Page 66 of PET

In one swift move, I push him off of me and jump to my feet, staring him down with clenched fists as I grind my teeth. Motherfucker keeps getting the upper hand on me.

Dana appears in the living room entrance, pushing kids out of the way. “You two idiots, stop making each other bleed and let’s move!”

We throw a few pinned glares at one another before we scramble over the mess we’ve made to follow her. It’s fucking stupid that we keep shoving each other, trying to see who can make it out first.

Shaking her head, Dana scoffs and nods her head toward the exit. “You morons. What were you thinking?”

I step back outside into the balmy night. The sudden plunge in temperature prickles my sweat-soaked skin, leaving goosebumps on my arms and a rush of cold air runs down my spine. “I was thinking the same thing about him,” I admit, hooking my thumb in Christian’s direction.

Once our shoes crunch the pebbles on the driveway, Dana turns on us and stops us with her hand flat on our chests. “I’m going to need you two to squash whatever bullshit you two are fighting over. Whatever it is… Get. Over. It. Her life depends on it, asswipes.”

I want to tell her to get bent, to tell me right here and now what the hell is going on and why I wasn’t allowed in on any of the secrets. Sure, I have my own, but… Fuck, I’m being such a hypocrite right now. This is about Billie, not my ego.

“Sorry,” I rasp deeply, looking up at her through a hooded gaze.

“Yeah, me too,” Christian grumbles.

She nods, turning on her heel and heading toward an SUV that’s still running. Billie’s in the front seat, not looking at us for a second. She has every right to be pissed off at both of us. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth in front of everyone, and I definitely shouldn’t have thrown Christian under the bus like that. He can still kiss my ass, though.

We get in the back of the SUV, my eyes darting toward the side of Billie’s face. I’m willing her to look at me just once, but she doesn’t budge. Dana gets in the driver’s seat, pulling away from the party as she looks at us in the rearview mirror.

“Things are moving fast, boys. I’m taking you three to a safe house until I can do damage control.”

I’m listening to her, but I only have eyes on my girl right now. Christian seems to be the same way when he leans forward and whispers her name.

“Billie.”

Her shoulders stiffen, and her spine straightens, but she doesn’t pay him any attention. Dana reaches back and slaps the top of his head.

“Hey!” he cries out, leaning back with a scowl on his face.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you right now. Learn how to read a woman, kid.”

He flips her the bird when she stops looking, and I crack a smirk because that shit was funny. We share a knowing smile and my stupid heart does a somersault in my chest. After we get to wherever we’re going, we need to all sit down and hash it out. From what Dana says, Billie is in grave danger, and we can’t protect her if we’re not thinking straight.

“Where is this place?” I ask, turning the conversation a different way. “And why do we need a safe house?”

She scoffs. “After the shit you pulled with Patrick, Christian breaking into the Lucas estate, and the very public fight between the three of you…? Pretty sure a safe house is needed. The soci—” she stops herself, but it sounded a whole hell of a lot likesocietywas about to come out of her mouth.

“Look, I don’t know what weird shit everyone is into around here. I just want some damn honesty and answers for once,” I announce to everyone in the car.

Billie finally whips around and pins me with a glare. “You want to talk about honesty right now?” She directs her eyes at Christian next, shaking her head.

“Enough,” Dana snaps, and Billie sits back to stare through the windshield again. “You need to get over it too, Billie. We don’t have time for this shit right now. So what if you all lied to each other? You’re all seventeen years old. Life is going to bend you over and roughly ram it up your tail pipes if you can’t realize everyone lies and hides things.”

She grabs my gaze through the rearview mirror, lowering her scrutinizing gaze. “We all have secrets, don’t we?”

Lowering my gaze, I glare at her and shake my head slightly. We might all have secrets, but I’m not willing to tell mine just yet. There’s a time and place for everything, and I firmly believe my secret will help us later. I can’t explain it but I canfeelits truth.

Everyone stops talking when Dana pulls off the highway and onto the abandoned Railway Drive. Kids used to come up here and party after they shut the train down, rerouting it around the mountains, but after some weird shit started happening up here, kids took their partying to another location.

I lean forward and peer through the windshield as the headlights illuminate our path. Nature is slowly taking back the road, mostly covered by weeds and tall grass—you can barely tell there’s a road here at all. Then the train tunnel comes into view and Dana drives right into it, plunging us into the pitch blackness before putting the SUV into park.

“If you were going to murder us, the least you could do was to bring us to a nicer place,” I joke from the backseat, honestly wondering why the hell she’s taken us to an abandoned train tunnel.

She huffs. “Relax. This is the safe house. Come on.”

Getting out of the SUV, we all watch Dana in the headlights as she crosses the tracks and walks to the side of the mountain wall. Then she disappears behind a slab of stone before a soft golden glow emanates onto the tracks. Curiosity gets the best of all of us and we get out, heading that way. Billie marches ahead of us, careful not to be near us at all.

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