Ryan seems nervous when he opens the door.
“Graham…” He trails off. “You’re early. Dani, are you okay? You don’t look so great.”
“Hungover,” she croaks.
“Here.” Claire goes to the fridge. “I always get free samples from my marketing job. They’ve sent me some weird soda things that are supposed to be healthy.”
He tries to usher her away from me, but I keep my grip tight on her.
Aurora stands up from the small dining table in front of their windows when she sees us. “Graham and Dani.”
“Dani’s hungover,” Ryan announces.
Claire twists her hands.
“Graham…” My mom comes over. She doesn’t hug me, just kind of grabs my arm.
Dani’s trying to pull herself together, chatting to Claire, telling her about the bachelorette party from hell.
I spent the first eight years of my life being hyperaware of other people’s emotions and changes in the vibes in the cellar, being hypersensitive to what people are thinking, to when danger’s coming.
Something’s wrong here. Very wrong.
My hand is still on Dani’s arm, and I start backing away from them—my so-called family.
“We’re leaving.”
“Graham, seriously?” Dani tries to shake me off. “We literally just got here. You dragged me away from trying to unpack and do laundry to come here. I left all of that on poor Piper. And I had to tell my mom that I had to cancel going to visit her great-aunt, and now you want to leave?”
“We have to go,” I repeat.
“I’m staying.” Dani’s digging in her heels.
“Dani!” I yell at her. “We have to gonow.”
“Don’t speak to her that way, Graham.” My mom’s chin wobbles.
“It’s not that. I’m—I’m not like that,” I try to tell her. “Dani. We have to go. I know you feel it too. They’re after me.”
Claire looks down. Frank’s eyes are FBI-hard.
“Admit it!” I yell at them. “Just admit it. You’re trying to take her away from me.”
“Graham.” Claire takes a shaky breath. “You know I work for StreetAI, and we have those delivery robots? Well, they have cameras. I was reviewing footage on them, you know, to fix the code? And I found one from that night—the night that girl waskidnapped.” Claire trails off then pulls out her tablet and shows me.
I watch Dani next to me, holding her breath, as the video from the robot delivery pod plays.
On the empty street, my car almost hits a lamppost. There’s Dani, trying to jump out of the car. I see myself shove her down, drag her back into the car.
It’s violent. Horrible. Brutal.
“Just tell me it’s not what it looks like.” My mom’s crying. “Graham, how could you?”
“I didn’t—that’s not me.”
“That’s your car,” Frank thunders. “You kidnapped an innocent girl off the street.”
I drag Dani to me. “She’s not some girl. I love her. We’re getting married.”
