“That would be a no,” I say.
“Go back, or I’m not helping you.”
“Then I’ll call the cops and have them crawling all over this place,” I say. “If I tell them he’s here, they’ll have dogs sniff him out no matter how hidden he is.”
“Crystal, Ican’tbring you in here,” he says, his voice a mixture of frustration and annoyance. He stops at a discrete side door to the building, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at me. “Go back to the car before you get us both killed.”
“No.” I mirror his pose and stare up at him, refusing to back down. “This is my brother, Devlin. I’m not going to sit in the car while you find him. Fuck that.Yourfamily did something wrong. Whatever you’re afraid I’ll see, their secret hiding place for dead bodies, or your secret society, it’s not as important as his life. Asourlives, if your family would really murder us for rescuing someone.”
“You’re a fucking pain in the ass, Dolce,” he snaps, turning and shoving a key in the lock. He doesn’t say the words in an endearing way, either. He sounds like he hates my guts.
I couldn’t care less.
“I’m not about to let you go in there and do whatever you might do to Royal when I’m not there,” I shoot back. “What are you going to do that you can’t do with me there? Finish him off? Threaten him to silence?”
His family did this. I can’t trust any of them, no matter how kind he was to me tonight. I have to remember the other side of Devlin. Sure, he was nice to me, but only because he fucked me in front of his entire football team before that. He’s also a boy who held me down and threatened to disfigure me if I didn’t obey him. A boy who took my virginity as part of a plot to destroy my family and told me it was nothing personal. For all I know, he was in on Royal’s kidnapping the whole time, a decoy to keep me and my other brothers occupied while Preston and his dad pulled it off.
I shove through the door after him, so close on his heels that I run into him inside the door. I’m not even surprised he has the key. But he takes me by surprise when he spins and tucks his shoulder, slamming it into my solar plexus like he’s taking down an offensive lineman. I go flying backwards, the shock of how painful it is hitting me as hard as the pain itself. I barely feel it when my ass hits the ground, my elbows hitting the concrete so hard I can’t even scream with the pain of it. By the time I realize I’m on my ass outside the door, it’s closed, and Devlin is gone.
Bastard.
It takes me a minute to recover enough to drag myself up. I sit on the ground and try to breathe through it. At least my head didn’t hit the ground. But it could have. Fucking Devlin didn’t even stick around to see if I was knocked out cold. He thinks I’m just going to stand out here throwing a fit, seething about what an asshole he is. Yeah, fuck that.
All I can see through the window in the classroom to my right is the eerie, dim security lighting of the halls inside. I search around, scanning the small stretch of pavement between the small door and a row of trees. It takes me a few minutes, but at last I find a decent sized stone under one of the trees. I pick it up and hurl it with all my might at the window of the classroom. I saw enough to know the door opens into a hallway, not into some secret chamber where the Midnight Swans meet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find him.
The glass shatters, and shards rain down around me. Ignoring the pain when I step on them, I yank off Devlin’s hoodie, wrap it around my hand, and punch out the glass at the bottom of the window, which is about even with the top of my head. I have to turn away and close my eyes so I don’t blind myself, but after a minute, I’ve cleared a spot for myself. I grab the sill, gritting my teeth against the pain as shards of glass bite into my palm. I may be small, but I’m not weak. I was a cheerleader, and I have pride. I’d be damned if I was going to stand there shaking when I was holding up another girl’s weight.
I grip the sill with both hands and jump, using the momentum to shove myself up and in. I lock my elbows, a little breathless as I struggle to get a knee onto the sill. From there, it’s smooth sailing. I grab the window above and swing through, dropping down into the classroom. Cursing under my breath, I have to stop and pull a few pieces of glass from my bleeding feet after only a few steps. But once I get the big pieces out, I can ignore the smaller ones as I step out into the hall and run on tiptoes down the long, empty corridor lined with lockers. It’s eerily silent when empty, with only the dim security lighting casting shadows around every corner.
I hear a soft footstep somewhere to my left, and I freeze, my heart beating so loud I can’t tell if I imagined it. Then I hear another one, and I turn and race down a side hall, searching for Devlin. He must have heard the window shatter, but he didn’t come to see what I’d done. Instead, he went on without me.
I stop in the hall, listening hard. The seconds tick by. Just when I think I’ve lost him, I hear the soft squeak of a door opening. I run back a few steps and duck into the library. Willow Heights’ library looks more like something you’d find in a movie than a school. Sure, there are rows of modern books in the middle, but wall shelves stretch to the ceiling, leather-bound classics lining each one. In one shadowy window nook, behind one of the plush recliners set around the library for students to sit and read, I spot a sliver of light coming from beneath the shelves.
I run across the library, grateful of the carpet under my battered feet. I grab the shelving and pull, praying Devlin didn’t lock the door behind him. For once, luck is with me, and the section of shelves pulls out, swinging open the hidden door. My breath catches in my throat as I stare down the stone steps.
Willow Heights is old, but this looks like an ancient cavern that might have been around for centuries. A set of rough stone steps leads down, each one about two feet wide and precariously non-uniform in width and height, as if someone made them from stones they found in nature. A single, incandescent bulb hangs over the stairs, which have no railing. My heart slamming in my chest, I descend after Devlin, trailing my hand down the wall. It’s made of natural stone, too, and my fingers come away gritty with dust. My mangled feet welcome the cold of the stone steps, though I don’t even want to know what grime I’m getting in the open cuts.
Devlin stands at the bottom of the stairs, not moving, though he must hear me coming. I stop behind him and wait, my heart pounding so hard in my ears that I can’t hear anything. Did I just make a horrible mistake, walking into a trap? I know how fast Devlin can turn from a decent man to a monster. I know how callously he can betray me, like he did upstairs.
“Devlin?” I say, barely able to speak past the sick shaking that’s taken over my whole body. He could lock me in here alone, treat me like a dog until I believed that’s what I was.
“He should be here,” Devlin says, his voice not cruel or angry but distracted, disbelieving. “Dad was sure of it.”
“Is there another place the secret society meets?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself and glancing around the creepy stone room, lit only with the bulb above the stairs. I can see chairs set around the room, though, and lamps on small tables between them. This must be where the Midnight Swans meet. At school. Probably at midnight.
“Shit,” I blurt. “What time is it?”
Devlin pulls out his phone, and when he thumbs it on, I freeze. There, just a few inches in front of my bare toes, is a single drop of blood.
My mind spins back to that first morning in the driveway, when I stood shell-shocked and empty, seeing that drop left where my brother had been taken.
“Royal,” I breathe.
“Dad!” Devlin cries, spinning around and nearly running me over. He catches my shoulders, his eyes boring into mine with desperation and panic. Releasing his grip, he grabs my hand and charges up the stairs, dragging me after him. It’s all I can do to keep my feet and scramble up behind him, catching myself on my hand a few times when I stumble. He shoves the door closed behind us, not bothering to switch off the light. And then he’s racing through the library, back down the hall. Splinters of glass bite deeper into my feet with each step, but I don’t have time to stop. I know if I pull away, Devlin won’t wait for me.
We fly down the hall, bursting out the door and into the parking lot. Devlin releases my hand, and I have to race to keep up with him as he sprints for his car. He dives in and fumbles the keys, dropping them to the floorboard and cursing savagely as he grabs them up. I’m barely in the door when he slams the car into drive and floors it. My door slams closed with the momentum, and I’m thrown back against my seat.
“Devlin,” I cry, grabbing the dash and casting a wild glance in his direction. “What the fuck is going on?”