“Um, yes.” I grab Caden’s sweatshirt he left behind last night. It smells like cinnamon, and when I put it on, it engulfs me in his scent and his warmth.
She jerks her head to the door. As I follow her out to her car, I spin the ring the guys gave me on my finger. We get in, but she still doesn’t say anything.
When she pulls into a Starbucks, I’m confused, but coffee sounds awesome. I’m just doing what she does at this point. So when she gets out of the car, I do too. We walk into Starbucks and place our order.
I keep waiting for her to say something, but we just wait for our coffee. When it’s up, we walk out the door and past the car. My stomach is in knots waiting for her to be mad at me or yell at me. I don’t know, but something.
She drinks her coffee and sighs. “This town is exhausting.”
I look around. No one else is on the street, but cars go by.
“We could run, Harper.” Mom turns onto a path leading into one of the parks on the edge of town. “We could leave this town so far behind they’ll never find us.”
“They?” I swallow. Does she mean Luke, Eli, Caden, Jack, and Nico? Does she want me to leave them? My heart clenches at the thought of never seeing any of them again.
“The powerful men that run this place.” Mom glances my way. “Not your guys. That’s why I’m not suggesting it.”
She smiles and sighs.
“Pretty sure none of them would ever stop looking for you, which opens you up to their families.” Mom looks up at the trees surrounding us. She drinks her coffee and I take a few gulps of mine, needing all the alertness it can give me.
“I would never stop trying to get back to them,” I say confidently, because they’re my future. I belong with them.
She blows out her breath and takes a turn into the woods surrounding the park.
“Uh, Mom? Where are we going?” I glance around, realizing we’ve been walking for a while and I have no idea where we are. When I look back, there isn’t a trail anymore, but Mom seems to know exactly where she’s going.
“Everything’s been compromised.” She dangles her coffee cup in her hand as she looks around. “Our cars probably havetrackers. The house is likely bugged. So we’re doing this the old-fashioned way. Walking.”
“Okay, but to where?” I make sure to watch where I’m stepping so I don’t trip over the fallen branches. This isn’t a trail.
“First, I want your version of the story with the boys. Why didn’t you come to me for help?” She doesn’t turn around to look at me, but hurt lingers in her voice.
“It doesn’t turn out well for anyone who stands up to the horsemen.” The words fall out before I can pull them back.
“The horsemen?” She glances back at me with an arched brow.
“We are the Mustangs.” I shrug. Fuck it. She didn’t kick them out last night. Maybe it’s time to put as much trust in my mother as she puts in me. So, I start at the beginning. “In about sixth grade, they were beginning to become legends. Popular, attractive, rich, talented. Every guy wanted to be them and every girl just wanted them.”
I swallow, but Mom doesn’t say anything. I explain how it wasn’t a big deal until high school and then I went into hiding to avoid them. How they decided to conquer virgins. I blushed hardcore while explaining that. When I get her caught up on their history, I blow out my breath.
“I avoided them, but then it was just me. I didn’t have a boyfriend, and it was a point of pride for them to leave no virgin untouched.” I glance off into the distance to avoid my mom’s look. “The first day of school they claimed me. I didn’t know what to do. I knew you’d stand up for me, but if you went to the principal and got him involved, it could have made things worse.”
When I look up, I realize Mom stopped a few steps behind. Her hand covers her mouth in horror. I frown and hurry to say, “They never hurt me. It’s never about force with them. It was my choice.”
Mom closes the distance between us and wraps me in her arms. “Still you shouldn’t have had to go through that on your own.”
I breathe in her coconut scent that smells like home and warmth and everything good in my life. “I didn’t. I had Kenz to talk to. And I always knew that if I had to, I could tell you and you would fix it for me. You were my fail-safe switch.”
She squeezes me tight before holding me at arm’s length and studying my face. “Sometimes going to the authorities isn’t the only way out of things.”
She brushes my hair behind my ear as I tip my head at her. What’s that supposed to mean?
“Come on, only a little farther.” She takes off in a direction, and I fall in line.
“I wasn’t afraid of sex. I just didn’t have the opportunity.” My cheeks flush with heat. I can’t believe I’m telling my mother this. “And to be honest, it’s nice to be someone’s focus after being invisible for so long.”
“You were never invisible to me.”
