Page 351 of Filthy Elites

His lips tug up. It’s the first trace of an expression since he hauled me out of my house. “That won’t work on me, mermaid. I guarantee I can stare at you longer than you can stare at me without looking away.”

Just hearing him call me mermaid is like a balm on my frayed nerves. “Dare,” I say cautiously, reaching a hand over and touching his thigh. I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel a desperate need to reach him. “What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Why is she here? Please, tell me what’s happening.”

I’m hopeful for an answer this time. A magical answer, I guess, because it would have to make sense of a whole lot.

Why is Anae here?

Why is Dare being so cold to me?

Where is he taking me?

Why is she following him in my car?

It would take a magical answer to explain all of that and not be something horrible.

I’m having a very strong and very real fear that Dare isn’t on my side right now, and I have no fucking idea what to do with that.

He has backup, and I don’t even have shoes.

THIRTY-NINE

Aubrey

My first mistakemay have been getting into the car with him, but my second—and arguably worse—mistake was not opening the car door and jumping out back when we were on residential roads and I could have run to someone’s front door screaming for help.

The road we’re on now is curved and dark. A distracted driver could easily veer right off the road and plummet into the dark abyss of the ocean below, never to be seen again.

I’m crying again, but he doesn’t seem to care.

My stomach churns violently as I try to figure out where I stand so I can figure out what to do.

I’m completely lost.

I don’t know where we are in Baymont—ifwe’re even still in Baymont—and I don’t know why the man who claims to love me seems to be betraying me.

I tell myself it can’t be that. Itcan’t.

But what the hell do I do if it is?

He hasn’t spoken to me again since he called me mermaid. I keep waiting for the Dare I know and love to make an appearance, but all I get is a fucking stone-faced, unfeeling monster.

That thought frees a different set of memories.

The ones I wasn’t there for.

As much as it kills me to admit, thereisstill a side of Dare I’ve never seen.

I wasn’t there the night he attacked Rina.

I wasn’t there the night he threatened Hannah.

Even though Dare has vaguely threatened and hurt me before, maybe it wasn’t the same when he did it to them. I tried not to think about it, not especially wanting to see him in that light, but when he threatened Hannah, he couldn’t have been kissing her jaw and letting just enough malice creep into his tone to make her realize she had better toe the line or risk unleashing him. That’s how he threatened me because we’re in a relationship, but…

And then I hear myself, and what thefuckam I thinking? That’s how he threatens me because we’re in a relationship? Like it’s fucking normal for the person you’re with to threaten you?

Usually, when clarity smacks me in the face like this, Hannah is around. Some part of me wonders if that’s where we’re heading—to Anae’s house. I don’t know where it is.

I think about asking him again where he’s taking me, but while a few minutes ago I was desperate for him to speak to me, right now, I don’t want to talk to him at all.

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