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“Can’t.” Maybe it was their closeness, or the kindness he’d shown her earlier when she’d melted down, but her temper wasn’t as quick as it usually would have been.
“Why? Explain it to me.”
“Once you’re in the Bluff, there’s no getting out.”
“What is this, the mafia?”
His lips quirked, and she had to stop her own from lifting in response. He sighed.
“Nobody leaves, not in the way you’re thinking.”
Violet breathed out through her nose, slowly. “Your non-answers are driving me fucking insane.” Her tone was overly pleasant, comically juxtaposed with her words.
The pads of his fingers rubbed back and forth over the skin of her calf, and while some distant part of her mind was glad she’d thought to shave her legs since she’d gotten there, another wondered if he knew he was doing it.
“I’d end up on trial with the elder council. You’d most likely end up in an unfortunate accident or a mental hospital somewhere.”
“The guy with the bow and arrow going to come cut my brakes or have me committed because I escaped?”
His eyes darkened at her tone.
“No, but somebody out there will, maybe a police officer, maybe one of the elder council. If you leave town, you won’t survive.” He ran his free hand over the scruff on his chin. “The moment Jason brought you to the Bluff, your option for a life out there was done.”
Violet opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. “You’ll be able to go out in a year or two, but your life as it was before is gone.”
She stared at him, stupid.
“You’re telling me the Frankston police are aware there’s a community of freaks here who are taking people hostage with their freaky gold eyes, and they’re not only letting it happen, they’rehelping?”
Mikel had the nerve to rub his temple likeshewas the frustrating one.
“There’s some alliance between the Bluff and Frankston. It’s the only town within two hundred miles and would be the only real threat to the community here. I don’t know the ins and outs—”
Violet cut him off. “My dad’s the fucking mayor of Frankston, and he’s a huge piece of shit who knows, pays, is getting paid, or has dirt on pretty much everything there. There’s no way anyone knows there’s a thriving band of freaks one town over. I’ve never even heard of this place, never seen it on a map, and I’ve lived in New Hampshire my whole damn life.”
“You might ease up on the freak comments,” he said after a long pause where he only studied her thoughtfully, and Violet seethed. “As it stands, your options are join said freaks, or you’re back running from the bow because you failed to integrate.”
“Or you take me home now, and we end all this,” she shot back and watched his jaw work tight and then unclench.
“If I could take you home”—he always spoke slowly, but he said this even slower, and it dripped sincerity—“I would have done it the night I stumbled on you with Jason.”
Silence stretched in the wake of that, and Violet struggled to draw up her anger and indignation again.
“Someone you’re missin’?” A darkness to the question suggested he didn’t mean family, something in the way he avoided her eye after.
“Yeah,” she said, sarcastic, “the bartender.”
“You’re a kid.”
“I’m twenty-one. And before that, real good friends with the guy who’s in charge of the liquor licenses. Everyone in town knows my dad doesn’t give a shit what I or anyone else does, unless it affects his money or his political hard-on. Me propping up the bar at the Satin Lounge does neither.”
He seemed to digest this information.
“The guy from Target—” Suddenly his earlier question about her missing someone made sense.
“Eww. He’s one of my dad’s guys, for security and stuff. There’s no way he didn’t recognize me; he’s been at my house like, three days a week before. He picked me up from school a couple times before I got my license when I missed the bus.”
Mikel’s brow furrowed. “He’s security for the council here. What would he be doing working for the mayor of Frankston?”
