Page 33 of Bend & Break
By the time we’re in my car, the sun’s already glaring through the windshield with a personal vendetta. Blake slumps into thepassenger seat with her coffee cradled in her hands. She looks wrecked—eyes shadowed, hair shoved into a knot that’s half falling out—but somehow she still steals my breath. No one else even comes close.
I start the engine, and the silence hangs. My brain’s running laps around what we saw last night, but I can’t keep staring at the road and pretending it didn’t happen.
Miles’s face is burned into my head. First dead body I’ve ever seen, and it’s not just some stranger on the news. He’s a student. Our age. A kid who should’ve been at practice, at class, at a party—not lying crumpled on the floor of a basement, surrounded by people who looked more scared of being caught than of what they’d done.
And now it makes sense why that girl passed the drive to Blake. Too afraid to come forward herself, so she found someone else who might. Maybe she thought Blake was smarter, braver, safer. Maybe she just wanted it off her conscience. Either way, she wasn’t wrong to be scared.
Because what’s the alternative?
Someone broke into our flat, maybe even more than once, because her bag had been rifled through, and then the gas incident. I’m starting to think that wasn’t random. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, not knowing what I know now. I don’t know if it was a warning for her to keep her mouth shut or an attempt to silence her since they couldn’t find the drive. Either way, if the goal was to scare us, it worked—because the only thing more terrifying than handing this drive to the cops now is handing ourselves over with it.
Maybe that Briarwood student had the right idea. Stay quiet. Stay hidden. Pass the evidence to someone else and hope they figure it out. Because if speaking up gets you killed, then silence feels like survival.
I hate that logic. I hate that I understand it. But sitting here, with Blake’s coffee steaming in the cup holder and the echo of that video still rattling in my chest, I can’t shake the truth: we’re already in it. Too deep to walk away, too far to pretend we didn’t see what we saw.
And if we’re going to be in it, I’d rather we’re in it together.
I don’t just want to keep her safe. I want to prove to her that if she’s going to chase this, I’ll chase it too. That we can figure out who killed Miles. We can right this wrong.
“So,” I say, dragging the word out, “this girl who handed you the drive—what exactly do you know about her?”
I hate how little information we have. Some stranger drops a bomb into Blake’s lap, and now we’re carrying it around like we have any fucking clue what to do about it. If Blake doesn’t have answers, then we’re chasing shadows, and I can’t stand the thought of her being dragged deeper into this without knowing what we’re up against.
She groans, tilting her head back against the seat. “Not much. Maybe her first name, if her username was legit.”
“That’s it?” I glance at her, eyebrows raised. “Not even a last initial? What she looks like? Shoe size?”
She cracks an eye at me. “Do you always ask women about their shoe size?”
“Only the ones who get handed cursed flash drives and then make me their accomplice.”
That earns me the faintest twitch of her mouth. Not a full smile, but I’ll take it. Hell, I’d frame it if I could. It’s the closest I’ve gotten to pulling her out of whatever storm’s going on in her head.
I drum my fingers on the wheel. “So you’ve never even seen her face?”
“Nope.” She sips her coffee, grimacing like it physically hurts. “Couldn’t pick her out of a lineup if my life depended on it. Theforum’s all text-based. Everyone hides behind cartoon avatars or just their initials. Rhea could most definitely not even be her real name.”
“Brilliant. That’s reassuring. Mystery woman hands you literally murder evidence, and we’re just… winging it.”
“Pretty sure I didn’t ask you to dive headfirst into this with me.”
I smirk. “No, but you didn’t exactly stop me, did you?”
She rolls her eyes, muttering something under her breath that I don’t catch. My chest feels lighter than it should, considering how tired I am and every other fucking thing. Maybe it’s the way her voice softens when she’s too exhausted to keep her guard up. Maybe it’s the fact that even running on fumes and being a bit traumatized, she still matches me quip for quip.
“You know,” I say, shifting gears, “you could at least admit you’re glad I’m here. Moral support. Heavy lifting. Comic relief. Very valuable skill set.”
She snorts into her coffee. “You forgot your massive ego.”
“Right. How could I leave that off the resume?”
Her laugh is quick, small. Fucking adorable.
The parking lot’s empty, nothing but a few crushed cans glittering along the path to the field and a fast-food bag stuck to the fence by the wind.
Blake slams her door harder than necessary, muttering something under her breath about us being the only ones to show up as she yanks her sweatshirt over her head.
“This is cruel and unusual punishment,” she says, staring up at the bleachers.
