan’s.
Shit. I jerked my hand down and stepped toward him. “Nathan—”
“We’re leaving,” he said, announcing it like he needed to convince himself. He rushed to Cross and gripped him under the armpits. “Get up.”
Cross moaned as Nathan hauled him to his feet. Blood dripped from the cuff of his shirt. He staggered, his face the color of chalk. “Call the cops,” he said in a thin voice. “Nathan. Call the—”
“Later,” Nathan said, dragging him away from me. “Shut the fuck up, and let’s go.”
The wolf in my mind faded. The pressure in my mouth went with it. When I ran my tongue over my teeth, they were blunt and ordinary.
Cross stumbled, his good arm slung over Nathan’s shoulders, his broken one clutched against his chest. Nathan half-carried him across the patio in a lurching, graceless shuffle, Cross’s sneakers dragging against the pavers.
Neither of them looked back. They rounded the corner of the garage and disappeared, and a few seconds later I heard a car door slam, then another, then an engine turning over and tires on the driveway pulling away fast.
Then nothing.
Silence held. It was just me and the fading sunlight and the awful, hollow emptiness that follows a really bad decision.
“Later,” Nathan had said. They were going to call the police.
I turned and went inside. My hands started to shake, and it took me three tries to punch Jesse’s number into my phone. He answered on the first ring.
“Caleb.” His quick inhale was sharp over the line. “What’s wrong?”
I pressed my back against the kitchen wall and slid down until my ass hit the floor.
“I’ve done something,” I said.