Stone

I’m a ball of hurt in a windowless closet. My hands and ankles are tied; even if they weren’t, I’m a little too fucked up to move around just yet. But I didn’t talk, and they don’t know about the Bradford, which means my guys are safe. And they don’t know about Brooke, either.

So everyone’s safe.

Except me, of course.

And I feel more sure than ever that Dorman’s our guy. The guy who framed Grayson, got him sent to prison. That’s good and bad. Good because it’s information. Bad because it might be hard to find the hitter and clear Grayson’s name. Dorman’s not just a guy; he’s an organization. A machine.

Now I’m thinking about Plan B—breaking Grayson out of prison. It’s not something I ever wanted to attempt. Breaking a guy out of prison is a bitch, but it might be easier than clearing his name at this point.

Considering what we’re up against.

They relocated Grayson to a prison five states away and they don’t let him have visitors or communicate with the outside world. Our lawyer got in once, but now he’s barred, too.

Still, one time was enough for Grayson to pass along a message that he’d be looking for a pet rat—that’s the term we use for somebody who can be turned, paid.

I don’t know how Grayson’s going to get a message out to us about this pet rat once he finds him, but Grayson’s a resourceful motherfucker. Once he gets the message to us about the pet rat, we’ll do what it takes to free him.

I calculate the time; I’m thinking it’s around four in the morning.

Brooke will be sleeping with those little blue panties hugging her soft hips, still a little cool, still a little wet.

God.

I play the call back over in my mind for about the hundredth time—the way her voice sounded as she did everything I told her to, so sweetly, so beautifully. The outrush of breath when she got herself off.

The morning will come like it always does, but the connection I had with her for that moment feels like the only real light coming over that barren fucking horizon.

The little hummingbird I carved for her is still in my front shirt pocket, wrapped in a bandana. It’s probably cracked. It fucks me up more than it should that the stupid thing is ruined. Clearly I have more pressing issues than a broken bird—men coming back to torture me, for one thing.

But I spent hours carving that little bird, and I really wanted her to have it.

I imagined leaving it somewhere wrapped up nice for her. It wouldn’t have a tag on it, but she’d know it was from me. How many stalkers can one girl have? And she’d put it on her dresser in her bedroom. Maybe she would think it was nice.

I get a little sleep—not the easiest thing to do, bound like a side of beef, but when I wake up, my head is clearer. I find I can stand, move around. I get to work on figuring out the layout, the sight lines.

It’s pitch-black, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’m used to the dark. I function way better than most guys in the dark. My guys and I all do. Spend enough time in a dark basement and you come to know where bodies are just from the way the air feels on your skin. And hearing, too. You learn to tell exactly where people are from rustling, almost as if you can see them with your ears.

As soon as I manage to get my arms under my feet and to the front of me, I'm in business. I raise them up enough to find the light fixture and dismantle it, pulling out the bulb and smashing it. I use a shard of glass to cut my bindings.

And wait, assessing my injuries. Nothing major broken, but it hurts when I breathe. Cracked ribs. Worst of all is my foot, which is on fire. I'm thinking some bones in there got crushed.

The door rattles, bringing me to full alert. I crouch in a corner and hide as the door swings open. They try to turn on the light. Nothing.

One of them turns on his phone, and the other approaches, weapon drawn.

I grab his weapon arm and yank him all the way in, exactly what he’s not expecting. I slam the door with my foot.

We’re shrouded in darkness. And I’m a motherfucking ghost. He’s lurching around like a fucking bull in a china shop.

He shoots, but I’m behind him. I grab his arm and ram my knee into his elbow, bending it the wrong way. In other words, breaking it. He cries out, because that’s a motherfucker of an injury. His piece clatters to the floor. I grab his hair and ram that same knee up into his face, and he’s over.

I grab his piece and go still.

A voice from outside the closet door. Just to the side. They’re not so sure about coming in now. “Shane?”

I’m flat on the floor. I shoot the voice. There’s a cry.

Shots come back, but they don’t hear me like I hear them. I shoot. The other’s on the move. I take one more shot.

A thump.

A cry. A groan. Silence.

