Page 30 of Hell to Pay

But we were on the street, parked next to Cassie’s Cuppa where anyone walking by would be able to see. I wouldn’t do that to Lilah, especially not after seeing how uncomfortable she’d been entering the coffee shop together.

I pulled away and kissed the corners of her mouth. “Fuck, sweetheart. You’re setting me on fire. We’re going to have to stop if you don’t want me fucking you on the street.”

She laughed and moved her hand. “That would be a bad idea. Rain check?”

“You better fucking believe it,” I said. “And sooner rather than later.”

I was hungry for her, desperate to prove to myself that she was still here.

That for now, at least, she was still ours.

22

LILAH

I staredat the ceiling in my room, thinking about Rain Adakai. Her face was imprinted on my mind from the flyer. Her friendly smile, the light in her eyes. It morphed into the face of the girl behind the Dive, then back again.

She’d looked different behind the Dive. She was the same girl for sure, but the light had been gone from her eyes, her expression tense and scared. I thought she might have been thinner then too, and I wondered when the picture from the flyer had been taken.

I’d told the Bastards about it, had shown them the picture on my phone. They were going to do what they called “background” on her, which sounded like basic research into her history and life and stuff, but it was probably a lot more in depth than what I could do on my laptop.

I wondered where she was, if she was cold, if she was hungry, if she was scared.

If she had a brand like mine on the back of her neck.

It overwhelmed me, made my skin cold, my heart race, like I was having a panic attack. Maybe it was because I knew now what it was like to be a prisoner, to feel helpless and far away from anyone who could help you. Maybe it was just because now I knew her name, knew there was someone out there looking for her.

I didn’t know. I only knew that she felt both close enough to touch and totally out of reach.

And also more like me than ever.

I got out of bed and slipped my knife into my hoodie before going downstairs to find Jude. I couldn’t lie here, alone and thinking about all the bad things that might be happening to Rain, to all the girls who’d gone missing.

About all the bad things that happened to girls all over the world every day.

I found Jude not at the kitchen island but on the sofa, his pencil making a soft scratching sound on the sketchpad in his lap. A fire crackled in the fireplace even though it was May and officially spring, and the wall of glass — actually a giant glass bifold door — was open to the huge deck.

Outside, it already sounded like summer, the crickets chirping softly.

He looked up when I stepped into the room. “Hey.”

“Hey. Mind if I sit?”

“Never,” he said.

He was wearing gray sweatpants and no shirt, the military images inked onto his chest mere shadows in the light of the fire. His skin glowed bronze, his defined cheekbones and jaw even sharper in the dim glow, his eyelashes criminally long.

“It’s kind of cold,” I said, pulling the blanket off the back of the couch. The silky faux fur blanket had appeared there one day after I’d mentioned that every sofa needed a blanket for couch naps. I still wasn’t sure who’d put it there.

I wasn’t used to living on the mountain where the seasons were slower to change, but the truth was, looking at Jude in nothing but sweatpants made me feel anything but cold.

“That’s why I lit the fire,” Jude said, setting aside his sketchpad. He lifted an arm. “Come here. I’ll keep you warm.”

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I scooted closer to him and sighed when he rested his arm across my shoulders, enveloping me in a delicious nest of faux fur and warm skin.

“You could try wearing a shirt,” I said.

He laughed. “Are you complaining?”

---