Page 47 of Her Crew

My heart picks up its pace in my chest, and my lungs constrict until I can’t draw a breath. If Delia sends this picture to Stacks, she could ruin everything. And I don’t know how to stop her.

Chapter 26

Alec

My leg bounces a mile a minute as we ride to the small town a little ways from Lakewood’s nice payouts. Tegan drops her hand to my knee, slowing the movement to a mere vibration. I still bounce on my toes as I try to figure out how to tell Tye and Tegan. Or if I should tell them at all.

Maybe it would all be for nothing. Delia is a bitch, but would she really try to destroy me? After everything? She seemed fine when I told her we had to stop things. Besides, she was interested in Rolo. Now that I’m taken—and fucking happily, I might add—she seems to want me more than ever.

I won’t let her ruin it.

Delia turns around and throws me a smirk from the middle seat. With a flip of her red hair, she glares at me. Guess she doesn’t like that I didn’t respond to her cryptic threat. She’ll get a response soon enough, though. I just won’t be stupid enough to put it in a fucking text.

Tye leans closer, his worried eyes flashing. Clearly, I’m not holding this in very well.

You okay? he mouths.

I toss him a nod that is entirely unbelievable, and he knows it. He’s known me for too long. Fuck, he’s basically my brother.

We arrive in Slade just as the sun begins to set. The fast food we stopped for earlier sits like rocks in my gut now. We climb out of the van in the parking lot of a rustic motel. Grime frosts the windows, but the outside looks pretty clean otherwise. A sign hangs on a low chain-link fence surrounding a crystal blue pool, though it barely clings to the links by its single remaining fastener. It’s a stark contrast to the mansions of Lakewood.

Stacks hands out keys, and we head to our rooms. My mind is on everything else, unfortunately. Tye forks to the right, and Tegan and I go left.

Our room is pretty spacious, featuring framed pictures of the Daniel Boone National Forest. Tegan zooms over to the one with a waterfall cascading into a gorge. She loses herself in the fall foliage surrounding the slate. I walk over and put my arm around her.

“I love waterfalls,” she says, never looking away from the picture in front of us. The caption beneath the frame says this picture was taken forty-five miles from here.

“You don’t like water, but you like waterfalls?” I ask, raising my eyebrow. “Aren’t you a walking contradiction.”

She smacks my hand away. “There was an old drainage pipe that released all the storm water behind our trailer park. I used to call it a waterfall before I knew that it was just runoff. I used to go there after . . .”

“I’ve been there.” I lean forward and kiss the top of her head. “Mine used to be a playground near our trailer park.”

“Will you ever tell me about what happened to you?”

I shake my head. “That’s something I keep deep inside, pup. Somewhere no light ever shines.”

“If you never shine a light on those things, they just stay dark.”

I put her ear to my chest. “Does this sound like something that doesn’t have any light in it?”

She sighs and shakes her head.

“I gotta go take care of something real quick. Please stay here and only open the door for Tye, okay?”

“Is this about what you were anxious about in the van?”

“Maybe. Just stay here, okay?”

She nods, and I leave, locking the door behind me. I pick up my phone to text Tye about what’s going on. My fingers rush over the keys, but my thumb hovers over the send button. I don’t want him to freak out, and if he’s keeping an eye on Tegan, she might freak out by association. Maybe it’s best I tell them after I fix things.

I just need to talk to Delia.

My hand trembles as I knock on her door. She opens it seconds later and takes a step aside, as if she expected me.

Who am I kidding? She probably did.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she says, her full lips accentuating every word.