AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I think it’s your sister.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I NEED YOUto keep your head.” Mikel’s voice was steady.
Violet could barely hear it over the noise in her head. Her knee jumped constantly, and her fingers were already around the door handle, eager to be there, to be out of the truck and then toLila. It had already taken too long. He’d insisted they stop and pick up Red and Dani on the way to town for reasons she didn’t understand but hadn’t gotten far in arguing with.
“Do you hear me, Violet?” The intensity in his voice made her want to snap and insist he didn’t get it, none of them could, because it wasLila.
She’d been protecting her for years, raising her between the cracks of their dead mother and their cold, pious father. Now, her little sister was here and at the mercy of this fucked-up society that they were suddenly no closer to dismantling with the hope of Magnus’s information gone.
The truck swerved abruptly off the road. She heard one of their friends gasp in the back seat. They jerked to a rough stop. Irritation boiled her blood.
“Yes, Mikel, for fuck’s sake, yes. Just go!”
“Hey!” His voice was louder than hers, deeper, and it shocked her just enough to drag her back from the thoughts churning over and over, consuming her, and the hot crack of her temper that demanded they get there, now.
“I’ll help her, Violet, but I need to know you’ll keep your damned head.”
She’d barely taken a breath to tell him to drive when his hand was on her shoulder, pushing back against the seat.
“Control it,” he demanded, and something in his voice forced her mind to settle down and take notice. Her confusion must have shown on her face.
“Your eyes, baby,” he explained, softer.
Shock spilled hot through her. Paying attention, she became aware her vision had the slightly amber tint it took on when her eyes changed to gold.
“We’ll work this out, but this is no place for your wolf. I won’t let anything happen to her, but I have to be able to trust you can handle yourself.” His hand stayed tight on her shoulder, keeping her against the back of her seat until she responded.
Violet wrestled with her temper that was howling, insisting they were wasting time. It took three long breaths before she could convince her eyes to change back. “I’m okay.” She forced her voice to be steady. “I just want to get there so we can figure this out.”
The fact she was lying pinged somewhere deep inside her, but she held his gaze. She didn’t just need to get there, she needed Lila safe, and she’d do whatever it took to make that happen, like she always had.
He studied her for a long, maddening moment while the truck idled on, then his eyes flicked to the rearview.
“If I end up…occupied—” The pause made Violet’s stomach roll. “—catch her before she gets out of hand?” he asked Dani.
“I’m not some child who needs babysitting—”
“Done,” they replied over each other.
The truck pulled back onto the road, and Violet seethed.
“This doesn’t have to be a fight,” Dani spoke up, always the damned diplomat. “Let’s go in easy, see what they plan to do with her. She’s just a kid, right?”
“She’s eighteen in—” It took Violet a second to search out the date in her head. “Like a week.”
“Okay,” Dani said, in her usual cool and carefully neutral way, “so let’s see how this plays out. As it stands, we have nothing on Kane, and our word won’t count for shit with the rest of the town. Right now, he has all the cards. We have a better chance of a good outcome if we play by the rules until something changes.”
“Do you think they know you visited her?” Red asked, fear audible in her voice. Violet’s already hollow stomach churned with the knowledge that she’d dragged her friends into this.
“Doubt it.” That Dani sounded so unrattled eased her guilt some. “Nobody followed me. I was careful. I never told her my name.”
“I’ll take the blame if it comes to it.” Mikel’s hands tightened on the wheel. “I’ll say I asked you to drop off a letter for me, and you didn’t know what was in it.”
They swung onto Main Street, as Dani said, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves until we know more.”
Cars lined both sides of the road. Violet didn’t remember it being that busy when she’d been dragged into the square as an outsider, but the memory felt faded now, smudged, and blurred by the other times she’d walked this street, like at the bonfire. How normal life in the Bluff had become to her. Mikel weaved through the narrowed space with his huge beast of a vehicle. He parked on a corner in a way that wasn’t strictly legal. Violet couldn’t care.
