Page 62 of Whisper Of Attraction (Whisper Lake 3)

“How did you get here?”

She shrugged defiantly. “I hitched a ride.”

Axel’s muscles tensed with fear thinly veiled in anger. She had to be kidding. She would never be that stupid. But even if she took a bus, that was still dangerous. He could feel himself about to lose it when she continued.

“A nice trucker named Bubba who was hauling vegetables gave me a ride.”

His nostrils flared and he tried to keep calm as he took in a deep breath through his nose. His fists bunched at his sides. This was not the time for her to be joking around. She was supposed to be in Chicago at Mercy Prep, not in his apartment in Whisper Lake. But he knew that losing his temper wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

As he set down the bag and tried to get himself under control, Izzy calmly pulled out her phone.

“What are you doing?” he gritted out, he couldn’t believe she was going to text or Snapchat or whatever, now.

“I want evidence in case you try and kill me.”

“Izzy,” he growled.

“Oh my god. Calm down.” She put her phone away. “I Ubered. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to hitchhike?”

He almost asked her if she really wanted him to answer that but refrained. The last thing he wanted was for things to escalate.

“I’m not going back there, Ax. And if you make me, I’ll just leave again.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened. It’s just horrible there.”

“I’m sure you’ll make friends if you just—”

“I have friends, well one friend, Tia, but that’s not the point. I don’t want to be there. Every day I felt like I was losing myself and I was scared that if I stayed another day, I wouldn’t ever be the same person. I would either become as horrible as those girls to get back at them, or I’d be a shell of myself to survive it.”

“Iz, you have to give it—”

“I swear to God if you say time, I’ll scream.”

He believed her.

And he also believed that it really was horrible there. He knew his sister, and though she could be dramatic about some things, he could see that she wasn’t over dramatizing this. Things were really bad there.

“Fine. Just let me pack some things and make a call and we’ll go back to Harper—”

“Why can’t we stay here?” she pleaded. “I love it here! Did you know that they have a real, like legit castle? And that all the stores have a storybook or fairytale theme? There’s a restaurant called Lanterns that has a mural from Tangled.”

He knew.

“And the Drawbridge Diner has a real, working drawbridge. And there’s the Princess and the Pea B&B. A coffee shop called the Cobblestone Cafe. And a sandwich shop called Bite Me.”

That was the one establishment he hadn’t quite worked out. His confusion must’ve shown on his face because she quickly explained, “It’s from Alice In Wonderland. The drinks have a sign that says Drink Me. And the food in the glass counter has signs that say Eat Me. Apparently, they’d planned on naming the shop Eat Me, but the town voted it down because it was too crass. Which I don’t really understand because it’s not like bite me is any bet—”

“How do you know all of this?” Axel was sure that Nate had called him as soon as his sister had arrived, so he wasn’t sure where she was getting this information.

“I researched the town on the drive,” she answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I’m sorry Iz, but we have to leave.” He honestly didn’t have a choice.

“No, we don’t. Whisper Lake High has an incredible IB program—”

“IB?”

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