Page 104 of Deviant

Instead of being annoyed, Davenport smiles at Elias as if he just told him his favorite joke.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time, Larsen. I hope you packed some smokes for the trip because where you’re going won’t have any such luxuries.”

“Oh, I think I’ll manage. There are loads of other things my mouth can entertain itself with,” Elias goads, looking over at Mackenzie.

My heart drops at the insinuation while Davenport’s nostrils flare in anger.

“You touch a hair on her head, and I’ll kill you myself.”

“See? That’s going to be a hard thing to accomplish seeing as you just said you have no idea where we are off to. Don’t worry, mayor. I’ll take good care of your daughter. Yours too, sheriff. I’ll take good care of both of your little angels.” Elias winks.

Unlike Mayor Davenport, my father doesn’t rise to the provocation.

I, however, don’t see Elias’s remark amusing in the slightest.

I mean, could he actually be into Mackenzie?

She’s barely eighteen.

And she’s been with Aidan.

So have you, or are you forgetting that little tidbit?

I bite the inside of my cheek, trying my best to keep my composure intact.

‘Elias is here for me. No one else. I just know it,’ I reassure myself.

“So what now?” Andy, my homeroom colleague, asks, fastening his watch around his wrist.

“Now we wait for dawn,” Davenport says, staring at the clock tower above him. “Which should be right about… now.”

Just as he says it, all our watches ding to life simultaneously. I look down at it and see a compass with flashing numbers just below it.

“They’re coordinates,” says a girl whose name I have yet to learn.

“And how exactly are we supposed to follow the coordinates without a map?” Ruby scolds.

“You walk,” my father explains, his eyes on me.

Everyone just stares at him while I do exactly as he says and start walking. The minute I do, the large compass minimizes to the left part of the screen, and a map appears in its place, only showing a few feet.

“It’s some sort of GPS tracker. It will show us the way but only by a couple of feet. We won’t know where we are going until it wants us to,” I explain, showing the map on my phone to the two boys beside me.

“Nicely done, Rowen,” Mayor Davenport praises while my father bows his head.

“So, does this mean we’ve started?” Mackenzie asks, speaking for the first time we’ve been gathered together.

“That’s exactly what it means, darling,” her father explains, going over to her and giving her a huge hug. He whispers something in her ear, probably an ‘I love you’ or something along those lines, but I’m too busy staring at my own father to pay any attention.

Since he doesn’t come to me, I walk over to him.

“So I guess this is it,” I start, nervously kicking the air at my feet.

“I guess it is,” is his clipped retort. “Safe travels.”

“Safe travels?” I stammer unbelievingly. “Is that all you’re going to say to me?”

He turns his head to the side, giving me his answer.

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