Page 26 of Fallen Dove
I dropped my chin and side-eyed her.“Were you reading my mind?”
She snorted.“No.Were you thinking about Chicago?”
“Sort of.”I leaned my shoulder against the rough brick.“I was thinking how life is so much quieter here.Slower.”
Penny wrinkled her nose.“I think you mean boring.I would kill to be anywhere but here.”
That surprised me and didn’t, all at once.I’d thought that exact thought once.
“Weston isn’t all bad, Penny,” I said, gentler than the automatic defense sounded in my head.
She sighed and scuffed the toe of her boot against a crack in the concrete.“Yeah, well, you’ve beenoutof this town.I’m pretty sure my parents would have a coronary if I told them I was leaving.”
I laughed.“I think they might take the news better if you had a plan.Not just ‘hey, peace out.’”
“Okay, fair.”Her mouth twisted.“It’s not even just leaving.It’s… I feel sosurroundedall the time.”
“Surrounded?”I echoed.
She nodded, eyes on the dark alley.“I know it sounds dumb, but there’s always someone there.I can’t go to the store or the gas station without getting a text from Ender saying he saw me, or my dad telling me I can’t be out late unless I’ve got one of the guys with me.”
I got it.I really did.I was thirty-one and Dad was still a human tripwire for my comings and goings.When Mason dropped me off after my breakdown, I could feel the questions stacked behind Dad’s eyes like ammo.
“When you’re related to half the town,” I said, “I guess you never really are alone.”
“That’s the thing.”She blew out a breath and hugged herself.“I love the club.I love my family.I do.But maybe I just need abreakfrom everyone knowing where I am all the time.”
I nodded.“A break’s not a bad idea.”
Penny’s eyes lit like I’d handed her a sparkler.“We should do a girls’ weekend in Chicago.Just the cousins.”
We weren’t technically related, but cousins were the only word that made sense for the way we were raised.
“You couldn’t have come up with this idea when I was living in Chicago?”I teased.“Now we’re going to have to get a hotel.”
“As if your old apartment could’ve fit all of us,” she shot back, and she wasn’t wrong.My “bedroom” had been a mattress shoved behind a curtain.
“Oh my God, this is going to be great.”Penny started talking faster, already planning.“You, me, Calla, Bell, and Clove!”
“What about Eden?”I asked.
Penny wrinkled her nose.“I mean, she can come, but she’s eighteen.Can she even get into bars with us in Chicago?”
I grimaced.She had a point.Eden would spend the weekend holding purses in lobbies.“Why don’t we just stay here and have a girls’ night?”I offered, knowing I sounded like a grandma and not caring.
“Nope.”She popped the p.“We are going to Chicago.I’m going to tell Mason he needs to figure out which weekend he can handle the Social Club without us.”She nodded, decision made.“And soon.”
“Penny-” I reached for her sleeve, but she was already spinning back toward the door.
“This is happening!”she sang, flinging the door open and disappearing into the noise.
“Awesome,” I muttered to the night.“This was not how I thought my break was going to go.”
I pressed my head back against the wall and looked up again.The stars wobbled with a thin spill of clouds.Somewhere far off, a semi grumbled along the highway.I liked that Weston’s silence hadlayers.Chicago’s quiet never did; it flickered between on and off like a light switch.
A car eased into the alley to my right, tires whispering over grit.I turned my head.The sedan’s windows were blacked out enough to block out the light.It didn’t stop or slow, just rolled past kept going toward the street.Still, a chill feathered down my spine, ridiculous and gut-deep at once.Nothing to see, Adley.People cut through here every night.
Even so, I slid my hand to the handle and slipped back inside, and turned to keep the car in my peripheral until the door shut.