I ease open the door. The two guys are done. I fish around in pockets for car keys. I need wheels for sure; the car I drove will have been towed by now. Maybe jacked.

I find the keys and get the fuck going, limping down the stairs.

The bar is quiet—not yet open. It’s maybe ten in the morning. I go behind the counter and grab a bottle of scotch. I spot a black raincoat on a hook, and I take that, too, and head out the back door into the drizzly fall morning. The keys belong to a Jeep with little red dice hanging from the rearview.

I get in and pull onto the street, blending with the light traffic. People going to work. Meeting friends for lunch. Whatever the fuck regular people do instead of bleeding all over a stolen vehicle.

It takes two miles before I spot a pay phone. I pull into the gas station parking lot. Who uses pay phones anymore except for criminals? And cops can’t tap them without a warrant. Kind of amazing they still keep them around, but it’s useful today. They took my money and phone.

I use the change in the tray to put in a call to Calder. He’s pissed I didn’t check in, but I tell him I got a little fucked up, and that calms him down. I open the scotch and take a drink, let the warmth of it spread over the pain. Some old-fashioned anesthetic.

“We need Nate to come in?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, my head swimming from pain and whiskey. More from pain, though. “Might need a Band-Aid. Maybe with little rainbows on them.”

The last time I needed Nate was when I’d gotten shot, which is probably why Calder sounds worried. “Where are you? You need me to come get you?”

“I got wheels.” I take another drink and look out at the midmorning traffic. Brooke will be heading to class, maybe with a latte in her hand. Or maybe something pink. A fancy drink that costs a stupid amount at the coffee shop. A pink mustache over her pretty lips.

Meanwhile I’m talking about getting looked at by a vet.

Nate runs a clinic outside of town. Looks at horses and shit. He tried to go straight after we got out. Tried to live a regular life. Even got his degree. Owns a business. Sometimes I feel bad dragging him back into this, but there’s no one else I trust.

“How far out are you?” Calder asks.

“I don’t know.” I put the cap on the bottle and set it aside. Then I pull the little bundle from my pocket and unwrap it from the bandana.

I can tell right away that it’s broken from the way it unwraps, its fragile little wing snapped, hanging on by a bit of wood fiber.

Fuck.

“You don’t know where you are?”

“I know where I am,” I say. It isn’t really a lie. I’ll figure out where I am, as soon as I figure out where I’m going. “I might make a stop before I head in.”

“What kind of stop? You need to come in,” Calder says. “Knox made bacon, dude. That thick-cut stuff. There’s Texas toast. Not to mention the fact that you’re fucked up enough to need Nate.”

“Just a stop. And then I’m back.” After I hang up, I get up close and personal with the rearview mirror.

There’s a nasty bruise just starting to turn on my left cheekbone. My left eye is a little bit closed, and most of my bottom lip is fat. I lick my thumb and scrub the dried blood from the side of my mouth. It feels strange to give a shit, but I don’t want Brooke to be scared.

I button up the raincoat over my bloody clothes.

I locate enough change in the change tray to grab a coffee and bagel at another drive-through place. The coffee doesn’t do much for my pain, but Nate will give me something when I get back.

This feels more important.

More important than pain. More important than the guys.

Saint Mary’s, the private school Brooke attends, is a three-story stone building right across from a huge East Franklin park—the nice kind with trees and benches and flowers and a duck pond.

The school is really old, with tall windows and grand steps that lead up to a fancy entrance under a curly stone-carved thing that says the school was founded in 1903.

Two purple banners hang down from the roof on either side of the entrance. Today’s banners have pictures of hockey sticks. They tell the world that the girls who attend Saint Mary’s won the state field hockey championship this year. I thought hockey was played on ice, but apparently rich girls play it in a field.

No boys attend Saint Mary’s, so I guess Brooke’s parents and I can agree on at least one thing.

