I won’t put her at risk.
With the body stowed in the trunk, we run across the field a few times to try and cover up any existing footprints and just have to hope the storm does the rest of the job for us.
Once we climb in the car, I run my hand through my soaking wet hair and look to Cole in the driver's seat. "What now?"
"Now we burn and bury the body. We need to make sure there’s nothing linking any of us to him tonight. So we need to go to his place and check through his shit, burn our clothes, and clean this car," Cole answers, his voice an icy calm. I knew his dad was into some shady shit, that he kept us from some of the shit he’s had to deal with… but I would never have guessed he’d be capable of this.
Then again, I never thought we’d all fall for the same girl, and I’d be lying to myself if I thought we were doing this for any reason but her.
He starts the engine before I get a chance to ask where we’re going, but I don’t need to know. Not really.
I already know I’d do anything for her.
Including burying this body.
* * *
Once we’re back at the house and I know Briar is safe, even if she’s not okay, I start to relax a little. Sawyer filled me in on her panic attack earlier, and we all agreed after that, without saying a word, we would camp out with her and the dogs in the living room.
She didn’t want to move, and none of us wanted to not be near her, so she’s asleep, wrapped in Sawyer's arms opposite me, while I’m sitting with my laptop on my lap, combing through the campus surveillance, making sure there’s no trace of her or us tonight. Cole is in the armchair, asleep, but on edge. He wakes up every fifteen minutes or so and just watches her.
I have no idea where we go from here, how we go back to pretending none of this happened, or what life is going to look like considering the last twenty-four hours, but I also know I’m not willing to give her up.
Neither murder nor marriage is enough to keep me from her.
If anything, both make me want to protect her even more than I already felt the urge to do.
Travis skulks around the kitchen in the dim lighting, like he’s trying to keep himself busy. He hasn’t sat down since Cole and I came down after Briar’s panic attack. He might not have wanted to own up to her about how he feels, but after tonight, I’m not sure there's a way to hide it.
Not that he won’t try. Travis Kensington isn’t anything if he’s not stubborn.
"Anything?" Cole asks as he yawns, stretching out in the chair. I shake my head as I continue to loop through the various cameras covering that part of campus.
"Not yet, the storm seems to have knocked out some of the systems, so some cameras were down anyway, others didn’t cover the area, and those that did… well, it was too dark to pick anything up. I think our biggest issue will be if anyone in the library saw them." I push up my glasses, pinching the bridge of my nose, trying to stave off the pressure headache that’s pushing at the back of my eyes.
Standing, I head into the kitchen and pour another cup of coffee that I so desperately need. Cole follows me in and I hand him one too. The clock on the wall reads three thirty in the morning, and I groan. At least tomorrow is Saturday.
"We need to get to bed, if we’re going to act like nothing happened, that this was just a normal shitty weekend after a crappy dinner with our folks, nothing can seem out of place." They both nod at my words, but they have to have been thinking something similar.
Not that any of us make a move to go upstairs, instead choosing to stare at Briar and Sawyer while they sleep on the couch.
"Can we hack into Crawford's email? Have him contact the Dean with a family emergency or something to explain him not coming back next week?" Travis asks, glancing at me before settling his gaze back on Briar.
"I can do that," I say with a nod. "Finals are starting soon too, so we need to make sure she’s as focused as she can be for those if we’re going to try to just be as normal as possible."
"You really think she’s going to be able to just pretend last night didn’t happen?" Cole asks with a snort. "She isn’t like us."
"I wouldn’t underestimate her. She might not be like us, but how much do we really know about what she lived through before entering the shit show that is our lives?"
Travis laughs under his breath. "I know plenty. You think our dads would bring them into the family and set her up to marry Cole if they didn’t?"
Movement from the couch makes us pause, and I swear I practically hold my breath, because this is a conversation we need to have and it’ll be easier if she’s asleep for it.
Sawyer stirs, grinning down at her when he realizes where he is, before glancing over at us. I’m not sure what he sees over here, but his smile drops and he slowly extracts himself from our girl before padding barefooted over to us.
"Coffee?" he asks, and I nod at the machine. "What did I miss?"
I run him through the whole lot of nothing I’ve found, Travis’s email idea, and bring the conversation back to where it needs to be. "We were just talking about the engagement."