“Micah and Rory are staying at an apartment in town.” I reached over, caressing her cheek with the backs of my fingers. “You want to join them?”

She shook her head.

I moved to the other cheek, caressing what was mine and then taking her jaw, gently holding it.

“They’ve got food upstairs,” I murmured. “You want food?”

Again, she shook her head.

I tipped her chin up, loving how she played. It pleased me.

“You want to stay with me?” I taunted.

Slowly, she nodded.

Reaching into my jacket, I took out a case and set it on the bedside table.

“I refilled your prescription for your glasses.”

I was able to talk Dr. Lawrence here into contacting her doctor in California and getting her most recent prescription filled.

“Where’d you get the overalls?” I asked.

“Found them in Rika’s closet.”

“And you’re down here alone, despite the door not being locked?”

She didn’t move.

The outfit, the rope, the willing and waiting in bed… I wondered when the fight would come, because it would, but God, I loved that she wasn’t rushing back to being my enemy. Fucking her in this bed tonight might be nice.

Pulling her up, I sat myself down in her place and pulled her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her.

Sweat cooled my pores, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, the last year or so and everything in the last twenty-four hours making my head spin.

For five minutes, I needed something to hold on to.

I tightened my hold, smelling her hair and damn near tasting her. If she hadn’t shown up at Blackchurch, would I really have sought my revenge? Would I have chased her down in California and made her pay?

And how would I have done it?

I’d learned about the pictures and the lies almost two years ago, after Damon’s father was killed. Then it was six months of trying to chase away the rage with globetrotting, running, and drinking before I knew what I had to do. That was when I went to Blackchurch.

I dreaded dealing with her, because even still—after the betrayal—I hadn’t wanted to lose her.

“I should’ve come to you,” she finally said. “I wish I had come to you and explained and faced you then.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, knowing it wasn’t all her fault. I wasn’t a passenger in all of this.

I should’ve stayed. When she walked off on me after the meeting in the dean’s office, and I threatened her that I could get anyone—I should’ve stayed.

She hadn’t needed a boyfriend. She’d needed a friend, and I’d been selfish and arrogant and spoiled. I should’ve been whatever she needed, whenever she needed me. She didn’t owe me her heart just because I wanted it.

If I’d cared, I would’ve been more patient.

Throwing her to my side, I let her land on the bed and I shot off the mattress, walking out of the room.

“Will…?”

I can’t. I can’t right now. I closed the door, grabbed the key off the wall, and locked it, keeping her safely inside.

“Will, no,” she cried, banging on the other side of the door. “Don’t go, please.”

I tipped my forehead into the wood, desperate to have heard those words from her a million times in the past.

“Will,” she called again. “Stay with me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the urge to rip the door open and climb into that bed with her.

“Stay with me,” she said again.

I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“What will he do if he knows you’re in town?” she asked.

I turned away and walked toward the stairs. “He already knows.”

I was sick of this same story.

Sick of not having her. Sick of Martin Scott. Sick of not seizing the life I was meant for.

It was time to end this.

I was ready for new adventures.

I climbed the stairs and stepped back into the house, closing the door behind me as I headed for the dining room.

Rounding the corner, I looked at them all seated at the table, Damon stopping mid-sentence as everyone turned to me.

“You got a nanny here?” I asked Winter.

But Rika answered instead. “My mom is.”

Good enough. “Put on something black,” I told them, heading back out of the room. “Let’s go.”

“Why?” Alex called out. “What’s going on?”

But I was already gone.

Heading out to Kai’s car, I pulled a duffle out of the trunk and dug out a black sweater, pulling off my suit jacket and unbuttoning my shirt right there in the driveway. I pulled on the black top, stuffed my jacket and shirt into the trunk with the bag, and pulled on the black ski cap as I ran back into the house.

In minutes, I’d pulled Michael’s old Mercedes G-Class out of the garage, loaded in the supplies I needed, called Kai and Banks and Micah and Rory, and stuffed a couple of sandwiches into my mouth as the rest of us made our way out to the cars.

“Winter not coming?” I asked Damon as he climbed into the passenger side seat.

“Not pregnant, she’s not,” he said. “She’s staying with…” And he waved his hand like he couldn’t remember the name. “Christiane.”

His mom. His birth mother, that was.

And Rika’s.

It seemed he now tolerated her presence for the sake of the children, and for Rika, but there was still a grudge there that hadn’t disappeared since I was last in town, apparently.

I sat down as Alex climbed into the back, and I fastened my seatbelt, spotting Michael trying to get my attention from the window of his Jag.

I cut him off. “Just follow me!” I told him.

Not giving him a chance to argue, I sped off in his G-Class with the supplies, and with Alex and Damon, while Michael and Rika followed in his other car.

It didn’t take us long to reach the warehouse, which was usually dormant the rest of the year, but now alive with activity as the famed Coldfield.

As it was otherwise known in October when it was transformed into a haunted theme park.

This was where we partied in high school, the abandoned factory a playground for kids who wanted some shelter from the weather for them and three hundred of their closest friends and a few kegs of beer.

This was where Misha came to write his songs and lose himself when the pain of Annie’s death was too much to bear.

This was where Damon, Kai, and I beat up Emmy’s brother, getting drunk and making my knuckles bleed until I couldn’t feel anything else that night.

This was where I found out I had something to bring to the table. Something worth a damn to our future.

“What are we doing here?” Michael asked as we walked past the lines of patrons waiting to get inside.

Howls and creaky sound effects filled the air as fog hovered above the ground and “Pumped Up Kicks” by 3TEETH blasted over the speakers. The smell of hot dogs and popcorn drifted up my nostrils, and squeals went off behind me as the actors jumped up on a group of girls. Men and women in masks stood around, all creepy and frozen and shit, staring at people in the distance and trying to scare the crap out of them.

Kai and Banks jogged to catch up to us, and I looked past the gate, seeing Rory and Micah standing near the beverage cart.