AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I rubbed my shoulder, which twinged at my touch. Damn, I was pretty sure I’d have bruises in the morning. How had Gia turned out to be such a powerhouse?
That was the one thing different about this altercation compared to all the other ones. Before, she’d only thrown words at me. Which was kind of strange if she had that kind of fighting power up her sleeves. Why had she been hiding it?
A quiver of uneasiness wove through my thoughts. Something about the situation just feltwrong.
Thankfully, Gia had given me the solitude I’d been searching for—but I had other things on my mind now. I scanned the room, my gaze coming to rest on Gia’s bed, her possessions neatly stacked beneath it like the wall of a fortress. Driven by an itch of curiosity, I walked over and crouched by the bed.
The stacks at the front of the space were all carefully folded clothes, some of them as nice as the jeans she’d been wearing. I sifted through them, not finding anything particularly interest-worthy until my hands paused on another pair of jeans at the bottom of one stack.
The dark blue material was flecked with little white dots. Not like purposeful styling—it was only in one spot around the knee, not even on the other side. And they were so tiny I doubted anyone would see them unless they were peering this closely anyway. It looked as if she’d been doing something with bleach and gotten some stray flecks on her clothes.
Anthea’s voice came back to me from our chat on the fire escape. The mixture for making rust appear—vinegar, salt… and hydrogen peroxide. That was practically the same as bleach, wasn’t it?
I shook my head at myself. That line of thinking was insane. There wasnofucking way…
But ten minutes ago, I’d have said there was no way Gia could shove me to the ground, wouldn’t I?
Gnawing at my lower lip, I peered farther under the bed. There were a few more pieces of clothes she mustn’t have bothered with anymore lying crumpled here and there… and something rectangular showing faintly through the slats of the cot.
Glancing around to make sure I wasn’t about to be interrupted, I hefted up the mattress and reached underneath. Gia had a few magazines of her own stashed under there, right toward the back—rumpled looking as if she’d paged through them a lot.
I picked them up and eyed the glossy covers with their cover models in the latest fashions of several months ago. Why was she hanging on to these? Why go to such lengths to hide them?
I rifled through one, and the pages naturally opened to a spot near the middle. A napkin was wedged in there, with a smear of ketchup—not blood, I determined by sniffing—at one corner. Oh-kay. Why the hell would she save something like that?
In the second magazine, I found a flyer for a gym in the Bend, which maybe wasn’t so odd—if her family lived down there, it could have something to do with them. Farther in, a single shoelace was lodged between the pages.
With rising trepidation, I fanned open the third magazine. The pages rippled apart, revealing a tuft of hair that looked like it’d been gathered together from a hairbrush.
Black hair, not Wylder’s bright auburn. The only guy I’d seen Gia hanging around who hadblackhair was Kaige.
I rocked back on my heels. I’d noticed glimmers of jealousy in her before when Kaige was paying attention to me, but I’d figured she was just generally possessive of everyone in Wylder’s vicinity. She’d certainly hung off the heir himself plenty.
But this looked like Kaige’s hair. And it’d been Kaige I’d been taunting her about when she’d lunged at me with that never-before-seen show of aggression.
He obviously hadn’t given her this stuff on purpose. Who offered up used napkins and stray shoelaces as gestures of affection? I’d never seen him give her even the scraps of attention Wylder sometimes did.
But she was totally hung up on him anyway. Creepily obsessed with him, even. I glanced at the tufts of hair and cringed.
Had she left that freaky drawing in my room too? Pasted that lopped-off cat tail to my window? My stomach flipped over.
The pieces were starting to pull together in my head, but the picture they were creating still didn’t make sense. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, and a memory rose up.
When I’d run into her in the Steel Knights territory the other day, she’d been carrying a duffel bag. Where was that? She hadn’t been carrying it when she’d left just now.
I peered under the bed again, but there was no sign of it. So she’d gone into the Bend with a bag she wasn’t comfortable stashing with the rest of her things here.
I flipped to the gym flyer again, studying the name and the address. I hadn’t paid that much attention to Colt’s business with the MMA fights, but this place was in his domain. His voice came back to me from the rehearsal dinner, one of the last friendly remarks I’d heard him make.
We’ve got a new fighter who’s become a real talking point—a woman who’s been taking on the men, and she’s good enough to topple them.
I was insane to even be considering this, right? Gia was… Gia. Cringing, mewling Gia, who spent more time clinging to the guys than fighting her own battles.
But…
I shook my head and stood up. Sitting here speculating wasn’t getting me anywhere. There was one person who could at least confirm that I didn’t have the most important part totally wrong.
Leaving the magazines in their hiding place so Gia wouldn’t know I’d discovered them, I slipped out of the room and made my way through the house, checking what I figured were the most likely places. The kitchen and the room with the pool table let me down, but coming out into the hall, I ran into just the man I was looking for anyway.
