Page 27 of Johnny

mind.

Make sure the Way never saw us as a team.

Make sure the Way never saw us as a threat.

So if Jesse ever gets pissed at me for ruining our brotherly bond? If Joey ever accuses me of never

loving him? I’ll tell them about that shit I saw. Because I saw a lot of it.

But now here we are. A team again.

So what was the point of all my underhanded dealings with Jesse and the effort I put into rejecting

Joey?

Megan takes another bite of her sandwich. She chews methodically as she considers me, or my

question, or hell, maybe she’s considering all her past choices just as I’m considering mine?

“Well?” I say. “Where did they go?”

She takes a deep breath and turns her head to look off into the distance. Studying the dark, still

night. The relatively calm sea. “You know I don’t know or I would’ve told you already under the

drugs.”

“You were pretty out of it.”

“I guess I was. Since you undressed me and I don’t remember it.”

“Just trying to help you out.”

“Right. Well I don’t know where they went. I’m not exactly on their list of trustworthy people at the

moment.”

“You have ideas.”

“I’m sure you do as well.” She pauses to purse her lips and side-eye me. “I was a prisoner. They

weren’t filling me in on their plans.”

“Why did everyone up and leave?”

She shrugs.

I want to get up, lean over, and choke her until she tells me something useful. But I don’t. I would

never call myself patient. I’m the opposite of patient, actually. But I know when to bide my time. So I

stay flat on the sun lounger, arms behind my head, and look up at the dark night sky, smirking like none

of this matters. Like Charlotte Kane might not be the last chance I’ll get to save my family and all their

friends who have now been dragged into this dark mystery that will surely end in epic disaster.

“Take a guess,” I say. “What happened before everything shut down?”