Page 33

Della

“She slapped you across the face?” I ask, my eyes widening in disbelief as I stare at Xavier.

We’re gathered around the kitchen island, which has become our meeting place. I have no clue why. The black wooden stools are as hard as rocks.

Freed from our filthy motel cage, I ran upstairs to shower twice. Levi did the same. We’re both in sweats now, and my hair is still damp because Xavier said he had a good reason for being late to free us, but didn’t want to get into it in the car home.

“Yup.” Xavier makes a face at me. “And the science teacher had a ball gag?”

“Hmm-mm.” I pop the tab for my soda and gulp the fizzy lemon drink.

“Let’s go back to the face slap,” Levi says, sitting on the stool beside me. “You were trying to rescue her.”

Since the motel, it's damn near impossible to look him in the face. Letting myself be vulnerable has never come easily, even with Everleigh, but I feel a bit lighter now. Maybe it’s because Levi held me for so long. I have never felt so safe and protected in my life.

And even though Xavier hit Levi in the back of the head with the door when he turned up to rescue us, Levi still held me for a couple of seconds longer, as if he hadn’t wanted to let me go.

“She had a rescuer, and it was the guy I shoved to the ground.” Xavier rubs his bearded cheek. “Turns out this thing isn’t just a perfect itchy disguise. It also cushions a slap. Barely felt a thing.”

My stomach grumbles. I never finished the toast Xavier cleared away while I was in the shower, and soda isn’t cutting it.

Levi offers me his bag of Cheetos.

I shudder. “No, thanks.” I’m hungry, and it’s past lunchtime, but no way am I eating that crap.

“We can order out, or I can make you something?” Xavier offers.

I shake my head. “I’m good. If Thomas was rescuing her, what was she doing in the trunk of his car?”

“It’s how he got her out of the school,” Xavier explains. “He was letting her out when I came along and ruined their almost perfect getaway.”

“I thought he’d quit.” Levi licks his neon orange fingers.

Xavier catches me eyeing Levi’s bag of chips with disgust and flashes me a grin. I’m not a food snob, but I swear I can taste the artificial chemicals from here. Somehow, it smells even worse than spray cheese, and I thought nothing could smell that bad.

“So did I.” Xavier hops on a counter and kicks his feet so playfully that I can’t help but smile. “Not sure what excuse he gave to get back on campus, but he left with an omega in the trunk of his car.”

“You haven’t said who she was,” I remind him. “Just that she popped up and slapped you.”

Not that Xavier seemed to mind. His gray eyes were sparkling when he told us what happened. I’m not sure that I would take a slap as well as he did.

Behind me, a door slams shut. Vincent enters the kitchen, his eyes weary, a hefty file in his hand.

“You look like you’ve had a day,” I say when he sinks into the seat next to me.

I take his file from him and put them down, earning a grateful smile.

He rolls his neck. “If someone ever tells you that politics is interesting, they’re lying.”

“I would never be gullible enough to believe such a ridiculous thing.” I hand him my soda. “Here. You look like you need the sugar more than I do.”

I expect him to refuse, but he takes the can, sips from it, and returns it to me. “Thanks.”

“No worries.”

“About this omega in a trunk of Thomas Benson’s car,” Levi prompts. “Who was she?”

“An omega where ?” Vincent shrugs off his suit jacket, and I realize I miss the gray tweed as he drapes it over the back of his chair.

Xavier gives him a quick rundown of everything he told us already, and Vincent shakes his head. “I thought my day was confusing. Why did she slap you?”

“Thomas Benson wasn’t up to no good. He was there for love,” Xavier declares dramatically.

We stare at him.

“He was there for what now?” I ask, thinking I must have misheard him.

Xavier jumps off the counter to grab two cans of soda from the refrigerator, handing one to his brother and keeping one for himself. Levi has a bottle of water to go with his plastic cheese chips. “Who knows what happens to a newly perfumed omega from a rich family?”

Recalling the dining room talk about love and scent matches being for the poor and na?ve, I sigh. “I do, and I really wish I didn’t.”

“Well, I don’t,” Levi says. “Spill.”

“She was in love with Thomas, a childhood friend, but her parents made her go to Haven. Thomas tried to convince them that he would get a job and take care of her, but they weren’t interested in their daughter being with a beta. They had their eyes set on an alpha.”