I circle the tree-lined blocks near the school until I spot the cherry-red Lincoln Navigator parked on the street. Cherry red. Custom color. I grab an open space two behind, then settle down to wait. School’s not out until three, but Brooke seems to have free periods in the middle of the day on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and she sometimes leaves for lunch. If it’s nice out, she grabs a snack at Panera and goes to study in the park, but it’s windy and it looks like rain, so I’m thinking she’ll go sit in the Panera. That girlfriend of hers sometimes goes with her, but not usually on Wednesdays.

It’s her birthday, though, so all bets are off.

I swig the coffee and wait, trying to ignore the different areas of pain flaring in my body. My lip looks bigger and my bruises look darker every time I check them.

I wait. I’m starting to think I should trash this mission—the last thing Brooke needs on her birthday is me coming at her like a monster.

And then she appears, like a fucking dream, walking up the sidewalk in a plaid skirt and white shirt and jacket, glossy hair shimmering all around her shoulders. She fucking kills me.

Just walking, she kills me. I slip out of the vehicle just as she’s getting into hers. I catch the door before she closes it.

She just gapes at me. Stunned. “Stone.”

“Happy birthday, princess.” I pull out the seatbelt and tuck it around her, brushing her hip with my hand as I click it into place. Her breath is a feather on my hair. I hit the Unlock All button on her door and then shut it.

I circle around to the passenger side, holding back a wince as I get in.

Her delicate brows are furrowed. “Are you okay?” she asks softly.

“I'm okay.” And suddenly it feels true, as long as she looks at me with those pretty eyes. Brighter than the goddamn sky. They don’t seem real. She isn’t real.

Her gaze falls to my lip. “You’re not. You’re not okay.”

“You should see the other guys,” I joke.

She doesn’t seem to think that’s funny. I guess it’s not, really. Considering.

“Let’s go,” I growl.

“I have to be back. They’ll put out an alert on me. Maybe call Detective Rivera.”

Fucking Detective Rivera. “Drive.”

With shaky hands, she starts the thing up and pulls out.

I used to think heaven would be someplace alone, someplace secret. Where no one could touch me. Hurt me. Not that I would ever make it to heaven, but it was something to dream about.

But now heaven’s the rumble of the highway, the faint scent of flowers.

“You need a hospital,” she says, her voice low.

I sigh, strangely pleased by her concern. “What are they going to do that a vet can’t do?”

She glances at me sideways. Then her gaze finds the bottle of whiskey in my pocket. “Have you been drinking?”

“Only a little.”

“It’s not even noon. And you shouldn’t drink and drive.”

“That’s why you’re driving,” I tell her, even though that isn’t why. It’s because she always drives. I think guys are supposed to want to be in the driver’s seat. They think that makes them in control, but they don’t fucking know.

In the passenger seat, I can tell her to go anywhere in the world, and she’ll take us there. The Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower. Take us to the fucking moon.

And all the while, I get to watch. Her delicate profile. Her slender hands on the wheel.

“Where am I going?” she asks, proving my point.

“Doesn’t matter, sweetheart. It’s what happens on the way that matters.” I put my hand on her thigh, a subtle threat despite my injuries.

Tremors run through her body at my touch. Fear? Probably.

We both know I could overpower her, but I’m the only one who knows I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. I couldn’t hurt her any more than I could hurt one of my crew. They’re my family. And she’s…something else.

Something new.

She navigates to the freeway.

“Left lane,” I tell her, squeezing her thigh.

Her breath hitches, and she follows my order. “How did you know it was my birthday?”

“I know so much more than that. I know you’re getting an A in chemistry. Good job, by the way. I know what type of shampoo you use. I know what book you’re reading, the one on your ereader on your nightstand.”

That’s mostly thanks to Cruz’s tech skills. It’s crazy what you can find out from looking at someone’s email. Their Amazon order history. Her whole life is online.

She shivers beneath my touch. “That’s scary.”

“But I don’t know the most important things. The things only in your head. Like what you think about school, what you dream about when you’re alone.”

Her lips press together like she’s holding the information in by force. “You’re not supposed to know those things about me. I’m your hostage.”

“I don’t have a gun to your head.”

“You threatened my family.”

I press my head back against the seat, closing my eyes. Part of me wants to tell her not to worry, that I won’t hurt her, won’t hurt her family. The other part of me needs her to fear me. It’s the only barrier between us. The only thing keeping her safe.

