Page 58 of Her Crew

Tye and Alec lean against the wall, ready to protect me if needed. I’m glad they’re giving me the space to protect myself a little, though.

“He doesn’t like you, bitch!” Delia says, raising her voice. “Fucking the new pig is a tradition here. In fact, he’s already come crawling back to me.” She pushes her phone into my hand, and my vision goes red when I see the image on the screen.

It’s Alec and Delia, and he’s wearing the same clothes he has on now. The way they’re touching each other seems very consensual as well. A few days ago, this image would have sent me into a downward spiral of self-loathing and self-blame. I would have believed her lie, swallowing it with ease. Now? Now it won’t go down at all.

I charge forward and pin Delia to the wall by her throat. Her hands fly to my wrists, dropping the phone. Good. I hope it cracked the screen. Despite clawing and wrenching my fingers, she can’t loosen my grip, however.

“He came for me. Does that bother you, Delia? Does it hurt you to know that both he and Tye made an effort to save me?” I scoff into her reddening face. “Maybe fucking the new pig was the tradition when you joined the crew, but the tradition changed when I arrived. Alec cares about me, and no amount of orchestrated pictures will poison me against him.”

Delia shakes her head as my grip tightens, and her pretty face reddens. I’ve never been a violent person. In fact, I’ve been entirely too passive all my life. But as my hands wrap around her throat and squeeze, I feel a sense of empowerment that I’ve never felt before. Suddenly, Delia isn’t Delia. She’s every man who’s ever hurt me. She’s the torment I live with on a daily basis. She’s my mother.

Delia’s eyes flutter as they roll back in her head. My grip tightens as a soft touch lands on my shoulder.

“This isn’t you, pup,” Ace says in my ear, slow and soft.

He’s right. This isn’t me.

I release her throat and take a step back as she sputters and coughs her way to the bed. She tries to scream something at me through a mess of tears, but it comes out in a shrill, unintelligible screech.

Alec bends at the waist and plucks her phone from the floor. It’s still open on the picture, which he deletes, along with every other image of himself in the gallery. It’s kind of gross, how many pictures she’s taken of him when he wasn’t looking. The obsession goes far beyond my arrival.

When he’s done, he tosses the phone at her feet. “I’ve deleted my contact information. Don’t ever reach out to me again. As far as I’m concerned, Tegan killed you today.”

She flops back on the bed and cries silently when reality finally hits her. I’m sure it’s not easy for a girl as pretty as Delia to get passed over. She’s probably used to getting whatever she wants with a bat of her eyelashes.

I turn to Alec, no longer wanting to watch her sob into the motel comforter. “I’m ready to go now.”

He nods and leads me out of the room, with Tye following on our heels. Stopping beside the van, he takes my shoulders in his hands and looks into my eyes. “Thank you for trusting me without question. Delia staged that photo.”

“I know.” I smile up at him. “If you didn’t care about me, you would have left me in the forest. When you two showed up, that’s when I knew I had to believe you, even if my head said it doesn’t make sense.”

“Believe him about what?” Tye asks.

“That you two care for me. That you want what’s best for me.”

“Never doubt us. Even if you’re on the moon, we’ll come for you.” Alec pulls me against him, squishing my face against his lean chest. “Now, where do you want to go?”

I look back at the motel. “Far away from here.”

Chapter 34

Tegan

We drive past the national park they rescued me from. We head to the next state over and stop at the first innocuous motel that appears once we cross the border. The van feels different with just the three of us. We left everyone else behind. They seemed fine with it once we divided up their earnings and let them keep their cut.

The gun that Alec used to kill Stacks is tucked down the back of his pants, and a bag filled with cash rests on the floorboard. It’s all the money he’s been saving, plus what we earned together. Maybe I wasn’t part of the plan when he first decided to start saving, but I’m deep in it now. We pull into the parking lot, and Tye goes in to get us a room. A single room. I want to be with both of them. Rules won’t keep us apart any longer.

Not that they worked to begin with.

Tye comes back with a key card, and we head to our room. The light flicks on as we head inside, casting a dim yellow glow over the space.

“What now?” I step inside and close the door behind me, cutting off the gentle sounds of nearby traffic.

Alec shrugs. “We’re together. Nothing else matters.”

“What about Stacks’ body?”

“We cleaned up the scene, and I got the murder weapon, pup. I told you, people don’t care about drifters like us. The crew will scatter, and Stacks’ case will stay unsolved.” Alec wraps me in his arms.