Page 58 of Final Drive

“So we work it out. After Quinton.”

“I won’t do anything tonight.” His grip tightens in my shirt. “But if he touches her again, I’m not asking permission.”

“If he touches her again,” I say, “you won’t be going on your own.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jackson

Idon’t sleep.

Every time I shut my eyes I see Quinton’s hand around her arm and his face coming toward hers, and then the anger arrives and I have to get up and walk the room until it lets go of me.

Eli’s asleep in my bed. He went under around two, on his side with one hand tucked under his cheek. I should be next to him. I should be grateful for the conversation we finally had after months of pretending we weren’t having it.

Instead I’m at the window watching the trees move, thinking through all the ways I could hurt Quinton Whitmore.

Twenty-four hours. That’s what I gave Eli.

It’s been six.

My phone goes off on the nightstand and I get to it before the sound reaches him.

Tyler: Found something. Kitchen. Now.

I pull on sweats and get out without letting the door make a sound. The house is quiet, nothing but the refrigerator and the old wood settling, and the kitchen light is already on when I come down.

Tyler’s at the table with his laptop, an empty energy drink at his elbow and shadows under his eyes.

“Couldn’t sleep either?”

“No.” I take the chair across from him. “What have you got?”

He turns the screen. It’s a grid of screenshots, messages and posts laid out in order.

“Kinsley and Quinton have been talking for months,” he says. “Not on their main accounts. Kinsley has a second account she uses to talk about other girls. Quinton has one he uses for things I’d rather not describe.”

“How’d you get them?”

“She tagged the alt in a story once and deleted it inside two minutes, but nothing’s ever actually gone.” He scrolls. “Look at the dates. They started right after Reese joined the crew. And read how they talk to each other.”

I lean in.

It’s worse than I was ready for. Kinsley feeding him Reese’s schedule, her habits, which classes she sat in alone. Quinton reporting back when he managed to get coffee with her, when she started answering his texts, when she stopped looking over her shoulder for one of us.

Quinton: She trusts me now.

Kinsley: That was fast.

Quinton: She wanted somebody who wasn’t one of them.

Kinsley: Told you.

Then, three weeks ago, it changes.

Kinsley: She’s definitely Omega. Saw her taking pills that looked like suppressants.

Quinton: You sure?