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“Wait.”
Bringing me in close, he rests his forehead against mine until we’re breathing in each other’s breaths and body heat.This is more than the average madness, I think wildly. This isourmadness—to build pyres around and worship.
“They’ll kill us.”
“Let them come for us.” He brushes his lips against mine, barely touching me, but enough to ricochet sensations all over my body. “No regrets?”
He says it like it’s a question, but I answer with a firm affirmation.
“No regrets.”
And there never will be.
CHAPTER 10
FRANKIE
The second we step outside we’re hit by a bullet of a different kind.
“What thefuck, Frankie!” Aiden appears out of nowhere, his eyes darting up and down the street. “Was that a gunshot I heard?”
“Did you follow me, you little punk?” Grabbing him by the front of his T-shirt, I pin him against the wall of the library, adrenaline still spiking in my veins.
He glances down at the blood dripping from my hand and staining his clothes.“What did you do, brother?” he mutters, looking scared shitless for the first time ever. Up until now, he’s only played at being a criminal—trying it on like a bad Halloween costume when it suits. This is his first confrontation with the hard stuff.
I made a choice, Aiden. A big fucking choice with big adult consequences.
I was losing her.Whatever Ada has endured this week has pushed her to her limits. I saw it in her face. Her eyes were sunken and haunted. There was a new resignation in her that ripped a hole in my plans.
“Get out of here, Aiden,” I say, loosening my grip. “The cops will be here any minute. When they come looking for me, tell them you haven’t seen me for weeks. Tell mum and dad it’s a misunderstanding.”
“Yeah, but it’s not though, is it?” He glances at Ada, who’s quaking in my shadow, her beautiful face smeared with blood too.
“Raven—”
“I thought the worst thing you could catch from a library was a bad case of intellect.” He offers me a weak smile, and I drop his T-shirt with a curse. “Is she worth it?”
Worth killing for. Worth dying for. Worth all of it.
I can’t explain it. Not to him. All the words in the world couldn’t do it justice.
Ada and I are more than a passing boy-girl glance or a teenage crush. It goes right back to the beginning. To a past he knows nothing about. To a war that started long before our time. To more of those consequences that are wrapped around our necks like snakes.
The sound of sirens rise up in the distance.
“There’s a tube station around the corner,” I tell him. “Ride around for a couple of hours, take the heat off yourself, and add some kudos to your alibi should the cops pull you in for questioning.” I turn to run in the opposite direction with Ada.
“What about you?” he says, grabbing my arm.
“I’ll steal a car.”
“Frankie…” Something cold and silver gets thrust into my hand.
“What the hell is this?” I stare down at the key in shock.
“Planning is like foreplay, brother,” he says with a slow grin. “It loosens the friction. I stole a car on the way here, figured one of us might need it. Some dickhead owner left his keys in the ignition. It’s a black Mercedes. I parked it on August Street opposite the betting shop.”
I watch him sprint to the end of the road as the sirens grow louder, muttering a goodbye after him that sounds dangerously blunt and final.
