And he whips me around, spinning me away from him, and I stumble back into the tunnel, nearly falling.
“What?” I breathe out. “I…”
I find him just in time to see a tall figure in a faded leather jacket slip through the mirror, the back of his dark hair moving quickly through Rivertown and around the same corner the cop went.
Gone.
What the fuck was that? Who was that? Has he been in here before? I grip my hair at the top of my head. Son of a bitch…
I don’t have to time to worry, though. I have to go. I run down the tunnel, briefly noticing the portrait of the blonde isn’t on the wall where it was. Hawke must’ve taken it down.
I barrel into the great room and dig out the bag of money Hawke and I had stuffed into a kitchen cabinet. We weren’t sure what to do with the cash, but I’m glad I still have it.
Looping the bag around my neck, I keep my eyes peeled for anyone else lingering in here and race for the bakery. I guess I shouldn’t be scared. He helped me, didn’t he?
It’s just so super creepy. It was kind of fun to believe the mystery that the other caretakers of Carnival Tower were still out there somewhere, their memories still haunting the hideout, but to know he can fucking get in and out anytime he wants… Are there others?
I’ve been naked in the great room. Hawke’s door wasn’t closed when he went down on me the other night.
Mierda…
Climbing through the mirror, I run through the kitchen, out the back door, and into the alley.
“Aro!” someone shouts.
I look left, seeing Dylan and Kade. Dylan flags me down.
Did they drive?
I run to the end of the alleyway and keep going past the fire escape and onto High Street. They follow.
I lead them to Nicholas’s car. “Where’s Hawke?” I ask.
“He was on Kade’s bike,” Dylan says. “We lost him.”
I climb into the car, and Kade whips open the passenger side door. “back seat,” he tells Nicholas.
My foster brother looks at me, and I just start the engine. “We’ve gotta go! Come on.”
Jesus Christ, I don’t have time for this.
Nicholas huffs but steps out and slides into the back.
Dylan scoots in next to me, followed by Kade, their wrists still bound.
I pull away from the curb, take the next right, and then I veer left.
“You drove here,” I tell them. “You could’ve just met me at the bridge.”
But Kade yanks their arms up together. “Handcuffs!”
I snort. Oh, right.
I slip the bobby pin out of my pocket and toss it at him. “YouTube it.”
He scowls, bringing up his phone and trying to concentrate.
“Hawke sped off,” Dylan tells me. “But we saw this car as we passed by, so we stopped.”
Where the hell is Hawke? Is he thinking he’ll confront the guys at the bridge, or cut them off before they even get there?
He needs to let me handle this. I have to do it myself.
I want my freedom from Green Street. I can’t let Hawke take care of this for me.
I rush onto the quiet highway, a dark tunnel lit only by headlights and encased under a canopy of trees. I check my rearview mirror, waiting for something, but I don’t know what.
It’s like I know something is going to happen.
The scattered streetlights of Weston appear to the right, and I look over, seeing a stream of white moonlight across the river. Slowing just a little, I turn right and race across the bridge.
I roll down the window, dig out a penny from Nicholas’s ashtray and whip it out the window, over the hood, and hopefully over the side of the bridge.
“Why’d you do that?” Dylan asks.
Kade works the bobby pin into the cuffs.
I roll the window up again. “Pay to pass.”
“Huh?”
“Rivalry Week…” I remind her. “The prisoner exchange... You don’t know this story?”
She pinches her eyebrows together.
I shake my head. “Someday, when there hasn’t been a lot of rain kicking up the mud on the river bed and the water is really clear, look over the side,” I tell her. “You’ll see the car way down there.”
“The car?” she blurts out.
I nod, exiting the bridge and turning left.
“Why don’t they bring it up?” she asks.
“Because it’s her grave.”
I can feel her eyes on me, and I just laugh. There really is a car down there, and everyone in Weston knows the legend behind it. I’m surprised she doesn’t.
The Legend of Rivalry Week. Just like Carnival Tower, we have our stories too.
It’s probably not true, though. Just something that happens when people are left to their imaginations. Rivalry Week every October is full of fun that people like to pretend is dangerous.
Maybe it was once. The car is down there, after all.
But then Dylan asks, “Weren’t we supposed to stop there?”