Page 1 of Watch Your Back (Devil’s Backbone #2)

Elders’ council report came through last night. The fire that destroyed the old science hall at Nevaeh also killed one of the janitorial staff. The man rushed in to try TO extinguish the blaze and was pinned by a falling beam.

My friends are killers…and they didn’t even know what they were doing. It makes me wonder what the fuck I’m responsible for. We all need to keep our distance from Ashley.

From now on, I’m documenting anything and everything out of the ordinary. Just in case.

M y phone buzzed on the bedside table, pulling my attention away from the show I was watching in bed.

Heart in my throat, I reached out of my pillow nest to grab the device.

Disappointment washed through me faster than I could even acknowledge my silent hope when I saw the message was from Meg at my old job and not any of the people I hoped to hear from.

Biting my lip, I opened her message and sighed. She was asking if I was back in Panner City for Christmas and if I wanted to pick up any massage shifts at Serenity. It was a tempting offer…just walk away from this depressing, anxiety-ridden life in Prosper and return to my old one.

A sharp knock on the door interrupted my melancholy daydream.

“Layne! Your mom wants you to actually get out of bed today. Go downstairs and make an appearance or something.” Nate’s tone was pure frustration and I extended my middle finger at the door…as if he could see it.

When I didn’t reply, he gave a long sigh, then knocked again.

“I know you can hear me. Either go downstairs and put on a smile for our parents, or they’re likely to stage an intervention instead of Christmas dinner tomorrow.” He said it in a low growl, clearly trying not to be overheard by either of our parents. “Please.”

It was that afterthought that broke me. His voice cracked over the word, and a moment later, his footsteps faded away, making my eyes burn with unshed tears. I wasn’t the only one hurting—it wasn’t fair to act like I was.

“Fuck,” I whispered, pressing pause on my newest obsession show—a delicious enemies-to-lovers dubbed into English from German—and threw back my blankets. “God damn it, Essex.”

I fucking hated when he acted like a human and made me feel bad for him. But facts were facts: Heath was more than just a friend to him; he was practically his brother. No matter how much I was aching in the chasm left by Heath, it had to be a hundred times worse for Nate.

Dragging my ass out of my cozy nest, I stumbled through to the attached bathroom.

After everything at school with the fire —and Heath —I’d wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.

Mom had lovingly bullied me into taking my exams, which I barely remembered even doing, then she and Max welcomed me home.

Although I suspect they weren’t anticipating I’d disappear into my room and not surface again for days.

It’d been two and a half weeks since the fire. Since…

My throat tightened, the memory of Heath’s lifeless body hanging from the middle of his room flashing through my mind for the ten-thousandth time. Tears filled my eyes and I screwed my lids shut, refusing to let the tears fall. I’d done enough crying, and it wasn’t changing what had happened.

“Pull it together, Layne,” I whispered to myself, wiping my eyes with the heel of my hand, and cranked the shower on high. If I was making an appearance to convince Mom I was okay, then I needed to shower.

Trouble was…I hadn’t been even remotely okay since the moment Heath hung himself.

Fuck. I couldn’t do this.

The tears spilled over and I crumpled to the bathroom floor, sobbing.

How long I stayed like that, I had no clue. All I knew was that one minute I was drowning in my own puddle of grief and guilt, and the next Nate was turning off the unused shower and lifting me up off the floor.

“I’m sorry, Ash,” he muttered, carrying me back to my bed. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

My only response was a sniffle as I buried my face in his neck. He sighed, placing me down in the middle of my pillow fort, then tucked me in and turned my show back on.

“I’ll tell Carina you’ve got a cold. Take your time.”

He was gone, shutting the door softly behind himself before I could even clear the fog from my eyes and thank him. Which only made me feel worse for thinking he was the devil himself.

Eventually, I mentally bullied myself hard enough to get out of bed again. This time, I did everything possible to avoid thinking about Heath as I went through the motions of showering, washing my hair, and dressing in clean clothes.

“Ashley, baby, Nate said you weren’t feeling well?

” Mom exclaimed as I dragged my feet into the kitchen where she was baking cookies with Max’s help, or his company at least. Mom seemed to have parked her new husband on a stool with a cocktail in front of him.

Not surprising considering she was a baking control freak.

I forced a smile as Mom brushed off her hands and grabbed me in a hug.

“I’m okay,” I mumbled. “Just, um, allergies.” Despite the fact that it was the middle of winter, literally snowing, and I’d never had hay fever in my life.

Mom let the lie slide, knowing perfectly well how heavy Heath’s decision weighed on my shoulders. She just hugged me tight, and I breathed a little easier when she let me go.

“Join me for a drink, Ash?” Max offered, indicating his creamy cocktail. “Brandy Alexander. Very festive.”

I gave a weak smile and shook my head. “Thanks but…no. I’m not a brandy kind of girl.”