My stomach grumbles louder than before, almost drowning out the end of Xavier’s explanation. Blushing, I wrap my arm around my middle. “Uh, sorry.”

Vincent pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and looks at me. “Chinese, Thai, or pizza?”

I blink at him. “What?”

“Xavier will set himself on fire if he tries to cook. Levi lives off processed shit, and I’m too tired to cook. You need to eat. Thai, Chinese, pizza, or something else.”

“I’m actually not that…” My voice trails off as he arches his eyebrow, silently reminding me of our deal.

I’m helping to find a killer, and in return, he’s going to help me track down three alphas who need to die.

And I am hungry. So, there is that. “Chinese.”

I listen as he orders enough food for ten people, arranges to have it delivered, and puts his phone back in his pocket, oblivious to all of us staring at him.

“The living room,” he says, suddenly standing.

“The what ?” Xavier blinks at him.

“You heard,” he says.

We watch Vincent walk out of the kitchen.

Xavier tilts his head, his expression thoughtful. “My brother never sits in the living room.”

“Because the couch is even more uncomfortable than these stools?” I shift around, trying to find a comfy position that I doubt exists.

“Because he’s always working,” Levi explains. “But he’s right. Couch is better.”

We follow Vincent out of the kitchen and settle on the couch in the ultra-white, modern living room.

It’s not as uncomfortable as it looks. Maybe because I’m coming from a kitchen stool that feels like I’m sitting on a rock.

I sit in the center, Xavier claims the seat on my right, Vincent the one on my left, and Levi the armchair.

“You still haven’t told us who the girl is,” I remind Xavier.

He smiles at me. “Guess.”

I scowl at him. “Do you have any idea how many girls are at that school?”

“Shannon,” he declares. “Red-haired senior. She was in a couple of your classes.”

I shake my head. “The only Shannon I know is…” His slow smile silences me. “The Shannon who always has an answer for everything? The Shannon who has probably never broken a rule a day in her life? That Shannon?”

I picture her rushing across the quad, always early to class. I can’t see her running away for love.

Xavier grins at me. “She had to keep up appearances while she plotted her escape with Thomas.”

Still struggling to believe it, I sit back in my seat.

“ Damn .” Then I remember someone dropping their fork in the dining room when I was talking to Aden.

“She must have been secretly planning to escape with Thomas all that time, but then had to stop because of the curfew. I got in the way of true love.” I release a sad sigh.

“You’re a romantic,” Vincent says, watching me closely.

“No, I’m not,” I deny, blushing for no reason.

He arches a dark eyebrow.

“Okay, so maybe a teeny tiny part of me is a romantic,” I reluctantly admit.

“You didn’t get in their way,” Xavier says. “You were the distraction they needed. Technically, the love killer was Levi.”

Levi stares at him. “ Love killer ?”

I laugh. “So, what did you do after she slapped you in the face?” I ask Xavier.

He shrugs. “What do you think I did? I gave them money to start their new life together and sent them on their way.”

My smile grows. “ You’re the romantic.” A part of me melts at the thought.

“Maybe a little.”

When the food arrives, we stuff our faces in the kitchen and migrate back to the couch in the living room.

“Don’t you have to get back to school?” I ask Xavier.

“Trying to get rid of me?” He grins.

I yawn. A food coma is fast approaching. "I figured you'd have to go back to spying. Should be easier without tripping over a certain beta.”

He wraps his arm around my shoulder and makes a contented sound. “This is better, and I kind of miss tripping over a certain beta.”

I blush again, except this time, I know why.

“Quit flirting,” I grumble.

“Why?” A teasing smile lifts one corner of his mouth. “You like it?”

“Hate it.” I lie.

“Is that why you’re snuggling up with me?”

“I am not ?—”

"Being at the school with no one to watch your back isn't safe," Vincent interrupts what would have been another epic lie.

I’m not technically snuggling up with Xavier on the couch, but I’m not exactly moving away either.

Xavier looks at Vincent, surprised. “You want me to stay here?”

“We haven’t learned anything new in the last few days we were there,” Levi says slowly.

We filled Vincent in on what happened with Mr. Irwin and Mrs. Stratton at the motel over Chinese food. It probably wasn’t wise to talk about the disgusting place over food, but he needed to know that we had crossed a suspect off our list.

