Suddenly, the whole incident with the car on the road wasn’t important anymore. I remembered what Phoebe had said before she disappeared. I pulled out of Hayden’s grasp. “Where is she? I need to talk to her.”
Hayden grabbed my arm again, stopping me. “What’s going on?”
“She said the car accident wasn’t an accident.” I wish I could read his expression. “I have to talk to her. Hayden, you don’t understand. I have to talk to her!”
He leaned in, the hat casting deep shadows across his cheeks and eyes. “No. We need to talk.”
Dread inched its way down my spine. “You know, don’t you?” My voice had dropped to a whisper.
“Oh, God… you already know.”
Hayden studied me a moment, then his hand slid from my arm. Instead of letting me go, he threaded his fingers through mine. Even through the gloves, I could feel their warmth. “I don’t know how Phoebe knew or why she said it like that.”
I tried to pull my hand free, but his grip tightened. “Hayden…?”
Approaching footsteps and high-pitched laughter cut through the night. Without saying a word, Hayden pulled me toward the spot where we’d parked. “What are we doing?”
“We’re going where we can talk in private.”
I dug in my feet. “I want to talk now.”
Hayden stopped, his hand squeezed my gently. “I know this is important to you, but I don’t want to stand out here in the open and talk about it.” He lowered his voice. “We need to go somewhere private.
Just trust me, Ember. You’re not going to want to be around people… after this.”
“All right,” I whispered, “but I don’t want to go back to the house.”
“Why? It’s the safest place to talk about this.”
I thought about the car. It had been too dark to tell, but it could’ve been one of the Porsches. “I don’t think so.”
Hayden made an exasperated sound. “Okay. There’s another place. We can go to the cabin.”
“How are we going to get there in the middle of the night and still hit curfew?”
“You just need to trust me, Ember.”
I did trust him. And I was probably stupid for doing so, especially when he’d followed me for years and I really didn’t know a lot about him. But it didn’t change that I felt safe around him. We didn’t speak until we got in the car. He took off his hat and tossed it into the backseat.
Hayden ran a hand through his hair, glancing at me and frowning. “What is all over you?” He reached over, picking a crushed leaf off my arm and shoulder. His gaze met mine. “Were you rolling around in the woods? Something you want to tell me?”
“I was lost.” I bit my lip, looking away. It seemed foolish to claim that it’d been on purpose. “I found the road and it was really dark. A car… almost hit me. I dove out of the way.”
He went incredibly still in the seat beside me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it just scared me,” I swallowed hard. “I’m fine, though.”
“I’m going to kill Phoebe.”
My lips twitched. “Not before I do. Please?”
Hayden didn’t respond. We drove in silence, his hands clenching the steering wheel until his knuckles turned a ghostly white. I stared out the window, unable to quell the storm building inside me. I knew, beyond a doubt, that tonight would change everything.
We made it back to the house with time to spare. Cromwell had been waiting up, and I thought he looked seriously disappointed when he realized he couldn’t bust us for being late. It took everything in my power not to rush him and demand answers, but I’d promised Hayden that I’d let him explain before I went to Cromwell.
Like Hayden had instructed in the car, I went straight to my bedroom and changed into heavy sweats and a hoodie. I put the boots back on even though I looked like a hot mess, but I figured the walk would be a cold one.
My stomach twisted and churned the entire time I waited for him.
Had he been the one driving the car?
As soon as that thought surfaced, I felt cold. There was no way to know whether it had been an accident or if someone had tried to run me down. And right now, I couldn’t focus on that—not when I was about to find out if the accident that’d killed my father and me hadn’t been an accident.
About an hour later, Hayden knocked softly on my door and I slipped the gloves back on. We snuck out of the silent house. Walking to the cabin in the dead of night wasn’t my idea of fun. Every snapping twig or moving shadow caused my heart to race.
“This is so creepy.” I scanned the surrounding dark for danger.
He grabbed my hand with his free one, giving it a little squeeze as the beam from his flashlight bounced over the terrain ahead. “Come on.”
I did feel better with his hand wrapped around mine. About halfway there, something crashed through the bushes behind us, and my hand clenched his. “What was that?”
“Just a deer.” By the time we arrived at the cabin, I’d about had five heart attacks and was already dreading the walk back. I waited by the table while Hayden drew the blinds closed and lit a few candles.
Soft color glowed through the room.
Hayden slid past me, the scent of soap and fresh air momentarily enveloping me. I watched as he sat down on the edge of the bed. The cabin idea had been great back at the bonfire, but now I seriously wanted to kick myself.
What the hell had I been thinking? Sneaking out with Hayden and holing up in a cozy, little love-
cabin? The spontaneous part of my brain spewed out all kinds of images, none of them even remotely possible in reality. He wouldn’t have brought me out here for something like that. We couldn’t even touch.
But we could, right? For a few seconds, maybe even more. I shook my head to get rid of the image that popped up.
“Ember, are you all right?”
Summoning up my common sense and purpose, I pulled off my gloves and dropped them on the back of the couch. Even though my hormones had totally picked a bizarre time to come alive, I wasn’t here to drool over Hayden. “Tell me what you know,” I said.
“The accident wasn’t an accident, Ember.”
My heart jerked. I tried to say something, but nothing would come out.
“You weren’t supposed to know. My father thought it would be best if you didn’t. No one wanted you to worry, to be scared. He thought it would be the best thing, but now…”
“What happened to my dad, to me? None of it was an accident?”
“All that we know tells us it was on purpose.”
I lost it. “You knew this! Didn’t you think I had a right to know?” My whole body tensed with emotions I couldn’t even begin to name. “Someone killed my father? Killed me? And none of you thought you should tell me?”
Hayden shook his head. “You already had so much pain, I—we wanted to protect you.”
“You don’t know what’s best for me, Hayden!” I paced to the side of the bed and stopped in front of him. “I can take care of myself.”
He looked away. “What good does knowing do you, Ember? Doesn’t it make it all the more painful?
Does it change anything for you?”
“It changes everything!” I shouted. I was close to tears, close to breaking down. “Do you know who did this—did you have something to do with it?” As soon as the words left my mouth I wanted to take them back. The idea of living with my dad’s murderers—my own murderers—was too much to consider.
I kicked the edge of the bed, but that didn’t help. I threw myself at Hayden.
He must have expected it, because he caught me around the waist and flipped me onto the bed in one fluid
