Page 9 of The Executioners Three
“We can fit it in the trunk,” Kyle offered, and Freddie only nodded. Then her heart ramped up to light speed because suddenly Kyle was touching her. He was resting one of his perfect hands on her muddy shoulder and guiding her toward his car.
She could die a self-actualized person now.
While he shoved the bike into the back, Freddie hunkered into the passenger seat and started cleaning mud splatter off her glasses. Her shoulder felt seared by his fingertips.
In a good way.Swoon.
Divya, meanwhile, climbed into the back and pushed through the front seats. “Um, where are your survival instincts, Miss PI? The most popular guy in school shows up to find you—at the command of the most populargirlin school—and you don’t think that’s weird?”
“Yes,” Freddie whispered, glancing at Kyle back by the trunk. “I do think it’s weird, but he’s just so handsome.”
“If you’re drunk.”
“As if you know anything about being drunk. Besides, youknowI’ve had a crush on him since sixth grade.”
“A crush that ended in seventh grade!”
“But has now resumed with heart-stopping force.”
Divya emitted a half groan and flopped backward right as Kyle hopped into the driver’s seat. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?” He shot Freddie a nervous glance while he cranked the car into gear.
“I’m… fine?” She was struggling to summon coherent words. It would seem her entire brain had been invaded by white noise. “I… I was just surprised,” she finally squeezed out. “It was a lot of water.”
Divya snorted from the back seat.
And Kyle cringed. It made his forehead pucker in the most adorable way. “Did you guys see all the crows? There must’ve been thousands of ’em. They’d totally blocked out the sky.” He motioned vaguely to where the sun was just beginning to peek over the red and gold hills of Berm. No birds flew there now.
“We saw them,” Divya said.
“I thought it was an eclipse at first.” Kyle flicked the turn signal at the only stoplight in Berm. To their left, the Fortin Park lawn was covered in a fresh smattering of fiery maple leaves. “But then the darkness kept on moving, and I realized it was birds. And then…” He glanced at Freddie. “I splashed you. And I’m really sorry about that.”
Freddie felt her cheeks erupt with pink. “It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.” Divya inhaled, clearly about to launch into a tirade that would likely hurt poor Kyle’s sensitive feelings.
So Freddie jumped in first: “How did you know they were crows? Did you see them up close or something?”
Kyle’s cheeks bunched upward—and Freddie thought her heart would melt. He just oozed with an I-don’t-ever-know-what’s-going-on sort of handsome. “Naw. I just assumed it was like in that poem, you know?”
Freddie and Divya exchanged a glance. “Er,” Freddie said. “Poem?”
“Yeah. Something about bells tolling and crows blocking the sun.”
Freddie’s brows pinched together. Therewassomething vaguely familiar about that, although nothing obvious was churning up in her memory banks.
And beautiful Kyle was still talking: “I don’t really know. I just remember it was in an old book my mom had in the garage, and it gave me nightmares. So she threw it away.”
“Understandable.” Freddie nodded solemnly. “That sounds deeply traumatizing, Kyle.”
Divya rolled her eyes. “Not as traumatizing as Kyle’s driving.”
Freddie and Kyle both ignored this comment as they rolled into the tiny downtown—even more festive than the Village Historique with its twinkling fairy lights strung around tree trunks, with its jack-o’-lanterns and autumnal wreaths, with its fallen leaves that brightened the sidewalks like new pennies.
At a four-way stop, Kyle flashed Freddie a shy smile.
And Freddie wilted. Like, literallywilted.
Sure, she had almost been run over, her sweater was possibly ruined, and her best friend clearly thought her selection in boys was lacking, but as far as Freddie was concerned, none of that really mattered. She was a self-actualized human now, and really: What more could a gal ask for in life?
