MADDIE
Sunlight flooded into the car through the windows. I squinted my eyes and slowly blinked them open, shielding myself from the light with my arm. I lay in the backseat of Alec’s smallish car, squished up onto his chest.
He stirred next to me, his muscular arm around my waist and his fingers lightly moving back and forth on my hip while he still slept. Warmth exploded through my chest, and I bit back a giggle.
Alec does this in his sleep?
Is it soothing for him? Is it me?
Once he tugged me closer until I basically sat in his lap with my head on his shoulder, I glanced up at those full lips and watched him smile.
“What time is it?” I mumbled, closing my eyes and laying my head back down on his chest. I didn’t want to wake up yet, didn’t want to go home to more red Solo cups and piss all over our floor.
It was bad enough that Mom and Dad were rarely home to scold Oliver for being such a dick. They left our poor housekeeper to clean it all up. I always felt bad for her, so I offered to help out, but I was just so sick of it all.
One way or another, Oliver needed to learn a lesson.
Not like that would ever happen though.
“Too early,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”
I relaxed on his chest again, my breathing evening out and my mind becoming empty. Since Spencer, my mind had been a complete wreck. I worried constantly, throwing myself into my friends’ love lives just to occupy my brain. I hadn’t felt this calm, this … easy for a while.
“I wish we could live together, like Vera and Blaise do,” I hummed softly.
Spending time in that house with Oliver was taking a damn toll on my mental health. I completely understood why he was so protective—I would be like that with him if a girl treated him the same way that Spencer had treated me—but it was suffocating.
And it wasn’t like Mom and Dad cared. They were on a yacht in the Mediterranean right about now, hadn’t called in almost a month, failed to check in even with our housekeepers to ensure that their lovely children weren’t trashing their billion-dollar house.
“Me too,” Alec said sleepily, gently scratching my head. “You know, we could.”
“Oliver would never let that happen.”
“Fuck him.”
My eyes widened, and I sat up and stared down at him, my brow furrowed as panic ran through my veins. Alec had never once said anything bad about my brother. They had been best friends for years, but …
“Alec,” I whispered, running my fingers through his messy hair.
After slowly blinking his tired eyes open, he clutched my waist and frowned. “He’s rude to you too,” Alec said. “He throws parties while you’re home and trying to study, doesn’t give a fuck what you think or what you say.”
I frowned. “He’s your best friend.”
“A great one, huh?” he asked, his voice filled with nothing but distaste.
When I went to respond, I caught sight of Kai Koh from Poison dumping something off the rocks and into the Atlantic Ocean. Alec followed my gaze and froze alongside me.
Kai turned to head back to his bike parked near the bushes and eyed us. “What?”
I rolled down the window. “What are you doing?”
“You didn’t see anything,” Kai said, leaning against the window and looking in at Alec.
Alec sat back and blew out a breath. “I don’t give a fuck what you do, Kai.”
Before Kai could walk away, I snatched his wrist through the open window. “Wait.”
He stiffened, pulled himself out of my grip, and peered over his shoulder at me. “What?”
“When Poison killed Principal Vaughn last m—”
“We didn’t kill the principal,” Kai said, his face void of any emotion.
But I knew that they had. Hell, the entire school knew it. The Poison boys weren’t to be messed with. They were the only gang in Redwood who cared enough to watch the rich burn in the fire that they had created themselves.
“Well,” I said, clearing my throat, “whoever did do it said that they wanted Redwood to burn.” I lowered my voice so if anyone was in those bushes or behind those rocks or in the nearest houses, they wouldn’t be able to hear. “I want in.”
“Maddie,” Alec said.
“I want in,” I said to Kai again. “I’m sick of this town.”
Alec grabbed my arm. “Maddie, you don’t want to get messed up in Poison’s business.”
“Spencer should’ve been thrown in jail for what he did to me,” I said. “Someone raped you and got away with it. Shit is happening every single day in Redwood, and nobody gives a fuck about it. I want to do something about it.”
Kai turned around with a smirk painted on his lips. “I like the attitude, but João would never allow that. He’s barely allowed Imani to get involved in our business. He wouldn’t want a rich girl and her rich boyfriend to be added to the mix too.”
“But—”
Instead of letting me finish, Kai walked toward his bike, started it up, and disappeared down the street, leaving me alone with Alec Wolfe. I swallowed hard and glanced over at him, hoping he wouldn’t be mad at what I had said to Kai.
I wanted this town to burn for what it had done to us.
“Maddie,” Alec said, pushing some hair behind my ear, “you don’t have to do that for me.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, gently cupping his chin. “Because you would’ve done it for me if you had known what Spencer did when he did it. You would’ve burned this entire town to the fucking ground. And I promise to do whatever I have to do in order to get whoever did that to you thrown in jail, no matter how corrupt the police force is or the connections that she might have to the rich.”
We stared at each other for a few moments until he drew me in for a kiss.
“Don’t get yourself into trouble, Cupcake. Not for me.” He leaned his forehead against mine, his lips barely brushing on mine. “We have a life that we’re going to build together.”
Warmth exploded through my chest. “A life?”
“Eighty years together,” he murmured. “And I can’t have that cut short. I’ve waited too long.”
My cheeks tingled, my breath quickening. Had he really just said that? Part of me didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t. Alec Wolfe—more than once—had admitted to having feelings for me, to wanting to spend forever with me. How could that be?
“Promise me,” he murmured, “that you won’t get caught up in their business.”
I curled my fingers into his chest, desperately wanting to fix this for him, to get back at all the people who had hurt him, hurt Vera, hurt all my friends. But I … I wanted exactly what Alec wanted. I wanted to be together with him.
“Okay,” I whispered, “I promise.”
After pecking me on the lips again, Alec started the car. “Good.”
He drove us the long way back toward the stadium so I could get my car. I stared out the window at the dead and desolate winter beaches and stopped humming to myself when I spotted a black Jeep Wrangler with tinted windows parked near the Overlook.
My breath caught in the back of my throat, my body stiffening. Fuck.
I only caught a glimpse of the man’s back as he slipped into the driver’s seat, the tattoo on the back of his neck of a black snake, drifting around his shoulder and slipping down to his biceps. One that I had seen too many times.
Spencer Katz.