Winter got taken. His words loom in my mind.
Will exhales, giving my brain a second to compute the piece of information it’s been fed. Too bad I’d need a whole damn month to even begin wrapping my head around it.
“She got taken. I know… it’s fucked-up.” He seems just as overwhelmed as I am. “It happened at the fight. But she’s fine now. She’s safe.”
My shoulders shed the heaviest of weights.
“Thank God.” I smack my palm to my racing heart. “What happened? Who would do that?”
“Haze’s brother, Tanner. That fucking psycho.” He clenches a white-knuckled fist around the steering wheel.
“But… why?”
“Something about Haze going soft because of her. He said he wanted his brother back. Whatever the fuck that means.”
While a part of me feels trapped in a real-life nightmare, the other has no trouble believing what he’s telling me. Haze did get soft. He fell for Winter. I knew it from the second he laid eyes on her when he crashed Kendrick’s dinner last week.
“How long was she gone?” They disappeared for four days. Was Winter locked away this whole time?
“You don’t need to know that.”
“How long?” I insist.
He caves. “Two days.”
Tears scrape at the backs of my eyes before coating my cheeks. Poor Winter. She must’ve been terrified. Here I was, blowing up her phone like an idiot, asking her where she was, while she was held somewhere, suffering and alone. No wonder she never replied.
“How is she? Is she hurt? Is she—”
“She’s fine.” Will’s warm hand envelops mine. I relax at his touch. “She cut her leg open when we were escaping, but she’s okay. And trust me, she’s lucky. Haze’s brother wanted her dead. It’s a wonder a fracture is all she got away with. She can’t walk right now, but she should be good to go in six weeks or so.”
I release a huge sigh of relief.
She’ll be fine. She’s alive. Breathe, Kass.
“And where is she now? Why isn’t she home? Does my mom know about this? She’s been acting so weird.”
“Slow down.” He gives my fingers a squeeze. “Yes, your mom knows about this. She’s the reason Winter didn’t bleed to death after she cut her leg. She called a friend of hers. He’s a doctor. Then she sent Winter to stay at a friend’s penthouse out of town.”
So, my mother does know about my brother’s secret. That explains why she asked me to stay at Morgan’s a while longer. She was buying herself more time, trying to come up with a believable explanation as to why Winter disappeared overnight. She wanted to keep me out of it. To keep me out of trouble.
Little does she know I’m dating trouble.
“Winter’s never coming home, is she?” I figure. “Not until she goes back to Canada?”
“No, she isn’t,” he confirms.
To think I had no idea the day I comforted her in the kitchen was the last time I’d see her in a very long time.
“It’s not safe here anymore, and we can’t protect her,” he adds. “Especially now that we’re a member short because of…” He stops, his eyes growing as though he’s just remembered something. “Oh.”
My sadness gives way to fear.
“What? What is it?”
“It’s… Blake.”
“What’s wrong? What about Blake?”