Page 51 of Wicked Love
“You know, kidnapping is illegal,” I told them. “You could get arrested for this.”
Summer gave me her best “bitch please” look, which I guessed was fair since I was totally bluffing. I wouldn’t have called the cops on her or Mom and Holland—Lee and Eric, I didn’t have as many qualms about—and even if I would have, I didn’t have anything to call themwith. I was stuck.
“It doesn’t matter how bad it is,” she said. “You’ve got to fess up. That’s the only way this is ending.”
“This is ridiculous,” I told her, and then my mouth stayed clamped shut.
The van jolted over a pothole, turned, and rumbled to a stop. Mom nodded to my cousins, who stood up. I pushed to my feet too and peered through the windows on the back doors.
We were parked outside the room at the end of a motel, a tarnished brass number 9 mounted on the yellow door.
I wrinkled my nose. “You’re kidding me.”
“We can do this in there or stay in the van,” Mom said firmly.
I weighed my options and decided I’d rather take my chances in the motel room. There might be an emergency exit of some sort. I’d at least have more room to maneuver. Here in the back of the van, I was completely trapped.
“Fine.”
My cousins marched me into the motel room with the others following behind. When Holand had closed the door and turned the deadbolt, Lee and Eric positioned themselves in front of it like bouncers. I glowered at them again and dropped onto the edge of the bed.
The comforter was a mottled grey, the carpet patchy navy. A faint smell of mildew hung in the air. Delightful. The yellow door was the only cheerful thing in this place.
“I still don’t know what you want me to say,” I insisted. “There’s nothing to confess. I’ve been busy with school and extracurricular stuff, and I didn’t want to stress you out by complaining. And I just haven’t had much time to talk in general.”
Summer snorted. “I’ve known you since elementary school, Madds. I can tell when you’re lying. But I think this is the first time you’ve ever lied this blatantly to my face. You’ve been dodging the truth for weeks now.”
Holand stepped up beside her, his expression so solemn that guilt started gnawing at my gut. “Maddie, you know your mother and I have always tried to give you and Logan plenty of freedom to live your lives. But if something’s gone wrong for one or both of you—and it definitely seems like it has—we need to know. You’re still our children.”
I swallowed thickly. “What exactly doyouthink Logan’s done?”
His mouth pulled with a grimace. “I don’t know. I don’t want to believe anything negative about him, but he’s been so withdrawn for years now… It’s hard not to wonder what secrets he might have been keeping.”
“He has a right to secrets, doesn’t he? We both do. We’re grown-ups now; we don’t need to share every detail of our lives with you.”
Holand winced. “Of course you don’t. But if Logan’s gotten into some kind of trouble and mixed you up in it too, I want to know—so I can help both of you. That’s all I want to do: help, however you need it.”
Mom nodded emphatically and reached for my hand, wincing when I scooted away from her. “Refusing to talk to us only makes me more sure that whatever you’ve gotten into, it’s very serious. Please, Maddie. Don’t keep shutting us out like this.”
My stomach clenched even tighter. They didn’t understand. They didn’t realize that there wasnothingthey could do to help. Having them separate from this mess and safer because of their distance helped me more than anything they could have offered if they’d known the truth.
But then, thatwasexactly the way Logan had thought about me—his reason for keeping me in the dark for so long. He hadn’t believed I’d be able to help all that much, but I had. We’d gotten so much closer to unraveling the mystery because of what I knew.
In some ways, that was different. I’d known Dad so well, and I’d been with him when he’d died. No one else in the motel room with me could have had any idea about what he’d gotten mixed up in before his death except for Mom, and I already knew how far our enemies would go to hurt her.
Next time it might be fatal, the text I’d gotten after her accident had said.
But how could I get out of this intervention without dragging them all into the line of fire? The motel room had given me a little breathing room, but I was still just as stuck as I’d been in the van.
“You know how stubborn I can be, Maddie,” Summer said, folding her arms over her chest. “You’re not winning this—other than I think talking to us will be better for you in the long run anyway. I don’t care how crazy things are; I just want to know what’s happened to my best friend.”
The guilt I’d felt earlier expanded through my chest. It was with Summer where I’d screwed up the most. Mom would have accepted me being a little distant, because I hadn’t talked to herthatmuch to begin with, and Holand had put up with Logan’s anti-social behavior for years. But I’d almost completely frozen out the friend who’d always been there for me. No matter what excuses I gave, that’d been unfair.
And it’d come back to bite me in the ass. If I’d opened up to her, she wouldn’t have gotten so worried she’d compared stories with my mom. No intervention, no sitting here in this dank motel room wondering what fresh hell might be descending on my boyfriends. Maybe she’d have understood without pushing herself into harm’s way on my behalf. She’d at least have realized why I couldn’t simply walk away.
“I really think this was taking the situation to a huge extreme,” I had to say. “Going this far… How am I supposed to trust you if you’d grab me and haul me off like this?”
A liquid shimmer entered Mom’s eyes. “You need to trust that we’re only doing this because of how much we care about you, Madelyn. Because it matters this much to us to make sure that you’re okay—or that you’ll be okay, at least.”
