Page 30 of If You Go
“Yes, please.”
There’s muffled sound through the line and then Selene’s voice ricochets down the line—bright, breathless. “SISSY! Are you there? How is it? Did the apple tree bloom? How’s Bridget? I’m so jealous! I want them to send me home already! I can’t wait to see you. Samuel has asked about Alisha about twenty ti—OW! Don’t injure me even more than I already am, Samuel!”
God, she’s a hurricane. My chest aches with love and the shape of fear it carves.
“I’m in Eugene,” I say, smiling helplessly into the rain. “I’ll tell you everything when we get there. Do they have a discharge date?”
“Tomorrow, maybe the next. Extra scans, blah blah.” She huffs. “Papa’s ordering a med bed and a nurse on the Island. Once I don’t need all that shit I can come down there and stay with you. Surgery went smooth, four hours, you know that. I want my own pillows. Oh! Mama—”
The line shifts and my mother’s voice arrives, soft steel. “So, who’s da handsome lad ye’re wit’?”
“Mama. Not now.”
“Ah, this’s th’ only fella we’ve seen ye wit’ since ye left th’ Compound. Humor yer mother, love.”
“When you get here,” I say. “I’ll tell you then. I love you. Punch Samuel for me?”
“Aye, I’ll do that, so I will. I love ye too, a stór.”
I hear an outraged “What was that for?” and Selene’s witchy cackle. My mother exhales a laugh. We say our goodbyes and then the line clicks off. A text from Selene lands immediately, full of hearts and knives and something about stealing Alisha’s man as a joke that will definitely get her killed.
I look up. Brenden is perched on the hood, phone in one hand, eyes scanning the screen, although I am not sure what he is studying with such intensity. He changed when we realized how far we were driving, we all did. He’s now in high-tops, slutty little thigh shorts, a T-shirt damp at the collar from rain, hair pulled into a low bun. He looks like temptation dressed in black cotton. I hoist myself onto the metal beside him. It’s cold through my jeans. He, however, is not. He tilts his head toward me without looking, like he knew I was always going to sit here.
“Thanks for all of this,” I say. The rain is finer now, a mist that clings instead of falls. “You guys don’t have to stay. You weren’t the target. It was a message. You’re welcome to regroup there, but you don’t have to play bodyguard.”
“Oh, I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, and I apparently need to repeat myself hourly,” he slides his phone into his pocket and turns, caging me between his thighs with infuriating ease. “But I will be guarding that body.” He looks me up and down for emphasis, making me blush. I swear I am going to have circulatory issues from how often he does that. “From the moment I saw you in my room until my last breath. That body belongs to me now.” He winks. Fuck.
He grips my hip and pulls me closer. Heat sparks—quick, all encompassing. “Did you forget?” His voice is velvet over barbed wire. “You’re mine. And I’ll make sure everyone knows it. You included.”
My mouth opens and closes like I’m learning to breathe for the first time. “Okay,” I hear myself say.
Okay? Who am I? My traitor body purrs. My brain throws up its hands.
“Good girl,” he rumbles, and it vibrates across the metal into my bones. The words should feel like a collar. Instead, they feel like a promise.
He smiles like a wolf who just watched a door swing open to look in upon its prey.I am not prey.
“You’re right, you’re not prey,” he adds. “You’re fierce Surry—stronger than you know. Queen of the castle. Look how many people you assembled in a day. You’re invincible.”
“Fuck, did I say that out loud?” My words come out in a mumble, making me think I am starting to go crazy.
“You did.” He looks almost amused. “One day, I’ll punish the man who made you feel like prey. I’ll wait. Till then, I’ll prove I’m nothing but your servant. To worship your body and mind until I die.”
His phone rings. He ignores it. The chorus ofTake Me To The Beachrises again—a haunt of tide and heat. Neither of us moves.
Headlights swing in. Two vehicles pull alongside Brenden’s—an overloaded truck with off-road tires and the attitude of a siege tower, and a sleek BMW hatchback. Doors fly open and people spill out, stretching, laughing, shaking out the road from their bones. The air fills with shouts, the skitter of gravel, and the sound of relief people make when a long drive finally ends.
Hazel reaches me first, bone-crushing hug, Alisha slamming into us with an “oof!” and Richie wrapping both his long arms around all of us like a blanket. Somewhere in the mob is Juniper, swearing and laughing.
“That was a tight fit on the way here, damn.”
A new voice cuts through—deep, smooth, with a grin threaded in it. I turn.
A tall man drops down from the truck’s passenger side, rain glinting on the nearly blacked-out tattoos that sleeve his right arm from wrist to shoulder. A dark mustache, darker eyes, and the kind of swagger that says he’s trouble wrapped in leather and good intentions. His gaze lands squarely on Hazel first.
“Please tell me someone saved me a seat nearthatone,” he says, flashing a grin that could melt steel. “Or maybe we toss a few folks in the back and give and give us a chance to get acquainted.”
Hazel’s cheeks go crimson, her smirk betraying the flutter behind it. “You wish,” she shoots back, playful despite herself.
