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ALLIE
Twenty minutes later, Jace shut the passenger door for me and slid into the driver’s seat of his Maserati. When he started the car, I gazed out my window at Mom and Harlan’s room and frowned at the light on and Mom’s silhouette.
Every time I left her at the house alone, I felt guilty. I didn’t want her to ever be with Harlan by herself because—though she was a bitch to me sometimes—I still loved her. When she had been with Dad, I could see how hard she could love. She had been my rock after he died.
I grabbed for Dad’s dog tags and realized that they weren’t there. Harlan still had them, probably had them stashed away in his office drawer or was hanging them over Mom’s head, telling her that if I didn’t straighten up, he’d destroy those too.
I needed to talk to her, but Harlan never gave her a spare moment. Whenever we were at the house, Mom was by his side at all times. She never left the room, always kept up a facade that everything was all right. Both she and I knew that she was lying. And yet, even when Harlan had to work, Mom left the house with him.
It was constant.
Jace pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. Though it must’ve been nearly one in the morning, lights were on in nearly every house in the neighborhood, people pacing back and forth in their living rooms, cars started but nobody was in them. It hadn’t even been ten hours since the football game, and the rich, snotty Redwood residents were already freaking out behind closed doors.
Imagine what would happen when more secrets came undone.
When Jace drove out of our neighborhood, I sighed and sank down in the seat. This was not how I’d expected my Saturday night to go—becoming acquaintances with Nicole, watching a penis get chopped off, seeing Principal Vaughn dead. It seemed so surreal that I thought it was a dream.
Jace pulled up to the side of the Overlook and glanced at me. “It’s cold, but you wanna get out with me?” He cracked the faintest of smiles. “For old times’ sake.”
I arched a brow. “For old times’ sake or to thank me for letting you fuck my ass?”
His smile turned into a sly smirk. “For a bit of both.” He nodded to the rocks. “Come on.”
After bundling up in the jacket Jace had bought me, I waddled out of the car and stayed close to him as we walked down the small pathway to sit on a couple of huge rocks. Still sore, I winced and scooted closer to Jace, resting my head against his shoulder and trying to shamelessly steal his body heat.
“Are you okay?” Jace asked after a few moments.
“As in …”
“As in after everything that happened tonight.”
Staring at the dark gray clouds sitting over the ocean, I shrugged. After everything that had happened with Harlan, learning that Jace had killed someone in his own self-defense, and worrying endlessly about what happened to him, I couldn’t feel much worse. Jace and Imani wouldn’t let Poison do anything to hurt me, so in that aspect, I was good.
It’d be nice to finally see some of Redwood’s finest burn.
“Tonight didn’t bother me as much as it should have,” I admitted. “I thought it would, but … I can’t get myself to feel angry or upset that Poison killed Vaughn. I can’t find myself to feel fear over what might happen to this town. Most people here deserve what’s coming to them.”
After a few moments, Jace hummed to himself and nodded. We sat in silence for a few more moments, questions starting to eat me alive, the longer we sat there.
Did Jace know that Poison would kill Vaughn? Or is he numb to the pain and terror and fear that most people from Redwood felt right now too?
“Jace,” I whispered, letting the waves drown out my voice.
“Yeah?”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, threw one leg of mine over to straddle him, and grasped his face. There was one question I needed the answer to as soon as possible because the thought was killing me on the inside.
“What did you tell Poison about what you want to do to your father?” I asked, brushing my fingers against his cheek and pushing some strands of thick hair off his face. “You know, when you made Imani, Nicole, and me wait in the other room before we left, when they asked if you wanted them to kill him.”
Jace stared out at the crashing waves for a few moments. “I told them no.”
“No?” I asked in disbelief.
Ever since Poison had announced to Redwood that things were about to be different around here, I’d thought that Jace would jump on the chance to pay them to kill his father. I didn’t think he’d ever have to think about it.
Jace swallowed hard. “I’ve thought about this for a long time. After he murdered my mom, I wanted him to rot in a jail cell for the rest of his life, wanted him to be tortured over and over and over for fucking eternity.” Jace picked up a rock and threw it toward the water. “Now, I just want that son of a bitch dead, but I want to do it.”
My eyes widened slightly. “You?” I whispered.
“He deserves all the fucking pain, Allie,” he said to me. “And I’m ready to finally give it to him. No more wondering what life would be like if Mom had never cheated. No more dreaming of the past. No more living in fear. I’ll give up everything I’ve worked for to protect you and your mom even if it ends up with me behind bars.”
