Page 39 of Pawn

If he can, if he does, he’ll make it so much easier to give in to these feelings. To know that I’m not gonna wake up one morning and have the rug pulled out from under me.

I want Damien King. I can’t deny it and everything leading up to this proves that. Including last night. My heart thuds against my chest, his kaleidoscope eyes making me weak.

“Fuck, Jo I—” A melody plays from his pocket and I’m begging him not to reach for that phone. He looks at, fist slamming against the rail before he picks up. “It’s Allie.”

I can hear her through the phone. “Do you guys see her?”

Shit. I take a peek over the rail, scanning the waterfront but I don’t see that head of black shiny hair anywhere. No headband in sight. Shaking my head I look back at Damien.

He sighs, “We would’ve told you if—”

“Wait,” I say, my eyes landing on a group of students following a tall man with round glasses and a goatee. They’re making their way into a glass building but one of them stops to look around. My eyes narrow. One with a red headband. “I see her.”

“We have a match.” Damien leans over the rail with me, his eyes scoping out the scene.

“A match?” I ask.

He glances at me, a smirk on his face. “Isn’t that what they say?”

“When you’re swiping on Flingster. Wait.” Now I’m curious. “Are you on Flingster?”

“Jealous?”

Ew. “Are you?”

“Guys!” Allie calls through the phone and when my eyes whip back to the building, Lea’s on her own.

“Go, Allie!” I say into Damien’s mic, the minute I do, the man with the goatee peeks through the door, calling to Lea. “Go, now!” My voice must carry because both Lea and the man look up at us.

“Fuck,” Damien mutters. My eyes are still on Lea when Allie arrives in a flash, grabbing her hand and running. Damien takes my hand in his, a shock in my palm. “C’mon, Rowland, we gotta move.”

We’re back in the lobby before I know it and on the way out, we bump right into Allie and Lea.

“Medusa?” Lea sounds surprised to see me.

“C’mon!” Damien yells, tugging me along, my heart racing.

Great. First a murder, now a kidnapping. If her teacher calls the cops, we’re fucking toast. I’m fucking toast.

Damien leads us into a narrow alley behind an iron fence, pulling me behind a dumpster. Allie and Lea push into the tiny spot with us. I’m out of shape, my breath as heavy as it was last night in the train bathroom.

“I don’t see anyone,” Damien says when he peeks around the green metal dumpster wall. “I’m gonna call a car and get us out of here.”

SMACK!

The sound echoes in the alley before I realize what’s happened, a stinging burn coming to my cheek. When I look ahead, Lea’s smirking. My fists clench and I’m about to deck her in the face before Allie comes between us. “You fucking slapped me!”

Damien shushes me.

“What the fuck, Lea?” Allie whispers.

“You clearly brought her here for me to slap her,” Lea says, eyes narrowing. “Because she’s the reason I’m in this hell-hole.”

Fine, I’ll take that. Maybe it’ll help to stop the guilt from what I did.

Damien shushes us again, tapping at his phone. “Lea, if you touch her again, we’re leaving you.”

It’s too easy to stick my tongue out at her from behind Allie before Lea reaches for me again.

---