She thinks it’s scary being stalked by a man like me. What if I did more than that? What if I cared about her? Loved her? I’m not sure I’m capable of that, but I know it won’t mean anything good.

“Take a left after the intersection.” I shift, trying to find a way to sit that will make my ribs stop throbbing with that weird icy heat of intense pain. “What did they get you for your birthday? Your family?”

“The new iPhone.”

“That’s all? Daddy must be slipping.”

She’s quiet a moment. “A new dress. A necklace. And a spa day with three of my friends.”

There’s a tension in her voice that wasn’t there before. In her body, too. I can feel it coursing, almost stronger than her fear. “You don’t like them.”

“The presents? No, I do. I mean, they’re beautiful. Extravagant.”

“And all for show.” It’s not hard to see what makes Mr. and Mrs. Carson tick. The huge parties and fancy clothes, all while they’re drowning in debt.

She laughs without humor. “They picked who came with me for the spa day. All daughters of his work associates. I like those girls well enough, but it’s not…”

“It’s not about you,” I finish for her. “And what would you want, if you could have anything?”

“Nothing that costs money, that’s for sure.”

“What, then?”

“Something small. Something meaningful,” she says.

The broken bird seems to burn in my pocket.

“Something that shows that they see me,” she adds.

I see you, I want to say, and then I feel like an asshole. Of course I see her. I’m fucking stalking her. Carjacking her.

I’m not the person she wants to see her.

She sighs. “I don’t even know what it would be. What would I like? It feels like there isn’t even a me, like Brooke Carson doesn’t exist. I’m a prop as much as the dress and the necklace. A networking opportunity like the spa day.”

“What about your friends?” I know she has plenty of them, far more than the ones her parents make her keep. They walk around the city in fuzzy boots and overlarge sunglasses, giggling like they don’t have a care in the world.

“They’ll probably get me something. We’re planning to go out this weekend. Maybe they’ll get me eyeshadow or a new clutch.” She shakes her head. “Chelsea will find something fun, though. You probably think I’m ridiculous. Poor little rich girl, with all the expensive gifts.”

Maybe I would have thought that, before I knew her. That first night, when all I had been able to see was a pretty dress and wide eyes. “Did you know that birds have different meanings?” I say.

She blinks. “What?”

“The cardinal, for example. It symbolizes truth and beauty. And the crane. It represents integrity. Honor.”

“Which one would you be?” she asks, almost cautious.

“Me?” I consider a moment. “The eagle, maybe. Freedom. And pride.”

“And a bald head?” she asks, a teasing lilt in that voice.

Her teasing note does something strange in my chest. I feel energized, suddenly. Too large for my body. She trusts me enough to play.

We’re stopped at a light. I look over. “I’m not that old,” I growl.

“Older than me.”

That sobers me up quick. I’m older than her, both in years and in spirit. I lived an entire lifetime before I stepped foot outside that basement. “Older than you,” I agree softly.

She gives me a curious look. “What bird would I be?”

I pull the broken bird from my pocket and hold it out. Her breath hitches. She takes it and runs her fingers over the wood.

“What is this?” she asks, holding the little thing in her palm.

“What does it look like?” I say, too harsh. “It’s a hummingbird.”

“You made it?”

I shrug, heart hammering inside my agonizingly painful rib cage. I spent the past twelve hours at the mercy of guys who wouldn’t blink to see me dead, but somehow the stakes feel higher right now.

She looks into my eyes. “It’s beautiful.” She reaches over, touches my arm, sending ripples of warmth through me.

I shrug, like it’s nothing, like her words and her gentle touch don’t do things inside me. Like I’m not dying a little from it. I can force myself on her, the way I did through the phone, but it’s another thing when she reaches for me. It’s more raw somehow.

“What does it mean?” she asks softly.

“The hummingbird symbolizes movement. Change.”

“Oh,” she says, more a shape of her pretty lips than a sound. She takes her hand from my arm and touches the place where the end of the wing got bent. She tries to straighten it, but stops, seeing that will just break it more.

