Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
But I head down the hallway, knowing when I pass him and his friends standing by a set of lockers, and he watches me.
I don’t look.
I draw in a long breath and release it, the weight of caring disappearing.
I talk to Codi at lunch, the others with the pack at the football players’ table, and I stay after school, helping Mr. Bastien print off all the letters that students emailed today.
He doesn’t read them before he asks me to stuff them in envelopes, including the one I wrote, writing the person’s name who wrote it on the front. He tells me to seal them.
“Are you mailing them?” I burst out.
He can’t. I don’t want this going to my house.
He shakes his head. “No. Just trust me.”
I cock an eyebrow and continue my task.
After I leave, the parking lot is empty, but instead of going to Knock Hill, I walk down to the mill district, seeing my bike still parked in front of the abandoned insurance business.
The hair on the back of my neck rises, though, and I pop my head up, looking around. Leaves blow across the street, workers jump off a tugboat down the street at the dock, and I see a mom carrying a bag of groceries, a small boy walking at her side.
No one is watching me, although it feels like there is.
I head up Phelan’s Throat, making runs around and around again for the next two hours. I shouldn’t be without supervision, I should be in more protective clothes, and I shouldn’t push it this fast, but I shove everything out of my head as my heart drops into my stomach and I just go. I have to.
I race up the hill, swerving around potholes and the Road Closed sign. I fly up to the top and jerk the handlebars right, skidding down the throat just like Farrow taught. My knee catches on the ground, and I can feel the sting as it shreds my jeans, but I’m okay. I speed down and back up again, over the bend, and back to the finish.
The sun sets, darkness seeping in, and the eyes I felt before are in the woods, behind me, up ahead, all around now. I race back up the Throat one more time, headlights appearing far behind.
A car.
Cars don’t come up here. Road closed and all. I’m not even supposed to be up here.
It gains on me, but not close enough to threaten. All the same, though, I slow down and cruise around the Throat, taking it easy before speeding up again and dashing back to Knock Hill. It follows me the whole way, and I cruise up to the curb in front of my place, skidding to a halt.
The car, an old, black BMW with rust around the grill stops on the other side of the street, in front of Fletcher’s.
Constin climbs out. He’s alone.
“What are you doing?” I ask, but my eyes are stern.
He walks over to me, glancing up at my house.
“Farrow told me to keep an eye on you,” he says. “For your safety.”
“Farrow told you that?”
I get off my bike and remove my helmet.
Farrow would ask Hunter. Of course, that doesn’t mean Hunter would do it.
He closes the distance between us, stopping on the sidewalk in front of me. “I need to check the house.”
“What for?”
“There’s someone in there,” he says.
I turn my head, looking up the stairs. What?
“I saw movement through the window just now.”
Oh, bullshit. “Give me a break.”
I jog up the steps, away from him. He’s just trying to get inside. That was plain enough when he asked me to homecoming. I told Hunter I was thinking about it, and that’s what I told Constin, but only because I couldn’t think of a reason to say no fast enough. As if I need a reason.
I just don’t get asked out a lot, and turning people down makes me feel badly.
He catches up to me, pulling me around by the arm. “You’re still a prisoner,” he says. “I don’t have to ask.”
“No, you do,” I correct him. “And I can say no.”
It’s my house for the rest of the week.
He stares down at me, his expression softening a little. “Let me in,” he whispers.
I know what he wants to happen if he does come in. Is Hunter watching right now? I glance behind Constin, to Hunter and Farrow’s place. I don’t see any sign of life in the house.
“Let me in,” he presses again.
He brushes my chin with his fingers, and I snap to, shoving him away.
I run inside, slam the door, and race up to my room to the phone Hawke left me.
I throw open my door and see Hunter, sitting in my desk chair, leaning his elbows on his knees.
A new Android phone sits on my desk, still in the box.