Page 211 of Forbidden Lessons

He pats my chest. “Got hold of Melissa. She said Rooke’s got her.”

I frown at him. “Rooke’s got who?”

iPhone frowns right back. “Your girl, Haven.” Then he looks up past me, nods, and pats me again. “We’re heading back to the frat house.”

I catch his wrist as just before he can slither out of view. “No.”

“Yeah.” He reappears, jaw clenching. “Yeah, man. Safest place right now.”

“Haven.” Seeing how high he’s rolling makes me feel even more fucked. But I push through, because this shit’s important. “Gotta find Haven.”

“Yeah, told you. Rooke’s got her.”

Rooke.

Professor Rooke?

“Why?”

“Why?” iPhone parrots back. “Man…I dunno. Hospital?”

Hospital.

I sit up like Dracula rising from his fucking coffin. “Take me there. Now.”

“Probably where Ezra’s headed too,” Kruger calls out from the front a moment before the sweet scent of weed fills the Escalade’s cab. “Dude, you okay to drive?”

“No fucking way, man,” iPhone says, disappearing again. “You?”

“Yeah, sure. I don’t do drugs like you chumps.”

“And the weed?”

“What about it?” Kruger says, laughing.

“Don’t mess up my car.”

“Don’t mess up my vibe.”

The Escalade’s engine rumbles under me, and I have to force my eyes to stay open. We accelerate, my body rolling back and forward every time Kruger brakes or hits the gas.

Street lights flash through the window above my head, and it feels like I’m being scanned by some intergalactic being.

A thought I quickly shove out of my head before it can grow legs and infest my mind.

But when I crowd out all other thoughts, it’s just Haven.

Blond-haired, blue eyed, five-year-old Haven pouting at me because I told her she can’t play the part of Columbus, she has to be Jane. Because she’s a girl. And because I don’t want to be a girl.

Dark-blond Haven, almost sixteen years old. Wringing her hands, biting her lip, waiting for me to answer her. And my heart pounding, pounding, as I say yes. Yes to her fucked up plan, yes to her blue eyes I’d fallen in love with many, many years ago.

Mousy-brown Haven. Nineteen years old. Naked, collared, leashed.

I grab the back of the seat and haul myself up. “Where is she?”

Kruger glances at me in the rearview mirror. iPhone has his arm slung over the back of Kruger’s seat and rests his chin on his arm as he looks at me over his shoulder.

“Bro, that’s where we’re?—“

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