Page 62 of To the Grave

A knot tightened in my stomach. “How much older?”

“I don’t know,” Cassie said, “maybe early thirties?”

“She’s sixteen!” Now I was the one practically shouting.

“We didn’t want to bother you with it after the thing with Jace,” Sarai said.

“I tried to talk to her actually,” Cassie said.

“When?” I asked.

“When I saw her out at the Mill with the guy.”

I rubbed my forehead. Ruth and her fucking fake ID and older guys. “What did she say?”

Cassie snorted. “She told me to mind my own business. Or mind my ownfuckingbusiness actually.”

“Shit,” I said. Because as complicated as things were before, with Ruth on the edge the stakes were higher than ever.

It was all well and good to preach about living for yourself, but what if living for yourself meant hurting other people? Because there would be consequences for my relationship with the Beasts — and I wasn’t the only one who would have to face them.

Chapter 42

Daisy

The Blackwell Falls Library was a one-story brick building between the north and south sides of town. Once upon a time it had been the center of town. Now it was the dividing line between the tourist-friendly north side, with its upscale bistros and boutiques, and the south side where locals engaged in street fights at the Orpheum and the Blades hung out around Syd’s.

Wolf parked Benji next to the curb and we got out and headed for the library doors. I was relieved to be out of the car. Since the incident at the Strike with Jace — what I’d started thinking of as the “fucking incident” because I wasn’t sure how else to think about it — I’d been hornier than ever, desperate to have the Beasts all at once.

I didn’t know what was holding me back. I felt all mixed up, trying to process the fact that they’d hidden their plans from me, that I had no idea what our future held, that I didn’t even know if a future was an option given how things were with Ruth. Sleeping with them again felt like booking a flight on a doomed plane with no parachute.

Which didn’t mean I wasn’t still turned on by them, as evidenced by my accelerated pulse on the drive from the house to the library, my hyperawareness of Wolf’s thigh just inches from mine, his fingers wrapped casually around Benji’s steering wheel, his inked arms flexing when he made a turn.

God help me.

“Are you sure we can’t access this stuff online?” Wolf asked on our way into the library.

“I’m sure,” I said, glad to be on the safer ground of the day’s mission. “TheBlackwell Bulletinis too small to have a digital archive. It can only be found here.”

He held open the glass door and we stepped into the hushed carpeted library lobby.

The checkout desk stood to the left, rows of shelved books lined up under windows. It was almost Thanksgiving, and the light had already changed from the golden light of autumn to something more blue. It was almost harsh as it streamed into the building, illuminating the lobby in a pale glow.

Behind the greeter’s desk, a balding older guy with thin metal glasses looked up as we approached.

“Good morning,” I said. “I was wondering how I would access back issues of the Bulletin? I read online that they’re all archived here.”

“That’s right,” the man said. “Although I have to warn you, they’re still on microfiche. We’re waiting on a grant to digitize them.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Microfiche is fine.”

“Do you have a library card?” the man asked. “I need to scan you in to give you access.”

“I used to,” I said. “But that was a long time ago.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to the town library. Aside from the books I’d checked out from the schoollibrary, I’d been buying my books online for as long as I could remember.

“I can look you up,” he said, moving in front of a computer.

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