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He sat in the backseat, while I sat in the front, Damon driving one of his father’s SUVs.
I pulled on gloves, “Fire Up the Night” playing in the car as I stared out the windshield at Officer Scott across the street hassling a car full of kids he’d just stopped.
“Leave if you want,” I told him.
It wasn’t a threat. I didn’t expect his help, and I didn’t need it. Kai had a lot to lose, and I wouldn’t judge him for walking out on this. Not that I didn’t have a lot to lose. I just didn’t care.
“What’s he doing?” Damon said more to himself, tossing his cigarette out the window.
Martin Scott walked a girl to his cruiser, put her in the back, and climbed in the front, starting the car. We’d followed him from the station when he started his shift, and he took no time at all stopping the car full of teens that was speeding through the village.
“That’s River Layton,” I said, recognizing the sophomore.
She was only sixteen. What the hell was he doing?
Leaving the other guy and girl in their car, he pulled away from the curb and drove off with the minor, but instead of taking a left toward the station or a right toward the hills where she lived near me, he pulled an abrupt one-eighty and took the road toward the coast and Falcon’s Well.
“Follow him,” I said.
Damon shifted into gear and backed out of the parking lot, charging after him down the road.
It was after ten, and while school was out for the summer, the streets weren’t too busy. All the parties were either happening on the beach, on Mommy and Daddy’s boat, or in backyards with pools this time of year.
Damon hung back, far enough to be inconspicuous, but not too far that we couldn’t see his taillights.
I dug into the duffle bag, tossing Kai his silver paintball mask, pulling out Damon’s black one and handing it to him, and leaving Michael’s red one in the bag as I pulled my white one with a red stripe on.
The brake lights in the distance lit up, and we watched as he turned into the warehouse. I didn’t think there was anything going on there tonight. Why the hell was he taking the kid there?
Hanging back, Damon pulled the SUV onto the side of the road and shut off the engine as we all hopped out and pulled up the hoods of our black hoodies. It was too fucking hot for sweatshirts, but that was the routine.
The hoods and masks kept us covered—and hopefully—unrecognizable in video footage. Everyone knew who was who behind the masks, but they couldn’t prove it.
Jogging into the brush and through the trees, we headed toward the warehouse we’d been to a hundred times, knowing the road in didn’t go any farther than the old, abandoned factory.
Sweat already covered my back, and I couldn’t see anything else outside of this moment.
It was his fault. It was all his fault, because even if it wasn’t, it felt good to finally have someone to blame and give me hope that it wasn’t me. That she ended it before it even began because of him and not because she didn’t love me.
In any case, he’d fucking hurt her, and now that she was out from under him, I was let off my leash.
At the very least, after tonight, he’d never touch her again.
Stopping at the tree line and looking over the gravel parking lot to the old shoe factory with the ruins of its dark and dilapidated walls looming beyond, we watched as he turned off the car and remained in his seat with her in the back.
He moved his head, nodding here and there or cocking it as he talked, but she didn’t move an inch.
Finally, he opened the door to his cruiser and walked to the back door, opening it and climbing in beside her.
My lungs emptied.
And I almost smiled, any doubt or guilt I might’ve felt now long gone.
His face was going to be worse than ground beef by the time we were done with him.
“He doesn’t have Emmy to push around anymore,” Kai said, and I could hear the anger growing in his voice as he pulled on his mask.
I nodded, glad he was now on board. I did need him.
