Had I been given a choice, riding across town with Blackwell’s golden child would not have been something I would have done willingly. He was sitting in the passenger seat, somewhat quiet. I wondered if he was thinking about Ava and Micah.
It had felt nice to be reunited with everyone after all the shit that went down. There was strength in numbers, and I guess getting a psycho text message felt better when we were together versus when we were alone. Now, Micah and Ava were off to her sorority house. I told myself that nothing bad would happen to them there.
That didn’t seem to matter on Halloween.
“Have you tried questioning your brothers?” I finally broke the silence.
Gray turned toward me and raised a brow.
“And ask them what?”
“If they saw something suspicious on Halloween?”
He stayed quiet for a moment, and then he leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed.
“I don’t even know what to ask for. I feel like anything I mention will make me look fucking guilty.”
Instead of turning toward him like I wanted, I held on to the steering wheel a little tighter. I wondered if he knew that his self-loathing dripped out with every word.
“You know it’s not your fault, right?”
My words were low, but not soft, and he seemed to hold his breath, taking them in. I craned my neck to look at him, but he was already staring at me. I wanted to curse myself for looking. Ava and Micah were softer—their gazes had more of a docile feel to them, but not with Grayson. He was the type of person to disarm you with one look. He was the type of person who could lay your sins bare.
“I can’t help but ask myself if there was something I could have done differently.”
Judging by the way his jaw clenched, I could tell the words cost him to say out loud. Or maybe I was the last person he wanted to tell them to. I was the one he liked least, and if there was something I knew from experience, it was that it was easier to let someone we didn’t know see all the ugly sides of us because there was no illusion of goodness to shatter.
Maybe he felt like he didn’t have to pretend to have his shit together when he was with me.
“Get that shit out of your head,” I let him know. “We get one hand in life, and we have to play that bitch, but getting stuck in what-ifs and maybes is a fucking waste of time.”
He didn’t say more, nor did he offer a thank-you, which wasn’t what I was expecting. He went back to looking out the window. I took a turn away from the main road and instead took one of the hidden crop lanes.
“I thought we were going to the other side of town?” Gray was quick to question.
“We are, but the roads have eyes. I figured the more coverage we can get, the better.”
“How do you know where you’re going?”
At this, I couldn’t help but grin.
We came up to a turn, and I only held on to the steering wheel with one hand while I used the other to point outside. Between the cornstalks stood a post with a single reflector.
“You have to watch out for the reflectors. A single one means north and south, and a double reflector?—”
“East and west,” Grayson finished for me.
“Exactly. If you know how to get around town, then you’ll end up getting out by the school, the tracks, the lake, or by that church. There’s no getting lost in Blackwell.”
“Just killed,” Grayson deadpanned.
It wasn’t funny, but fuck it, it somehow made me chuckle. I could feel Grayson looking at me, and that made me laugh even more. He probably thought I was crazy now. I cast a quick glance his way, and the asshole was smiling.
“We’re fucked up,” I said once I regained my breath.
“At least we aren’t dead,” Grayson added, but somehow it felt like the “yet” was left hanging in the air.
It took five minutes, and I was able to get out of the cornfield and back onto another road. Instead of taking the road that led to the racing ground, I took a smaller one that was rarely used anymore. Not since the town built a faster road.