“The end-of-year ball is happening soon,” I remember. “It’s going to be crazy around there getting things ready for it. I don’t know if that’s going to help the investigation or hinder it.”

And I still need to do something about rescuing those omegas. But what?

“If we need more information, we can get inside. We know all we need about the teachers.” Vincent stretches his legs out, as relaxed as I’ve ever seen him.

“Give me one more night,” Xavier says. “I’ll go back this evening, have a look around and then come home tomorrow morning.”

Vincent’s eyes widen slightly. “ Home ?”

I bounce my gaze between them, confused by his response. “What’s so strange about that?”

“He never called it that before,” he adds in a quieter voice. “None of us have.”

Levi grabs the remote from the coffee table and turns on the TV. “How about a movie?”

“You watch movies in here?” The living room has always been empty whenever I’ve passed by. It’s why I started sleeping on the floor behind the couch, thinking no one used it.

“Nope,” Xavier says.

“What do you do on your downtime?”

“We work.” Xavier taps out a message on his phone when it buzzes with a notification.

I blink at him. “Like, all the time?”

He nods.

I look at Levi.

He pauses his scrolling through what looks to be hundreds of channels to say, “I work out.”

I turn to Vincent, and I can almost guess what he’s about to say.

“Work.”

“You guys need a life.” I wince. What they’re doing, getting justice for Aly, is important. But they need to take care of themselves too. “Sorry.”

Vincent’s brows knit together. “Why are you apologizing?”

I shrug. “Just because.”

“What about you?” Xavier asks me.

“What about me?” I echo.

“What does your downtime look like?” he asks.

I start to explain how I relax, but I can’t because I’m just as guilty of throwing myself into work and forgetting to have a life.

“Della?” Vincent prompts.

They all look at me, waiting for my response.

“My mom… I don’t know how much you know about the Asylum,” I start.

“Only what we see on TV and whatever Vince tells us. He found out at the same time as everyone else, so it’s not that much more,” Xavier says.

“Everleigh isn’t my biological sister,” I explain. “I love her more than anyone in the world, but the Asylum paid my mom to drug Ever with suppressants and to raise her until Lawrence Wentworth was ready to claim her as his omega.” My voice is bitter.

“I didn’t hear about that.” Xavier gives me a comforting squeeze. “That sounds shitty all-round.”

“It was. When Lawrence took Ever, I told myself that I wouldn’t stop until I’d saved her.

I gave up the idea of going to college or having fun.

Finding and rescuing Eveleigh was all that mattered.

” My cheeks heat up as I realize how ridiculous this sounds.

Alphas are the heroes in our world, not betas.

I yawn and continue, “And anyway, it wasn’t even me who saved her, it was her scent matches.”

“You went after her and you didn’t stop until you found her. I’m sure she knows that.” Vincent puts a white cushion on his lap. “You can rest your feet here if you want to lie down.”

“Why would I want to lie down?”

“Just in case you do,” he says enigmatically.

“And you can rest your head here,” Xavier offers, placing a cushion on his lap.

Levi smiles as he continues hunting for the perfect movie.

I eye Vincent and Xavier curiously. “Why are you being nice to me?”

“Would you prefer if I rolled you off the couch instead?” Vincent asks, straight-faced.

He has to be laughing at me; there’s a definite hint of a smile in his eyes.

“Okay,” I say, only because I don’t believe he will let me.

I rest my head on Xavier’s cushion and my socked feet in Vince’s lap. It’s comfy.

“So, is there a boyfriend in the picture?” Vincent asks casually, eyes on the TV.

I lift my head and stare at him. “Are you asking me if I’m single ?”

“And if I were?” he asks.

I’ve only been this speechless about five times in my life, maybe less. If Everleigh were here, she’d be checking my temperature for a fever. It’s that rare.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot something on the screen. “ Stop .”

Levi arches his eyebrow. “ John Wick ?”

“Yes.” I nod firmly.

He shrugs. “Sounds good. I heard the fighting isn’t terrible.”

He selects the movie. I lie back down, and Xavier finger-combs my hair.

Vincent’s hands are resting on my feet, and I can’t stop thinking about what he said.

Why would he care if I have a boyfriend?