Page 286 of Hide and Keep

“Can you move with five thousand?”

“If I was smart with it and lived frugally until I got a job…I guess.”

“But you’re not going to?”

He blinks long and hard. “I have to stick around to help while he’s recovering.”

“What was your plan for that when you thought you’d still be living at the manor?”

“Pay for help.”

“What about after he’s recovered? Will you move then?”

When he doesn’t respond, I have my answer. He was relying on that million dollars. And now, he’s stuck in Sea Haven, in this cell, probably forever.

Unless I can help. I don’t have a million dollars, but I have access to money. Less after Hide and Keep. But I’ve been spending money frivolously for years. Now I have something I want to invest in—Crue’s future…as well as my own. If he thinks there’s enough, and wants me to go with him, then I will. I’ll follow him for once. And we’ll create our own future. Together.

UNABLE TO PROCESS.

“What the hell?” I mutter, looking at the ATM screen in complete horror. I’ve never seen this message in my life. Did I enter the pin wrong?

“Daddy cut your cards,” Crue says with a yawn, his hands in the front of his hoodie.

“No. He wouldn’t do that.” It hasn’t even been twelve hours since I left.

I repeat the whole process of sticking my debit card in and punching in the pin number nice and slow so there’s no mistakes.

I wind up getting the same message: UNABLE TO PROCESS.

I try my other cards, none of them working.

Pulling out my phone, I dial my father’s financial advisor. Unlike last time I did this, the line rings and rings before eventually going to voicemail.

I hang up without leaving a message.

He cut me off? No matter how mad I’ve made my father, he’s never gone tothisextreme before, only limited the amount, as well as accounts, I have access to.

How am I supposed to do…anything?

“How am I supposed to eat?”

“That’s why you dragged me out of bed? I could’ve made you breakfast at the house.”

“You can cook?” He made us dinner once but it was just chicken breasts. And he overcooked them.

“Not everyone grew up with a chef, Ever.”

“I’m aware.” The heat on my face spreads down my neck as I think of a lie. “I just…wanted to take you out to breakfast…as a thank-you for saving my life—”

“I prefer gratuity in the form of sexual favors.”

I stare at Crue.

He stares back at me.

Neither of us blinks.

“From who?”

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