Page 25

One second, Nell was frozen in terror at the flashing lights. The next, her hand was enveloped in a warm clasp, and she was being tugged away from their spot.

In her nose, the burn of rubber and smoke stung, and she thought she felt the cold clip of a raindrop on her skin even though the sky was clear.

In her hazed mind of drugs and fear and confusion, she saw the butt of the joint flying off the quarry’s edge out of Toni’s hand, and he split into the forest, in a different direction from her.

Her and Barrett, she realized. His hand was the one pulling her.

She had no idea where Dennis or Paulie went, but she hoped they were long gone.

She couldn’t breathe, and if Barrett weren’t pulling her, she wouldn’t be on her feet. She would have already been caught by one of the swinging flashlights and destined to spend the night in a holding cell before her parents found her and locked her up forever in her padded cage.

But Barrett had her, and he was diverting into the tree line and warning her in a faded voice when to watch for a rock or root that was trying to send her down.

She thought she saw the flash of broken glass scattered on the ground, but she moved too fast to tell if it was real.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t form her lips into anything other than open-mouthed gasps for panicked air that her body rejected.

She was going to die and be swallowed whole by the forest.

But Barrett had her, and even when her body threatened to collapse, she was still moving.

Barrett had her.

Barrett had her.

One of the searchlights, that marked the exact position of a police officer, had broken off in another direction, but the other was on them. She didn’t have the capacity to gauge how far, but it felt close.

A minute later? Two? An hour? She wasn’t sure, but she was pulled to the side and found herself enveloped by something warm and hard, the scent of weed and weak cologne covering her. Her panicked thoughts slowed at the steady rhythm of a rapidly bumping sound.

She was against a chest, and arms held her tight to it—one around her shoulders and the other on the back of her head. The loud bumping sound, she realized, was a heart.

Barrett’s heart.

It beat without pause, meeting the rhythm of her struggling breaths and torturous thoughts and images in her mind.

His hand on the back of her head smoothed over her hair, strands catching slightly in the metal of his rings, but he made no sound.

They were hiding, she realized.

She heard loud trampling through the forest and the scratchy reception of a radio echoing off the trees.

She scrunched her eyes so tight they ached in her skull as she recalled that radio scratch while she was half-conscious, hanging upside down with blood dripping from her brow.

Her hands came up to Barrett’s shirt, and she gripped fistfuls of the fabric into her fingers, clinging to him to stay right-side up.

The officer said something into the radio, and soon the sounds of his steps faded away.

“Tell me it isn’t real,” Nell hissed into Barrett’s shirt because she needed to hear it even if it wasn’t true. “ Please , tell me it isn’t real.”

No matter how hard she clenched her eyes, the image still sat in her head. The smells, the pain, the quiet, followed by the sirens.

Get it out. Get it out. Get it out.

“It isn’t real,” he whispered. The soft brush on the back of her head started again, slower but surer of itself. A soothing coolness from his rings seeped through her hair. She focused on it. “It isn’t real.”

The farther the officer got, the more time that passed, the slower Barrett’s heartbeat became.

Her breath followed, and she kept her head against him to use it as a guide, sucking in and out in time with his pulse to keep herself on track toward what was a healthy pace. The more it mellowed, the more her mind cleared.

She stayed put until it felt like clarity surrounded her the same way his arms did.

Ages passed.

They did not need to stay there, hiding behind the tree. The threat was long gone, but she knew that if she pulled away from that steady, strong, living beat she would lose her sense of reality again.

So she gripped his shirt harder and closed her eyes in the dark.

He made no move to push her away from him, even as time passed, and she heard nothing else but a breeze and his breath and his heart.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to him. She hadn’t even realized his hand was still softly brushing the back of her head until it stopped. She wished it hadn’t.

“Why are you apologizing now?” His voice was low, the bass rumbling through his chest and vibrating pleasantly in her ears.

“I know you don’t want me here.”

He stilled, breath caught in his chest. His heart, on the other hand, jumped.

She wanted to look at his face, but she knew that if she pulled away now, she wouldn’t be able to go back to the same position. The advantage would be lost, and so would her sense of grounding.

“What in the hell gave you that impression?”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“That’s not—” He cut himself off with a disbelieving laugh, and the hand on the back of her head lifted off.

She reluctantly pulled away, knowing she couldn’t stay there forever—as much as she wished she could.

His hand sifted through his shaggy waves as he shook his head. His attention jumped to her when he realized she was watching him. His throat cleared, and his lips tilted at the corners as he looked down at her.

“I wasn’t avoiding you . . . exactly,” he finished.

Nell was confused now. “Then why wouldn’t you look at me during your rehearsal?”

“I . . .” He studied her, his eyes jumping back and forth over hers. It was almost too dark to see them, but when she was mere inches from him, it was hard to miss. “I was distracted by you. I needed to focus, or else Toni was gonna have my balls for messing up.”

Nell’s throat caught.

She hadn’t expected that, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

“I’m sorry.”

Barrett huffed under his breath, amused. “You know what? I will take an apology this time. It’s your fault you’re so damn pretty. Can’t you try a little harder to be easier to ignore?”

Once again, Nell couldn’t breathe. But it wasn’t the burning panic she was used to. It stuck in her throat, creating an unrecognizable mix between a squeak and a gasp. And it was every bit as pleasant as the rush throughout her entire body that left her light-headed and dazed.

“You wanna know a secret?”

Nell couldn’t find any words to spill her own, so she nodded.

“I had a small crush on you a few years ago.”

He had to be high. She’d assumed he was the most sober of the group, but he had to be completely stoned. And this was his quirk: being flirty.

“You did?” She wished she still had her head against his chest because she was dying to know if his heart was beating as quickly as hers.

“I have an affinity for beautiful things that’re out of reach.”

Nell didn’t feel particularly out of reach. Not when his arm was still around her waist, holding her against him.

Did that mean he didn’t have an affinity for her anymore?

Asking would be the reasonable course of action.

But she imagined something far worse: finding out that his crush was long gone, right when hers was starting.

It was enough to keep her quiet.