Secret

For an instant, she was ready for Tyler to refuse.

But then he shrugged and said, “Okay,” and she realized she’d been hoping he would refuse.

The lock gave and she was through the door. She closed it gently, quietly, leaving it unlocked to spare her one extra second if she needed to get out fast.

This was ridiculous, creeping into her own house. Back before the fire, when she’d lived around the corner from Becca, everything had been on the ground level, and she hadn’t needed to pass anyone to get in and out of her room. The window had worked fine for that. And while their house had never been large, everyone had their own room.

This bullshit with Jake was infuriating.

Even now, the living room was empty and dim. Her mother must have been in the bedroom, or hell, maybe she’d gone out, too. But Quinn could see light beneath her own bedroom door.

She could hear them in there—but barely, with the racket her heart was kicking up.

She wanted to turn and run through the door and tell Tyler all her clothes had been stolen.

And then what would she do? Go back to his place with her dance shorts and her worn fleece pullover? Wear that to school?

She hated that her life had devolved to the point where she had to choose the lesser of two evils.

But . . . maybe Tyler wasn’t evil at all. She still couldn’t tell.

The kiss, the admission that he’d wanted to ensure she was free before making a move . . . she couldn’t wrap her head around it.

God, she was stalling. Ridiculous. She needed her stuff and she was going to walk in there and get it. She straightened her spine, stalked over to her bedroom door, and threw it open.

The room smelled acrid and foul. She stumbled back. Jake sat on the floor with three of his friends. They all looked up when she entered.

Two guys looked dazed and confused. She’d never seen them before. Heavy-lidded and slack-jawed, they were leaning up against her bed like they had no intention of moving. Ever.

The other guy, sitting next to Jake, looked interested, and not in a good way. In a don’t-touch-me-you-creep way. He also looked filthy, like he hadn’t showered in three days. Lank dark hair clung to his forehead, and he wore a tank top and shorts despite the fact that it was getting below freezing at night. A glass pipe sat in his hands.

Nice.

Jake got to his feet, a little unsteadily. He was tall and lanky and muscled, befitting a star basketball player. But whereas he’d once been quite a looker with blue eyes and that shock of blond hair, now he looked drawn and washed out. His eyes were bloodshot. And paranoid. “Get the f**k out of here, Quinn.”

“I just want my stuff,” she said.

Greasy tank top snorted. “She’s cute, J, where’ve you been hiding her?”

She expected his voice to be lazy and drawling, to match the boys who could barely hold themselves upright, but it wasn’t.

His tone was too interested. Too alert. It made her skin crawl.

Quinn wanted to step past them, to grab clothes from her dresser, but she remembered the last time she’d run into one of Jake’s friends, and she kept her distance.

“Get out of here,” said Jake. He took a step toward her and grabbed her arm. “You hear me? Quit messing with me.”

She jerked free. “I’m not messing with you!” she snapped. “I haven’t even been here!”

He came after her. “Look, you—”

She ducked under his arm and slid through the doorway into her room. Jake grunted, and she half expected him to grab her, but judging by the racket he made, he must have stumbled into the doorjamb. She made it past his friends and flung open a dresser drawer. “Just let me get my stuff. Then you can keep smoking pot until your lungs burn out.”

“That’s not pot.”

Tyler’s voice. Quinn spun.

He’d caught Jake’s arm and twisted it behind him, and just now had him pinned up against the wall.

Her brother was struggling, but though he was tall, Tyler had the advantage in mass.

Tyler gave her a look. “Hurry up, huh?”

Quinn hustled.

Greasy boy took all this in stride, his sharp eyes watching everything. “Is that Tyler Morgan?” he said. “Dude, I didn’t know this was your scene.”

“It’s not,” said Tyler. His voice was even, as if Jake wasn’t trying to buck his hold.

Quinn flung clothes into her backpack without looking. Her heart was in her throat. Jake was cursing at Tyler now. Tall-dark-and-sinister was flicking a lighter, but he couldn’t seem to get it to spark.

She had no idea whether this was going better or worse than if Tyler hadn’t intervened.

The bag wouldn’t hold any more, and she jerked at the zipper.

“Get the keys out of my pocket,” said Tyler. “Go down and start the truck.”

The dark-haired boy flicked the lighter again. Still no flame.

“Sure you don’t want to stay, sweet thing?”

“I’m worried I might puke on you,” said Quinn. It took everything she had not to kick him in the face.

Especially since he grabbed her ass when she skittered by him.

She whirled, her hand balled into a fist.

“Go,” said Tyler. “Ignore him.”

“I’m going to f**k you up,” Jake wheezed. “You think you’re so—”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tyler. “Quinn. The keys.”

His body was tighter than a bow string, taut and rigid as he held her brother against the wall. Quinn had to get close to fish the keys from his pocket. This felt too intimate, sliding her hand along the front of his hip, searching for a metal ring.

Then the keys were in her fingers.

