Page 77 of Rule the Night

No, I wanted a hell of a lot more than that from Maeve Haver.

Bram didn’t flinch. “Because I wanted to.”

Bram did everything because he wanted to. The rest of us were just along for the ride.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Remy asked.

“It hasn’t come up until now.”

“Then tell us now.” I didn’t moderate the undercurrent of annoyance in my voice. Bram might have been king of Blackwell Falls, but here, we were partners.

“Remy’s right,” Bram said, “she’s been following Todd. But not just his videos or his podcast. She’s been digging, askingquestions in all kinds of obscure internet forums, and she’s been doing it for over a year.”

I swore. “So Remy’s right. She went to the city to see him.”

“That would be my guess,” Bram said.

I headed for the stairs. “I’m going down.”

“Not you.” Bram’s words stopped me in my tracks. “Remy, you go.”

“You got it.” Remy moved past me and started down the stairs.

I waited until I heard the door close on the first floor to confront Bram. “You don’t tell me what to do.”

He stared me down. “You’re too close.”

So he knew. Maybe he didn’t know when it had happened, but he knew I’d fucked Maeve, and he probably knew there was more to it than that too.

“Not for you to decide.”

“I’m saving you from yourself.”

“Not for you to decide.”

Bram stood. “It’s a bad idea and you know it.”

They were the exact same words I’d said to Maeve, the same words she’d said to me, but I still had to force myself not to go at Bram as he walked past me into the hall.

It’s a bad idea and you know it.

I didn’t know if he was talking about fucking Maeve, going after her in the city, or the feelings I was holding close and secret.

Probably all three.

47

REMY

I drovelike a bat out of hell, pushing the Spider to almost a hundred on the highway, slowing down only when the car’s radar detector pinged. I passed the time replaying the conversation between Bram and Poe, reading the subtext of their words, their expressions.

I knew Poe had fucked Maeve. Obviously.

Poe always thought he was so slick, but I could read him like a fucking book.

But the conversation between him and Bram was more complicated. Bram would tell Poe he’d sent me to the city because Poe was getting too attached to Maeve, but I knew there was more to it than that.

Bram felt some kind of way about Maeve. I didn’t know what it was yet, but the fact that he felt anything at all spoke volumes. Bram wasn’t ever tight with the Hunt girls who came to live with us, but he didn’t ignore them either. That had been reserved for Maeve, in spite of the fact that she was the best Hunt girl we’d ever had.