“In some Native American tribes, it means good luck if you see a hummingbird,” I say.

Her eyes meet mine. “What if the hummingbird is injured?”

“Then you nurse it back to health,” I say, my voice low. That isn’t part of any bird symbolism that I know about, but it’s the only answer I can give her. She’s still looking at me, and I can’t look away from her.

My lip throbs. My eye feels half-closed. No doubt I’m a sorry-ass sight, but you wouldn’t know it from the way she looks at me.

The traffic around us starts to move. The light has changed.

“Am I broken?” she whispers.

I take the little thing from her and set it on the small ledge by the speedometer. “Drive,” I tell her, not taking my eyes off her.

Her gaze returns to the road, her hands to the wheel.

She takes the left like I told her, heading for a long stretch of road out of the city. There are tears in her eyes, but I ignore them. There’s grief in her body, but I ignore that, too. Or maybe I’m not ignoring her. Maybe this is the only way I know how to make her feel better.

My hand returns to her thigh, pushing up her plaid skirt. Suddenly I’m touching skin. I thought she was wearing tights, but they’re thin socks. They go way up her leg, until they stop. She’s whisper-soft, like I’m in a dream.

“Oh God,” she whispers.

It’s as though she’s whispering what I’m feeling. Because her skin is unbelievably smooth. Warm. I watch her face in profile, the rise and fall of her chest.

“Stone,” she whispers.

“What? You want your leg back?”

“No,” she says.

My pulse races. No. She doesn’t want her leg back. I inch my hand farther up.

She turns to me. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

She stares at me a beat, wondering what kind of madman she’s with, maybe. “You don’t know?”

“Eyes on the road.”

She turns to the road.

“I don’t know a lot of things,” I say. “Like whether you’ve fucked. Have you been fucked, sweetheart?”

The line of her throat moves as she swallows.

“Have you?”

“No,” she says.

But she was kissed. She told me. It burns me up to think about other guys kissing her. Wanting her. Seeing her. I want to lock her up in a tower, like some kind of fairy-tale princess. I guess that makes me the dragon.

She turns back to the road. Says nothing. Drives.

“Have you been touched?” I move my hand higher. I feel her skin, alive with electricity under my rough calluses. “Like this? Anyone touch you like this?”

Her chest rises sharply. The air in the car seems to thicken. “Are you asking if I ever had a boyfriend?”

Right. Of course. I guess if you’re a good girl like Brooke, it’s your boyfriend or girlfriend who touches you. You don’t have the touching without the relationship. “Just answer the question. Have you?”

Her words, when they come, are wild, breathy. “Not like this.” She glances at me, and I feel her all through me just then. I feel her eyes burning into mine. “Not like this,” she says again, emphasizing the word. As though this—what’s happening with us right now—feels as amazing to her as it does to me.

I want to kiss her so bad it hurts. A physical ache in my chest worse than any broken bones inside there. I tighten my grip on her thigh. “Take the next left.”

She flips on her blinker, takes the turn.

This next stretch is a straightaway south out of town. She takes a breath like she does when she’s about to say something hard. I steel myself, sure she’s going to ask for me to stop touching her. Or to go home.

She turns to me. “Do you ever think about just driving?”

“Driving where?”

“Nowhere. Get in a car and drive forever. Or at least, you know, until you’re somewhere so far away that you’re just new. A new person with a new life.”

My gut twists a little, because that’s something you say when you’re unhappy. That’s what you dream about when you want to escape. I know the feeling well. “Do you want that?”

“Sometimes,” she says.

I think back to the basement. Us boys imagining all the things we’d do if we were free. Each of us with our own specific idea of how things would be. Knox imagined his own workshop full of robots and blinking lights and computers. Calder wanted to be on a mountaintop, seeing the sky all around. Nate wanted to be a doctor, a vet, and he would have his own farm, too. I didn’t imagine things for myself, though. I just thought of my guys, safe. Free.

“What would the new life be like?” I ask her.

She says nothing for a long time. So long that I think she’s not planning on answering my stupid question at all. Then, in a voice that sounds small and strained, she says, “I don’t know.”