Page 57 of Made of Steel (Made of Steel 1)

"I don't want you to see anyone else, okay?"

I didn't say anything.

"Okay?" His voice was sharper as we came to a stop outside my dorm building.

I looked down at my Converses. I needed to find my voice. I needed to be stronger than this. "Please don't yell at me." I was surprised at the words that seemed to fall out of my mouth.

His hand fell from my waist. "I'm not yelling. I'm trying to have a conversation with you."

I forced myself to look into his eyes. The kindness was back. He looked concerned. Had I imagined his fingers digging into my waist? Had I imagined his tone? He was just upset because he thought I had been flirting with Miles. And hadn't I been? He deserved to feel betrayed. We hadn't talked about being exclusive, but I didn't want him to be flirting with other girls. I would have been hurt if I had caught him doing that.

"I'm sorry." My voice sounded small, but I meant it. I felt like my life was a mess. I was daydreaming about the vigilante and Miles, but I had a great guy right in front of me. It was like I didn't know how to be happy. I was sabotaging a good thing.

"It's okay. I'm sorry that I got upset. Can I come up and hang out for a bit?" He touched the side of my face.

Fire. I quickly shook my head. "I'm exhausted. I really just need to get some sleep."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." I am sabotaging myself. "No. I mean...I just meant I haven't seen your dorm yet. Can we hang out there instead?"

He smiled. "You sure you don't want to spend the night in your own bed? I'm pretty tired too. We could just call it a night."

I wasn't sure why, but him not jumping on that idea made me feel even more panicked than his touch. Why didn't he want me to see his room? He was hiding something from me. I needed some space. It felt like I couldn't breathe. "If you're sure that's okay. Rain check though?"

"Absolutely." He pulled me against his chest and kissed me.

It was

hard and angry and wrong. I tried to ignore the panic rising in my chest, but I couldn't seem to stifle the feeling. It was like I was being engulfed in flames.

Chapter 30

Saturday

I bit the inside of my lip as I stared down at my phone. It shouldn't have been a hard decision. Someone had tried to kill me. Eli didn't seem as trustworthy as I had first made him out to be. I knew someone here from my past. And the vigilante had told me I wasn't safe here. I had to call Mr. Crawford.

Even though it felt like giving up, I pressed on his name in my phone. I held my breath for five seconds before his voicemail clicked on. Maybe he really was just busy and couldn't come to the phone. But to me, it felt like fate. Mr. Crawford hadn't picked up for a reason. I didn't need him to whisk me away and change my identity again. I could take care of myself.

Besides, all the bad things here could be easily explained away. The man with a knife was just a normal psycho from the city. Miles believed that I was Sadie, not Summer. The vigilante just meant to go home to my dorm and that it wasn't safe in that dark alleyway. And I felt differently about Eli because I was harboring feelings for Miles. Ugh. I lay back on my bed. Hopefully Mr. Crawford wouldn't call me back. I could fix this by myself.

My mind seemed to stay fixated on Miles. He had flirted with me. That should have made me feel good, and it did, partially. But it stung too. It meant he had moved on from Summer. Why had I never moved on? I shook my head. The answer was obvious. Miles was the last person who truly knew who I was. I wanted to be that little girl again, full of life and smiles. Don had stolen my identity before I even had to change my name. He had made me a ghost of who I used to be.

But Miles remembered. He still wrote letters to me. At least, he said he did. Could it have been some kind of miscommunication? Had Don been stealing my letters? I had never told Don about them, but he could have found out. Or maybe Miles had been sending them to the wrong address. Don made a habit of moving a lot. What if Miles was telling the truth? What if he was having one night stands because he couldn't commit to loving anyone else because he was still in love with me?

I laughed out loud. It sounded like a sad noise in my empty dorm. I sat up. None of that mattered. I couldn't pursue my feelings for Miles. It was too dangerous. Besides, there was one other person who did seem to know me. A chill ran down my spine just thinking about the vigilante. He had called me Sadie. He didn't actually know me. But I knew he was watching me.

A few days ago I had filled out a contact form on The Night Watch blog. I hadn't heard back. Maybe they'd respond if they knew I had met the vigilante. I leaned over and grabbed my computer off my bed. I pulled up the blog and read the most recent article.

My heart started to race. It was about me. Well, not really about me, it didn't say my name or anything, but it was about last night. The article talked about how the vigilante had broken his normal routine. He hadn't robbed any robbers. Instead, he had taken down a convicted felon with a lengthy rap sheet. There was a mugshot of the man who had attacked me. The scar under his cold gaze reminded me of the fear in my chest. It reminded me of the death in his eyes. I swallowed hard.

The question was, how did the author of the article know it was the vigilante who had subdued him? There were no photos this time. No proof that it was the vigilante. It's him. The vigilante was writing the articles. It had to be him. So, why had he broken his usual MO for me? Why was he watching me?

I read the last line of the article. They always ended the same way. "Someone in this city is watching us." The now familiar chill ran down my spine. It was the same reaction I had to seeing the vigilante in person.

I clicked on the contact form again. This time I told the author of the blog that I knew why the vigilante had broken his usual MO. And I told them that I had met him. If that didn't get me a response, than nothing would. I pressed the send button and drummed my fingers against my thigh.

My mind seemed to flood with possibilities. Maybe the vigilante really was Eli. Patrick and Kins had mentioned that he had tons of bruises from his boxing classes. What if it wasn't from boxing? What if it was from fighting bad guys? I typed Eli's name into Google and scrolled through the results. None of them were him. I typed in his name with Facebook after it. The second result was him. He was smiling at the camera with a couple guys next to him. They were clearly laughing about something. Why would someone so carefree suddenly decide to move to the city and rob from the rich? The motivation wasn't there.

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