“Come help me with this gingerbread dough, honey,” Mom suggested, gesturing me farther into the kitchen, but her endearment stabbed through my chest like a knife.

My breath caught and my stomach dropped, remembering the day I’d tried to give Heath a nickname. I sucked at nicknames, but he was so sweet…

“What did I say?” Mom asked, her face stricken as she stared at me.

I wet my lips, trying really fucking hard to hold it together. Words were failing me, though. How the fuck did I explain that I was utterly shattered inside, the broken pieces of me cutting up my organs with every breath?

“Ashley,” Nate said from the doorway, jerking my attention away from my mom and her hard questions. “Help me hang these lights?” He held up a string of Christmas lights, but his expression was hard and tense. Like him or not, he got what I was going through.

I nodded quickly and murmured a be right back to Mom before hurrying out of the kitchen once more. Nate said nothing as he led the way across the living room to where the enormous sixteen-foot Christmas tree sat decorated in the corner.

“You okay?” he murmured, draping the end of the lights over the fireplace mantel.

I drew a deep breath, fighting the instinct to lie. Nate, for all his flaws, didn’t buy my bullshit. “No,” I admitted. “Are you?”

He shook his head, jaw clenched.

Somehow, weirdly, that made me feel better. I wasn’t alone in my grief.

“Your mom really loves Christmas,” he commented after some moments of silence. “Has she always been so…” He trailed off with a bewildered glance toward the kitchen. Peals of my mom’s laughter echoed through to us, and it made me smile slightly.

“Always,” I confirmed. “Or as long as I can remember, anyway. It used to be because my dad was away so often but always came home for Christmas, so she wanted to make it special. Then it was like she was overcompensating once they split.”

Nate just nodded and said nothing, continuing to arrange the string of lights that were totally unnecessary in the already opulently decorated room.

Mom had always been big on Christmas, but this was a new level, even for her.

It looked like Santa had exploded in the middle of the living room and splattered every surface in festivity.

Sometime later, as I sat on the sofa and offered exactly zero assistance on the Christmas lights, the doorbell rang, and Nate shot a curious look my way.

“Have you heard from the guys?” he asked, his mind obviously going to the same place as mine had. They’d shown up unannounced on Thanksgiving—would they do the same for Christmas?

I wet my lips and shook my head. “Nothing.” Not that I’d tried terribly hard.

After Heath hung himself in their apartment, we’d all fallen apart.

Grief and guilt drowned all of us, and once Nate explained the weird trance situation and their involvement in arson and manslaughter—once Royce and Carter realized they’d had no control over their actions—it’d all gotten worse.

None of them trusted themselves anymore. Paranoia had taken the reins with an iron grip, and I’d barely seen any of them since—not even Royce for sleepovers. Instead, an honest-to-fuck bodyguard was hired to sit outside my dorm room—to say I was pissed off would be an understatement.

The only reason Nate was talking to me now was our parents.

Max must have answered the door because echoes of his enthusiastic greeting traveled through the house to us, and I shrugged. “Have you heard from anyone?”

Nate’s pinched expression suggested that he had and that he just didn’t want to tell me. I had guessed I was the only one being avoided like the plague, but it still hurt to know I wasn’t wrong.

“Ashley!” Max called out from the entry foyer. “Your Christmas present arrived early!”

Confusion saw me rise to my feet and head in the direction of his voice. A small spark of hope ignited in my chest, growing with every step, but I was totally taken aback when I saw who stood in the marble foyer, brushing snow off his sweater.

“Dad?” I squeaked, frozen in shock.

His weathered face lit up in a bright smile. “Hey, baby, merry Christmas.” He opened his arms, and I launched myself at him. His hug closed around me, and I sobbed into his cashmere sweater, which was still lightly dusted in snowflakes.

“What are you doing here?” I mumbled into his chest, my face wet with tears all over again. “I thought you couldn’t?—”

“Mom said you needed a hug,” he told me in a low whisper, “so if my boss asks, I’ve got cold and flu symptoms and put myself into self-isolation. All right?”

A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled out of me at the absurdity of him flying from South Sudan just to hug me. Then again, my dad was that kind of guy…for me, anyway.

“Stuart, you made it,” Mom said from behind me, and I reluctantly let him go.

Dad shot me a wink, then offered Mom a much quicker hug and cheek kiss. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Cara. Is that gingerbread I smell?”

Mom rolled her eyes but her smile was undeniable. Even Max was grinning, not betraying even a hint of jealousy at having my mom’s ex-husband in his home. The three of them seemed…comfortable.

I watched them head through to the kitchen, unable to wipe the smile from my own face even when Nate cleared his throat to pull my attention.

“I should have guessed,” I admitted with a small headshake. “Gingerbread is Dad’s favorite and Mom hasn’t baked it since their divorce.”

Nate said nothing back, just gave a small nod. But as I passed him to follow the adults, I could have sworn a small smile touched his lips.