Page 83 of Pay the Price

That all the things that stood between us wouldn’t matter.

“This is an old logging road. It’s only used by the forest service.” I paced, trying to cool the fear in my veins. “Fuck. Your dad is really getting bold to come after one of us.”

It had been one thing to have Calvin take Daisy when she’d been alone, but now Hammond was sending his flunkies to chase us down together?

He must be getting desperate, which meant we must be getting close to finding the proof we needed to put him away.

Daisy swung her leg over the bike. She wrung her hands, her eyes wide.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you. I was going to, but it didn’t seem to matter since we were all together on the compound and— ”

The black pit in the bottom of my stomach seem to grow wider. “What the fuck is it?”

She swallowed so hard that I saw her slender throat ripple even across the clearing of the makeshift overlook. “I got another letter, like the one that came with the vase.”

My brain whirred, trying to figure out how someone had dropped off another package at the house when the place was surrounded by cameras. One of us reviewed the footage every day, just to make sure no one was sniffing around. “We haven’t seen anyone around the house.”

“It… it didn’t come to the house,” she said. “It was on my desk at work.”

I stared at her. “When?”

“Yesterday. Like I said, I was going to tell you, but— ”

“But fucking what?” Now I was pissed, both because Calvin was moving against Daisy in a visible way and because Daisy hadn’t told us. Hadn’t told me. “You knew Calvin was still after you and you didn’t think you should tell us A-S-A-fucking-P?”

She looked miserable. “I know. I’m sorry. I just… It sounds stupid now.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice.

“I just… I wanted to pretend it wasn’t true, just for a couple of days. I wanted to go to work and the gym, to drop in at Cassie’s like a normal person, without you or Wolf or Otis watching every move I made.”

“Well, I hope it was worth it.” I knew my fear was making me act like a dick but I couldn’t stop myself. Acting like a dick — for a myriad of reasons — was my default.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I said I was sorry. I should have told you. I just thought… well, I guess I thought after Calvin kidnapped me that I was the only one in danger.”

I stared at her across the darkness in the overlook, the faintest of light shining down from a crescent moon, the scattered lights shimmering in the valley.

I catalogued my options: keep reaming Daisy a new one for keeping the information from us — information we needed to protect her — or say the thing I wanted to say, the thing that had been on the tip of my tongue since she’d started this fucked-up confession.

It felt like my whole fucking life hung in the balance, like this girl — this violet-eyed girl who didn’t know shit about the real world, who made me want to protect her from its ugliness — held it in the palm of her hand.

You’re just afraid she’s going to wake up one day, look at us, and see everything her dad warned her about. And if you see all of that in Daisy’s eyes, it’ll prove it was true all along.

I crossed the distance between us, my boots crunching on the dirt and gravel in the turnout. I didn’t stop until I was standing right in front of her.

“In what world — in what fuckinguniverse— would you think that you being in danger was an acceptable risk to us? To me?”

It felt like we stared at each other for an eternity, our chests rising and falling like we were out of breath. Then we crashedtogether like the opposing poles on two magnets, like it had been inevitable all along.

Chapter 51

Daisy

His mouth crushed mine so hard I tasted blood on my tongue. I didn’t know if it was mine or his and I didn’t care. All that mattered was the fact that his hands were in my hair, cradling my head as he devoured my mouth.

I slid my hands over the peaks of his chest, over his shoulders and around his neck, pressing my body to his until my tits were flattened against his chest, until I couldn’t get any closer.

I didn’t know where he ended and I began and I didn’t want to know. For so long, there had been miles between us. Now, I just wanted to revel in the hard press of his body.

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