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LANDON
The next day, João convinced Vera Rodriguez to watch Ana, and Kai brought Allie home. When they came back, Imani decided to stay upstairs on the first floor of my parents’ house to do some homework for school while we plotted on how to kill Vaughn for fucking good.
It was the first time we were able to talk about anything in detail before all shit had broken loose last night. We talked for hours about how we wanted to do this shit and which would be the best way to destroy half of Redwood while we were at it.
Someone banged on the basement door, and I lifted my head. “It’s open, Imani.”
The bang came again.
“Poison! Open the door, for fuck’s sake.”
I sighed and leaped up from the couch, taking the stairs two at a time as Kai and João followed me to get some fresh air. When I opened the door, Allie and Jamal Simmons—Jace’s best friend—stood outside of it with tears racing down her cheeks.
The house door opened, and Imani pushed her way between us to see Allie. “Oh my gosh, what happened to you?” she asked, pulling open the screen door and pulling Allie into the house.
Allie sobbed in her arms. “I—Jace … he-he’s gone. I haven’t heard from him in over twenty-four hours. When Kai dropped me off this morning, he was gone. I’m so afraid that he’s dead.”
Imani looked back at us. “Have you heard from him?”
Before any of them could answer, a black SUV with tinted windows skirted around the bend and screeched up to the side of the road. Kai grabbed Imani’s waist and pulled her to the ground, as if someone was about to pull up and start shooting.
The driver’s door swung open, and Jace shot out of the car toward Allie. “Thank fucking God you’re okay.”
Allie ran her hands against his cheeks and shook her head in disbelief as blood coated her fingers. Jace looked like he had gone to hell and come back. There were so many bruises up and down every exposed place of his body.
“The fuck happened to you?” João asked, nodding toward the inside of the basement.
Jamal wrapped one arm around Jace’s torso to hold him up, and Jace flinched.
“Sorry, dude,” Jamal said, helping him inside.
Imani wrapped Allie up in her arms and ushered her inside the house and to the basement. After Jamal rested Jace on the couch, Allie sat next to him and gently grasped his knee.
“What happened to you?” she asked, searching the room.
João grabbed a cheap bottle of vodka from the dirty white refrigerator and held it out for Jace. Jace went to grab it, but Allie tore the bottle out of his hand and glared at João.
“What’s your damn problem? This is not a time to get drunk. He needs to be healed. Now.”
“We could go see my mom, but she’s, uh—” Jamal glanced down at his watch and frowned. “She’s probably at work right about now. Her night shift starts in, like, five minutes. She leaves at ten thirty p.m.”
“My mom should be home,” Imani said, eyeing Kai, João, and me. She gnawed on the inside of her lip and shook her head, as if saying screw it. “If we leave now, she’ll probably still be awake too, but she has a surgery scheduled for early tomorrow morning, so we need to hurry.”
“Imani, are you sure?” Allie asked, eyeing the boys.
I guessed that she, too, knew Imani’s mother definitely didn’t like us.
Imani nodded. “Let’s go.”
Before Jace could follow Imani to her car, Allie grabbed his hand. “Jace, I need to tell you something first about … about your father,” she whispered.
Jace froze and tightened his grip on her hand. “Don’t tell me that fucker touched you.”
“He-he-he burned those papers and all the evidence in that file you told me to protect.”
Tears streamed down her face, and I froze. All that shit we had done to get those papers, and they were gone.
“I’m so sorry! I-I tried to stop him. I really did.”
Jace slumped his shoulders forward and blew out a deep breath. “Don’t fucking scare me like that. I thought he hit you,” Jace said, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her closer to him. He gently stroked her hair. “Don’t worry about it, Allie. Everything in that file was a copy. The real ones are somewhere where nobody will ever find them.”
“You have them?” she asked, looking up at him. “You really do?”
He gave her the smallest of smiles. “I do, but don’t say anything to my dad. We’re going to let him think that he hasn’t been caught and won’t be caught. Then … we’ll watch him burn.”
“Just like the rest of Redwood,” João said. “Just like the fucking rest of those fuckers.”
