Page 46 of Unmask (Crew of Elmwood Public #2)

That meant whoever was behind this had been close. Close enough to breathe the same air I breathed. Close enough to slip a phone into my bag without me noticing, to violate my space. Close enough to track me, watch me, maybe even follow me home to this sanctuary I’d foolishly believed was safe.

Could it have been Evan?

There was no way. Kreed trusted him explicitly, but did I?

Evan had been employed by the Corvos for more than a decade, but he worked for Kreed’s dad, not Kreed.

Perhaps it was Donovan who ordered Evan to slip the burner into my bag.

Nothing else made sense. I couldn’t see how anyone could get past Evan unless he’d been distracted by something or someone.

I made a mental note to ask Evan if anything unusual had happened while we’d been inside Carter’s.

My stomach churned, a nauseating cocktail of fear and rage burning in my chest.

A low, static ringing filled my ears. If they could get this into my bag, slip past every defense and precaution, what else could they do? How long had they been watching?

The sound of footsteps broke through the fog of panic.

“Hey, you good?” Mason’s voice came from around the corner before he stepped into the kitchen. His expression was open, relaxed even, but I watched it shift as his gaze landed on me, the way his pupils dilated slightly into confusion.

I froze like a deer in headlights, every muscle in my body locking up.

He looked from me to the untouched fridge, its door still hanging open and spilling light across the tile floor, then back to my face.

The blood drained out of me so fast I felt dizzy, my vision swimming at the edges as I instinctively palmed the burner phone behind my back, the plastic warm and slick against my suddenly sweaty palm.

I tried to keep my features neutral, to arrange my face into an expression resembling normal, but my heart was hammering so loudly I was sure he could hear it.

Too late.

“Are you okay?” he asked again. His brows drew together in a way that transformed his boyish features into someone older. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

My mouth opened, but nothing came out except a small, strangled sound barely qualifying as breathing.

I licked my lips, tongue darting out nervously as I fumbled for something, anything, to say that wouldn’t sound like the complete lie it was.

“I…I couldn’t decide what to grab,” I muttered, turning toward the open fridge to hide the tremor that had started in my hands and was now spreading up my arms. I pretended to study the shelves with intense concentration, like the arrangement of leftover Chinese takeout and expired yogurt was the most important decision I’d ever made.

Mason didn’t buy it. Not even close.

“Wanna tell me what’s really going on?”

I clutched the phone behind my back. “It’s nothing. I’m just tired. Haven’t really been sleeping. Shocking, right?”

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t even crack a smile. “Kaylor.”

I flinched, my shoulders jerking involuntarily. My name sounded different coming from him now, not teasing or fond but serious. Like he was giving me one last chance to tell him the truth before he stopped asking nicely.

He looked down, scanning me from head to toe with a systematic thoroughness that made me feel like he was cataloging evidence.

My posture was too rigid; my shoulders were drawn up defensively.

The strain in my voice was too high, and the words were coming too fast. The way my eyes wouldn’t meet his, darting away every time he tried to catch my gaze.

How my breathing had gone shallow and quick.

“What happened?” he demanded, sounding eerily like Kreed. He moved deeper into the kitchen, boxing me in against the counter and effectively cutting off any easy escape routes. “Don’t make me call Kreed.”

The phone burned in my hand, the threat in the message feeling more real, more immediate. Come alone. No cops. No Elite. No Crew.

If I told him… Kreed would find out within minutes. Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Perhaps this was helpful, but something was holding me back. Something was telling me not to tell Mason about the burner phone.

But lying to them again? Keeping this from Kreed?

It made my gut twist into knots.

Mason stared at me, and I didn’t know what to do. Every option felt like betrayal.

I forced a shaky breath, my lungs burning with the effort, and grabbed the first things I saw in the fridge, string cheese that had seen better days and a half-empty bag of grapes that looked lonely on the top shelf.

My movements were jerky, uncoordinated, as if my body had forgotten how to function normally.

Before turning around, I quickly stuffed the burner phone deep into the front pocket of Kreed’s hoodie, the fabric soft and oversized enough to hide the telltale bulge.

Mason hadn’t moved.

He was still watching, suspicion darkening his usually playful light-green eyes until they looked almost gray in the amber kitchen light. “You sure nothing happened?”

