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It was his father that shook me. Luca’s dad didn’t bend for anyone. The weirdo ran a lot behind the scenes, but it was Luca who did the ugly work.
I place my phone on the bedside table, watching the small clock beside me tick. I’m not the only one who doesn’t know anything. I wonder if Niko truly knows enough about me, to at least know the role I play with Luca. I play it well. I obey, do what I’m told and help when I can, no matter how much it eats me alive to do so, so does Niko really think I would just roll over and play dead for—whatever reason he’s keeping me here? And what the fuck was up with Jer? He seems different now too. Jer is like one of my best friends, but since seeing him this morning, it feels like there is a barrier between what he wanted to say and what he had to say.
I open a new text to the headmistress of the school, letting her know that I won’t be around for two weeks. She sends me a quick reply, saying she hopes I feel better. I don’t need to let her know, they all run the school just fine without me, but I can’t have people wondering where I am and then sniffing in places they shouldn’t be, which can get them killed.
I’m not a complete bitch. I don’t want anyone to die on my time.
I open up my photo app and scroll all the way back to some old images we took when Ari was still here. He would know what to do right now. I pause over a photo of Jer and me at the river. I’m on his back, my arm hooked around his throat, and we’re both smiling happily at the lens. I’m wearing his cap flipped backward with two braids falling over my shoulders. We look happy, young, and careless. Niko could have done with young Jer right now, a friend who could keep him real and grounded, though I’m sure he’s far too gone for any kind of saving now. Maybe even Jer is.
“Get up.” His voice from the doorway shocks me. “We’ve got to tie up this Luca shit before the week is up, and I’d rather it be done now so we have another few days to”—his eyes fall up and down my body—“figure the rest of you out.”
I clear my throat and swipe my phone, pushing it into the back pocket of my jeans. At least I had time to change, even though I can still smell his scent all over my skin. “I-I don’t know if I’m ready to see him.”
“Trust me, you’ll be ready.”
He closes the door behind me as I make my way down the stairs and to the front door. When he pulls it open, Jer is standing there holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a suitcase in the other.
His smile drops when he sees Niko’s grip around my arm. “Where are you going?”
“You know where.”
“What, like right now?” he asks, turning to watch us move to the black idling Range Rover.
“Yeah, now.”
I turn to look over my shoulder to see Jer slowly follow our steps, his eyes filled with one hundred questions pointed at Niko.
“What is happening?” I ask, looking between them both.
They’ve always been good at keeping me out of the loop, but it never lasts long.
Niko is on the passenger side, Jer beside me in the back, and Mal in the driver’s seat.
Jer’s knee jiggles against mine as he runs his palm down his jeans. “I was kind of hoping you already did this bullshit and I could sweep in with the aftermath.”
I’ve always liked to observe people. I think observation is the quickest way you get to learn about a person. It’s not in what someone says, it’s everything in between that. Their mannerisms, the way they converse, their body language, and eye contact. It’s what they try to hide from people that you should be paying attention to, not the words they so loudly speak.
“Halsin is a whole drive away.” I reach toward Jer and grab the bottle of wine from between his legs. “Let’s talk.”
“Meraki, he is on the clock right now and can’t be intoxicated by the time we get to Halsin.” Niko speaks for my old friend, which only irks me further.
“That’s fine,” I snap, and I can feel the air shift in the car once again. It’s like any time I give Niko lip, the people around me wait for my funeral. “I’ll drink most of it myself!”
There’s a voice in the back of my head that keeps saying yoo-hoo! We don’t want to be raped. Again. Please act right. But none of that resonates into the important part of my brain because—well, because I’m angry. I feel the emotion run over my nerves like a hot iron, and there’s nothing I can do to numb the pain.
