Page 64 of Kade

Park Sebastian.

A fucking secret society.

Logan dealt with Rankin

Jared Caldron.

Adam Quinn.

The last battle had been with ourselves, with our own uncertainty until we got our act together. Since then, there’d been challenges, but normal life struggles. We’d been blessed.

“We need to change things.”

Logan looked my way, raising an eyebrow.

“Look at us.” I motioned to Allen’s house. “What we’re going to do. This is the old us. We got out, and not once did I need to contemplate violence. If my family is going to stay here in Fallen Crest, we need to make changes.”

“What are you saying?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just—Maddy talked to me about needing to gear up for war. That’s how we used to talk. It’s how I used to think. I don’t want Maddy to grow up like that.”

Logan frowned. “Some of that is normal. I can’t think that high school is much different than any other place.”

“Yeah, but we’re adults, and we’re still here. I don’t want Maddy to be fighting like this when she’s an adult. Or in college. Nash. Nolan. They’re normal kids.”

“Nolan’s not quite normal,” he said lightly. “Neither is Maddy.”

I amended my statement. “They have an innocence that we didn’t at their age. I don’t want them to lose that. Maddy’s already losing it.”

“I love my goddaughter, but you’re wrong about her.” Logan inclined his head, holding my gaze. “Maddy’s coming alive since you’ve been here.”

“What do…” I stopped, though, because I knew. I knew what he was going to say.

“It’s the same for us,” he continued. “Fallen Crest is like a fire. Normal people learn to stay away from it, to circle it with caution. But not us. You. Me. Sam. Maddy has it too. The fire draws us closer. It demands that we change, morph into who we need to be—not to survive, but to thrive. Maddy doesn’t know she’s changing, but she is. You can’t snuff out that fire because it’s already gotten inside of her. The same thing is going to happen to the twins. If Taylor and I move back, it’ll happen to Sammy. And my next kid, I’m sure.” He grunted. “You saw Max. It’s in Heather and Channing. Their kids. Max knows it’s in him. I think that’s why he tries to be a good kid. You saw him fight the other night. He became who we are when he fought.”

That grim feeling deepened in me. “He has his own monster inside.”

“No. I don’t think it’s a monster. It’s like a bloodlust not to submit, not to just survive, but to become who we need to be so no one rules over us.”

I shrugged. Maybe. Maybe not. I didn’t know what it was, but something affected all of us. And maybe we were normal after all, this would change anyone…

Just then a truck pulled into Zeke Allen’s driveway. He was home.

As he drove into his garage, Logan and I moved as one, pulling black ski-masks over our faces. Getting out of the Escalade, we darted across the road.

Everything had been planned to the last detail.

Zeke’s wife was invited out with Heather and Taylor. The kids were offered to be babysat by Malinda and David since they were already watching the other kids. And for Zeke, Nate called him for a job—a request to look into Quincey’s father’s files because Nate wanted to make sure her father couldn’t make trouble for them again.

It was a lie, but it would get Allen where we needed him. Home and alone.

We’d considered questioning Allen as ourselves, Mason and Logan Kade. Logan was for that. I wasn’t. Zeke Allen put me up on a pedestal. He didn’t see me as a person. He saw something else. That meant I wouldn’t get the version of Zeke Allen everyone else got. And if we were going to do this—question him, blackmail, threaten, whatever we would end up needing to do—I wanted to meet the Zeke Allen everyone else knew.

I wanted the real Zeke Allen. So that meant we’d do this as strangers.

He was already inside as Logan and I rolled under his garage door, right before it clicked into place.

A weird sense of déjà vu settled over me, and I saw it in Logan as well. It was that part of us that rose up when we were in Fallen Crest, that needed to do things like this. The fire to thrive, how Logan had put it.

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