I nodded too quickly. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just…overwhelmed, I guess.” The words were clumsy on my tongue. “It caught up to me for a second. I’m okay now.”

He didn’t look convinced. Not even a little bit. His eyes never left mine, and I could see the promise there: this conversation wasn’t over. “All right. But grapes are a sucky snack. You got any popcorn in this place? Some candy, preferably chocolate.”

“I’m sure there’s a box of microwave popcorn in the cabinets,” I retorted.

He nodded. “I’ll find the popcorn, and you can take your grapes, but don’t un-pause the movie until I get back.”

I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t dream of it.

” Leaving Mason in the kitchen, I took my pathetic snack that I really didn’t want and rushed back into the family room.

A few minutes later, Mason plopped back down onto the leather couch with a giant bowl of popcorn, filling the room with the aroma of butter and salt. The grapes couldn’t compete.

I sat at the opposite end, and if I had any chance of getting my hand in that bowl, I had to move closer. Mason played the movie, and my stomach made a hollow ache. I glanced at the grapes and then at the popcorn. The choice was obvious.

Unfolding my legs, I inched to the center cushion. Without saying a word, he put the bowl between us. We munched through the first five minutes of the movie before he picked up his drink and offered it to me.

I took a big swig, thirstier than I realized before the presence of booze registered. “Is there rum in this?”

He shot me a cheeky grin. “Is there any other way to have a Coke?”

“Should you be drinking on the job?”

He shrugged. “The way I see it, I’m the one who lucked out tonight. I’d rather be here with you than out there hunting monsters.”

I took another sip before passing it back to him, and the message on the burner phone sat heavy on my chest. My thoughts were too loud. Too fast. Racing like a hamster on a wheel that wouldn’t stop spinning.

Alone. No cops. No Elite. No Crew. The words kept going off in my head. Each repetition made them feel more real, more urgent, more impossible to ignore.

They’d said to come alone, and I believed them.

Believed that deviation from their script would mean blood on my hands, consequences I couldn’t live with.

I didn’t trust that Kenny would survive if I didn’t follow their rules to the letter.

So, I’d go. I had to. The decision sat in my chest, heavy and cold and absolutely final.

It was a decision I’d been teetering with all day, and getting the text just seemed to solidify what I had to do, but that was the easy part. The hard part was going to be getting past Mason, Maddox, Raine, Brock, and eventually, inevitably, Kreed.

I slid a glance toward Mason, who had stretched his long legs out on the coffee table and was now chewing popcorn like it was his job, completely relaxed despite the undercurrent of suspicion radiating from him.

There was no way I could sneak out with all of them on watch, not unless I leveled the playing field somehow.

Not unless I made them sleep through it.

The idea came like a whisper in the dark, but it stuck to my brain like a burr, impossible to shake once it had taken root.

Sleeping pills.

Aunt Char suffered from insomnia, and I was positive I’d seen a bottle of sleeping pills in her bathroom when I’d gone hunting for a toothbrush.

I didn’t want to kill anyone, just knock them out long enough for me to escape.

Nothing Google couldn’t help me calculate: the dosage, timing, and delivery method.

I could crush the pills into powder. Mix them into drinks. Hot chocolate, perhaps, or booze.

So, while Mason watched his movie, I silently planned my own death sentence. If he only knew what was going on inside my head. The betrayal they would all feel. I’d wanted revenge, just not like this.

The thought made my stomach stab with self-loathing.

I hated the idea of tricking them, especially Kreed, but what other choice did I have?

They wouldn’t let me go. Not willingly. Not when they found out what I was planning.

Kreed would lock me in a room before he’d let me walk into what was obviously a trap, and part of me, the smart part, the part that wanted to live, knew he’d be right to do it.

But Kenny’s life was still hanging in the balance, and I was the only one who could tip the scales.

“Hey,” Mason said, tossing a kernel of popcorn into the air and catching it in his mouth.

“You’re thinking too hard over there. I can practically hear the gears grinding.

” He flashed me that trademark grin, but his eyes remained assessing.

“Want me to change the movie to something more romantic? Or a comedy? Something that doesn’t require actual brain power? ”