Page 138 of Lights Out

It was my turn to choke on nothing. Yup. Yes. I could definitely do that for her.

“Speaking of my masktok account,” I said. “You want to hold the camera for me again tonight? People seem to like the new content since you’ve started helping.”

She groaned and turned to buckle herself in. “As long as you don’t publicly thank me again. I’ve gotten, like, a thousand new followers since Wednesday.”

“You know people pay for that kind of social media growth, Aly,” I said, unable to keep the teasing note out of my voice.

She turned back to me, deadpan. “Yeah, but do they also pay their new followers to threaten them? Because that’s all I seem to get.”

“They just want to make sure you’re treating me right. They’re still not sure about you after that one time you made me sad.”

She rolled her eyes. “If they only knew the truth about what happened.”

I grinned. “They’d probably think it was hot.”

She sighed. “You’re right. Who am I kidding? I’m living their fantasies. I will always be the enemy.”

I gripped the back of her neck and pulled her toward me. The car had barely heated up, and our breath frosted between us.

“Hey,” I said.

She looked into my eyes from an inch away. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” I told her, unable to keep it in any longer.

“I know,” she said.

“You do?”

She nodded, her hair tickling my forehead. “Yeah, you’ve been saying it in your sleep for the past week.”

“Oh.”

“Hey,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I love you, too. And no matter what happens, we’ll get through it together. I don’t have anything tying me here. If we have to, we can copy Pretend Brad and flee the country.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said. “But if it does, I’m down, too. I can do my work from anywhere or become a hacker for hire. We have options.”

She grinned. “Okay, but can we agree on someplace warm? I’m over this cold.”

“Wherever you want, baby,” I said, leaning in to kiss her.

Epilogue

Aly

Icrashed through the undergrowth with all the grace of a water buffalo. Twigs snapped beneath my heels. Birds shrieked overhead, announcing my presence. I ignored it all and kept on sprinting.

Right now wasn’t about stealth; it was about speed. I was being hunted, and if I had any hope of escaping my fate, I needed to put as much distance between myself and the man who chased me as possible.

The midsummer sun sat high in the cornflower blue sky, baking the forest with its heat. Sweat beaded along my forehead as I leaped over a fallen log and kept on running. The trees were laden with leaves, their lower branches reaching out to grab at my hair and clothes as if trying to slow me down, and the air was so humid that I could feel it pressing in on me like a weighted blanket.

I put on another burst of speed, defiance burning through my veins. Josh wasnotgoing to catch me. Why the hell had I madethat bet with him? I must have been out of my mind at the time or suffering from sex-induced diminished capacity.

Was that even a thing?

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