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My father lets out a long sigh. “I don’t have any details and I wouldn’t provide them to you if I did.”
“That isn’t anywhere near good enough and you know it.”
For a minute, the line goes quiet and I think he might have hung up. When he speaks again, his tone is hushed, as if he wants to be sure he isn’t overheard.
“But you are my only son, so I’ll give you the only warning I can. Stay away from Olivia Pratt if you don’t want to get hurt right along with her.”
The line clicks as he hangs up.
When I ease my bike out onto the street, a loud siren is my only warning as a police car blows past me going at least double the speed limit. Another cruiser is right behind it as they speed down the road toward St. Bart’s.
Wherever the cops are headed, they’re trying to get there fast.
The alumni are already here.
I’m still so angry at Olivia, or whoever the hell she is, that I’m not sure what I’ll do the next time I see her.
But something in me sparks like a live-wire whenever I touch her. My fingers itch with the need to trace the contours of her body and memorize the faint patterns on her skin. She frustrates me, but she fascinates me even more.
I haven’t been able to get her out of my head since the day she strolled onto campus like a deposed queen coming back to claim her throne.
Under the anger is a healthy dose of something else, an emotion that freezes the blood in my veins when I think of something bad happening to her.
I want answers.
I also want her.
I’m pissed off.
I’m also afraid of what it will feel like if I never see her again.
The alumni are already here.
And it might already be too late to save her.
* * *
There are some moments in life that will always stay frozen in your memory after they happen.
No matter how much time passes, you’ll always be able to pull them up like a perfect picture in your mind.
I already know that this is one of those moments.
Blue and red lights glow are bright against the night sky as I round the first curve in the road that leads to campus.
Blue and red.
I’ve always thought it was strange that those are the colors we associate with an emergency. They’d make a pleasant combination if we didn’t associate them with something disturbing.
No one wants to see those colors flashing in the dark.
When I get to the scene of the accident, an ambulance is just pulling away. I direct the bike to the side of the road, leaping off it fast enough that it tips over and hits the ground. I don’t even bother to pick it back up as I jog toward the crowd of emergency workers and police clustered around a vehicle that crashed into the trees.
The world slows down around me as I take in the scene.
Light reflects off the twisted metal as the stink of leaking gasoline assaults my nostrils. None of the people milling around seem concerned about the danger, but a dark plume of smoke curls out from under the engine hood.
That’s Vaughn’s car.
