Page 180 of Dance With A Devil

“Call her. Now. Put her on speaker.”

Dash is already pulling out his phone, dialing with the speed of someone who knows this shit is life or death.

It rings once.

“Hello?” Fred’s voice cuts through, raw, like she’s been crying.

“Fred. Where is she?” My voice is low, lethal. One wrong word and I might snap.

“We’re heading to Devil’s Lane. Just left her mother’s house.”

That sentence alone is enough to make me want to rip the wheel off the car.

“Josie’s house?” I repeat, voice dead calm. But my grip on the steering wheel turns white-knuckled.

“She went there looking for answers,” Fred says. Her voice breaks. “Gaia… her half-sister… she helped Athens unlock some memories. I don’t know how. But… Wyck, whatever she saw, whatever came back, she needs you. She needsallof you.”

That’s all I need to hear.

I floor the gas. Tires scream. The world narrows into one purpose, her.

“How far out are you?” I growl.

“Twenty-five minutes. Maybe less if you drive like the Devil’s chasing you.”

“Iamthe fucking Devil,” I snap. “And he better pray I don’t catch him.”

Fred exhales sharply. “You justhadto pick a place buried in the middle of goddamn nowhere, didn’t you?”

“If I were you, Fred,” Dash cuts in, dark amusement in his voice, “I’d shut the fuck up before Wells gets there and does it for you.”

“Gotta go.” She hangs up fast.

Coward.

But I can’t focus on that. My stomach’s a graveyard of dread. Whatever Athens saw, whatever Josie buried… it’s bleeding through now. And I wasn’t there to catch her when she cracked open.

That eats at me.

“If this car gives out, I’ll run the rest of the way,” I murmur.

None of them argue.

Because we all feel it.

The pull.

The bond.

The chaos in our girl’s chest calling us home.

I slam my foot down harder, ignoring the speed, the turns, the world blurring past.

Let it all burn if it gets me to her faster.

“Athens,” I whisper, jaw locked so tight it aches. “Hold on. We’re coming.”

The last image burned in my mind is her smile, that crooked one she gives me when she’s pretending she’s not falling apart inside.