Page 42 of Wilde's End
“Oh, hey. Just curious when you’ll be?—”
Headlights flash in the distance.
“Is that you now?” Kennedy finishes.
“Is what me now?”
“Coming up the road?”
From the sounds coming down the line, he’s driving.
“No, I’m still an hour out.”
“Then …”
I descend the front steps as the car draws closer.
“What’s going on?” Hart asks.
“Someone’s here.”
“What?” It sounds like he hits the gas. “Who is it?”
“Not sure. The car looks black, but I can’t see it properly from here.”
It’s growing closer quickly though. The sun seems to set fast out here, where the hills surround us on three sides, which makes this place darker earlier than it should be. It only takes another minute until the sleek black SUV tears into town and then slows suddenly. The headlights wash over me as it creeps closer, and then the passenger window slides down.
There are four men inside, from what I can see. The one in the passenger side stares me down, and when they’re close enough, they slow almost to a stop.
“Ah, hey?” I try, but the man doesn’t answer me, and the driver leans over a little so I can see him properly. The lights from inside the car light up his face. He’s handsome with a lot of black hair, empty eyes, and teeth tattooed across his mouth and onto both cheeks. Like a skeleton mouth.
“Cool tattoos,” I manage, trying not to recoil from the car.
Skeleton man lets out a quick laugh, then stomps on the gas. I watch them leave town and hit the gravel road before their brake lights disappear into the trees.
Who the fuck were they? Based on the whole five-second interaction, I doubt they’re here by accident. Are they friends of Wilde’s? They didn’tlookfriendly, but how the hell would I know. Wilde doesn’t exactly look friendly either.
“What’s happening?” Hart’s voice coming from Kennedy’s phone snaps me back to the present.
“Who the fuck were they?”
Kennedy looks like he isn’t sure of anything. “Think they’re lost?”
“No way. Those weren’t the faces of people who were lost.”
“Can someone please tell me what the fuck is happening?” Hart demands.
Kennedy turns back to his phone, but my attention is still on the road. Should wewarnWilde? I might not like the guy, but I don’t want him dealing with whoever the fuck that was alone. Our relationship is a complicated mix of incompatible goals, unhealthy sexual tension, and neither of us being able to stand the other, and yet, I want to go anyway.
Only partially because this gives me an excuse to seek him out.
I stalk over to Kennedy and take the phone from him. “Where are the keys to the bike?”
Hartwell’s disdain comes loud and clear down the line. “None of your business.”
“Where the fuck are they?”
“There’s no way in hell you’re getting back on that thing.”