“Go,” said Tyler. “I’ll be down in a second.”

“The hell you will,” Jake snapped.

Quinn hesitated. That lighter kept flicking, never finding a flame.

Tyler glanced over his shoulder. “Go on,” he said, and for the first time, she heard a breath of strain in his voice. She saw the warning in his eyes. This could unravel in a real hurry. “Don’t stop. Start the truck.”

She ran. Halfway down the stairs, she heard them start to fight. Someone was yelling. Then a woman was shrieking.

Her mother.

Quinn hesitated at the turn in the steps. A gun fired. Glass shattered. The shrieking stopped.

Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. There was no love lost between Quinn and her family, but had Tyler shot—had he—?

And then he was just there, grabbing her hand, yanking the keys out of her fingers, physically picking her up when she couldn’t run with him.

He shoved her into the cab of his truck and she scrambled across the seat to get away from him. He started the ignition and rolled out of the parking place, but not with any great burst of speed.

Quinn couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t stop shaking, and she wondered if she should be diving out of the vehicle right now, running for her life.

“Are you okay?” he said. “Hey, look at me. Are you all right?”

She realized she was making hysterical little keening noises.

Tyler rolled to a stop at the stop sign. A siren kicked up somewhere in the distance.

He looked at her, and she grabbed the door handle, still contemplating leaping out of the vehicle. Her breath shook with panic. “Did you—did you kill them?”

“Are you insane? No!”

“But a gun—a gun—”

“It wasn’t mine. It was Anthony Spinnetti’s.”

She must have looked blank, because he rolled his eyes. “The douche bag with the crack pipe.”

That was a crack pipe?

She stared at him. Her eyes felt too wide. She still couldn’t get a handle on her breathing. “Who got shot?”

“No one. Well, your door frame. I got it out of his hands and threw it through your bedroom window.”

The glass breaking.

But Tyler had wrestled someone with a gun?

He was on Ritchie Highway now, but he glanced over at her.

“He was about to come after you. Your brother told him you stole his money. Is that true?”

She put her hands on her cheeks. “No.”

“Maybe a little warning that you were leading me into a dealer’s den would have been in order.”

“I didn’t—I had no idea.”

“Jesus Christ, girl, how long have you been living like that?”

“I don’t—I didn’t know what they were doing.” She felt naïve and stupid, which was ridiculous. She couldn’t wrap her head around this. “You really didn’t shoot them?”

“Sweetheart, I don’t walk around armed. My gun is locked up. I’ll prove it to you when we get to my place.” He paused and ran a hand back through his hair. “Unless . . . do you want to go to the cops? Your neighbors are already calling them, but . . .”

Her life had to be pretty shitty to have two guys offering to take her to the police in the span of one week.

And this time, at first, she did want Tyler to take her to the police station. She’d tell them everything she’d seen, and she’d have him there to back it up.

But then they’d arrest her brother. And possibly her parents.

Quinn was only seventeen. Where would they send her? A foster home or something? Or would she be arrested, too?

And what would they do to Jordan? At least her little brother was practically living at his friends’ houses. She hadn’t seen him in over a week. She didn’t have to worry about him coming around.

“No,” she whispered. “No cops.”

“You all right?”

She shook her head. “How do you know that Anthony guy?”

“We went to school together. I didn’t know your brother was Jake Briscoe. Talk about how the mighty have fallen.”

Quinn blinked at him. They’d come to a red light, and it reflected off Tyler’s fair skin and hair, making him look a little softer. “What does that mean?”

“Didn’t he win a scholarship to Duke or something?”

“Yeah. He’s home on a break.”

Tyler looked over. The expression on his face said, Come on, don’t be stupid.

But she must have been, because she didn’t get it. “What?”

“What break? It’s the middle of October. I’m not on break.

Why would he be?”

“You think—you think he left school?”

Tyler snorted. “He’s smoking crack with a high school dropout.

I’d bet my truck your brother got kicked out of school.”

Kicked out of school. The golden boy.

Quinn wondered if this added a new intensity to her parents’

problems.

And it wasn’t like things were great before.

“Was my mother okay?” she whispered.

“She was lit,” said Tyler. “Where’s your dad?”

Quinn shook her head. “I never know anymore. Sometimes he works nights, but sometimes . . . I try to stay out of there as much as I can.”

And now she’d burned her bridges with Becca and Nick.

She had nowhere to go.

Tyler was silent for a long while, and she watched the lights zip by outside his truck.

“You want me to take you somewhere else?” he finally said.

“You have a friend you want to stay with or something?”

Quinn shook her head. “You can just—” She had to clear her throat. “I’m all right. You can let me out at the next street corner. I’ll call someone.”

“You think I’m buying that?”

She had no idea what to say. She had no idea what Tyler expected. Just like before, she felt trapped by circumstance. She could get out of this truck and . . . and, what? Sleep on the street? But if she went home with Tyler, would he be looking to hook up?