Page 53 of Wicked Love
She groaned and gave me another squeeze before letting me go. “All right. I’ll help you take off. I don’t think you should be putting yourself in all that danger… but I get why you feel you need to, and if I’m going to ask you to trust me, then I’ve got to trust you to make your own decisions too.”
Relief flooded me. I grinned at her, momentarily lost for words. “Thank you,” I managed finally.
She pointed a finger at me. “I do have a condition. No more keeping me in the dark. If it seems like you’re in danger and hiding things from me again, I’m going to tell your mom everything. No second chances.”
I couldn’t even say that was unfair. “Absolutely. It’ll be my fault if you feel you have to go that far. But hopefully this will all be resolved in a few days, and then I can tell Mom everything anyway.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed.” She studied me for a moment. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else I can do right now?”
“I swear I’d tell you if there was,” I said. “And if something comes up that I know you could pitch in on, I’ll tell you. Either way, I’ll be keeping you in the loop.”
“Okay. Let’s do this, then.” She dug into her pockets and handed me my phone and a car key. “That’s for my Mazda—it’s parked opposite the van. Please be careful with her. I want to hear from you within a few hours so I know where to pick her up. Now, to deal with your cousins…”
She rubbed her hands together, and a familiar gleam came into her eyes. I couldn’t help smiling. This was the Summer I loved.
“Got it,” she announced, and motioned to the door. “Stand back there. I’ll get them to rush in, and you duck out while I’m distracting them.”
I got into position behind where the door would open. Summer walked over to close the bathroom and then marched past me to yank the front door open.
“Oh my God!” she babbled. “You guys have got to help me! Maddie went and locked herself in the bathroom, and the sounds coming from in there—I don’t know what she’s doing, but it can’t be good.”
The panic in her voice must have convinced my cousins. They came barreling into the room after her, rushing to the bathroom.
I whipped past the door and sprinted across the parking lot. The gold Mazda unlocked with a beep. Diving into the driver’s seat, I started the engine. Then, with a silent thank you to my bestie and any other powers that might be, I turned the car back toward the center of the city and hit the gas.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
Madelyn
The hole-in-the-wall cafe on the other side of town smelled of strong coffee beans with an undertone of stale sweat. I stared down at the coffee I’d received from the overly perky teen at the counter and debated whether or not I should actually drink it.
Slade chugged his without any apparent concern about the cleanliness or burning his tongue, and followed it with one of his cinnamon candies. Dexter was eying his mug with a trepidation that looked similar to what I felt.
Logan hadn’t even bothered to order. He sat down at the rickety table near the front window, got up again, paced a couple of steps, and then forced himself back into his chair, looking like he wanted to march out there and drag Beckett to the meeting we’d managed to arrange after I’d called the guys.
After I’d gotten away from my mom and best friend’s intervention. Which Slade wasn’t finished heckling me about yet.
He shook his head at me with a teasing tsk of his tongue. “Look at you. Such an addict. Keeping such bad company that your parents had to do an intervention from your own stepbrother, and you came running right back to us the first second you could.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “They probably thought I was on drugs or something.”
“Or that Logan was pimping you out.” Slade cocked his head as if considering that possibility.
“Shut up,” Logan grumbled. “It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s hilarious.”
Dexter made a face. “It does make sense that they’d have been suspicious. Madelyn’s change in behavior must have seemed pretty extreme.”
I sighed. “Well, now we’ll just have to hope that Summer can hold them at bay long enough for us to get what we need.” I’d texted her when I’d left her car to join the guys in an Uber, but I hadn’t had anything else to report to her yet, and she hadn’t replied.
Logan looked as if he might have groused more, but right then the door to the café chimed. Beckett walked in with a glance around the place, wearing his more incognito clothing of jeans and a hoodie. His hair looked unusually rumpled beneath the raised hood.
He was the one who’d suggested this place for the meetup, confident that no cops were likely to cruise by on their regular patrols. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out how he knew that information so well, but it’d worked out. I still couldn’t believe that the Vigil guys had needed to go on the run from the police in the short time I’d been gone.
He walked over to us as steady as always, but I could see the tension in every movement. I couldn’t help checking him over for injuries as well as I could, but there were no signs of blood on his clothes or pain in his expression.
“What happened?” I said in a hushed voice as soon as he reached our table. “Did you get Doom’s Seed’s people to back off?”
