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“Hannah is the sweetest, kindest person in the whole world,” I type back furiously. “The fact that you have a problem with her says more about you than her.”
“How is lovely little Hannah? Sounds like she’s having a bad night. What a shame.”
This smug bastard. I hate him so much.
My stomach feels sick and alarm bells start going off. As angry as I am, something else is warning me to pull back. It’s Anae and Hannah’s words about how meticulous Dare is. How he never does anything by accident or without a purpose.
Would that include messaging me?
I wanted to yell at him and tell him to fuck off and leave my friend alone, but in doing that, perhaps I’m only feeding him more information.
Andlovely little Hannah, what the fuck is that?
I think about Anae’s rabidness this morning and lick my suddenly dry lips. She would lop off someone’s head in anger if she saw Dare refer to Hannah that way—probably Hannah’s, even though she hadn’t done a damn thing to poke the bear.
I did.
I am.
I’m poking the stupid, evil bear.
Fuck.
I don’t know how to play Dare’s games and I have no interest in learning, so as wrong as it feels not to respond, I quickly delete the message so there’s no evidence of it in my phone.
That should be enough, right?
I can’t remove the message fromhisphone to ensure he can’t send Anae a screenshot, but both Anae and Hannah seemed to be in agreement that a screenshot is too basic for Dare. He has to leave breadcrumbs and play mind games and make people work for the information he wants them to have, and I don’t think I said enough to give him another move.
Did I?
Now I kind of wish I hadn’t deleted the message so I could look back at what I said.
Dammit.
I wait in the driveway for several more minutes.
I’m waiting to make sure I don’t hear from Hannah, but I’m also waiting to see if he’ll message me again since I cut the conversation off so abruptly.
He doesn’t. I guess he was interested enough to engage when I reached out, but not interested enough to give chase.
I tell myself that’s probably good, but truthfully, I have no idea how to interpret Dare’s motivations. I kind of thought Hannah and Anae were drinking too much Kool-Aid before five minutes ago, but even the minimal contact I just initiated has me in my head and more anxious than I’ve been all night.
And that’s saying something.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Parker
It’s damn near impossible to fall asleep tonight.
I was up late doing homework, and before and after that, I was thinking about Hannah. Kidnapping her is getting more and more appealing. I know she wants to stay in her mother’s house that her father built for her, but how important is autonomy, really?
I just want to keep her safe.
I also want to sleep. Desperately. My eyes burn and my body is so tired, but I can’t get it to relax enough to let me drift off.
Sighing, I roll over with a huff and adjust my pillow. I resist the urge to check my phone and see what time it is, and train my gaze out my floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows instead.
