Page 147 of Coveted

Am I safer walking through the forest alone or driving in a car with potentially murderous twins?

Clara and Juliette would get me back to the dorm safely, but I’d ruin their night.

Me dying would probably ruin their night too though.

Deciding on a compromise, I hastily message my friends that I’m leaving with Adelle and Damon.

“Just letting my friends know what’s happening,” I say, climbing into the backseat.

There. The twins can’t murder me now. They’d be caught right away and they know it.

Damon and Adelle share an ultra-quick glance, saying nothing. Maybe I offended them, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The car door locks as soon as I close it, perhaps automatically. Fastening my seatbelt, I have to sit forward awkwardly to avoid crushing my wings.

Once Adelle rolls the SUV forward, Damon looks over his shoulder at me. He doesn’t smile, yet the garish Joker face paint makes him look like he’s grinning. The effect is unnerving.

His dark eyes rake over me before he faces forward again.

To quell my anxiety, I check the group chat for a reply from Clara or Juliette.

My stomach drops when I see the message didn’t go through, due to no service. We must be too high in the mountains.

Oh god, did I walk blindly into a trap by getting into this car? Am I about to die?

At the end of the driveway, Adelle turns right when we were supposed to turn left.

My palms breaking out in sweat, I lean forward. “Darkbloom’s that way⁠—”

“I know a shortcut,” she replies serenely.

Damon’s eyes are like chips of onyx glaring at me in the rearview mirror.

I feel like I’m sinking into wet sand. Like this is the end. My heart thuds extra fast, as though it knows it has only so many beats left.

Adelle accelerates, sending the SUV hurtling down the misty, lonely road.

CHAPTER 38

Lucan

Avein in my forehead throbs.

While Cormac drives, I’ve spent the trip home from the city trying to break the code in the notebook I liberated from Parker’s bedroom.

With the assistance of an ex-military analyst, I’ve decoded a few precious letters, but not enough to make sense of my cousin’s journal entries. Parker seems to have developed the mysterious symbols himself.

Scowling in concentration, I stare in the dim light at his final entry. I can’t seem to make anything fit.

Outside, the hand-painted sign for Briarvale rolls past as we enter the town, barely visible in the dense night fog. My girl’s hometown.

She’d still be at the Halloween party in the mountains.

I’ve managed to avoid spying on her via the tracking app, but I did ask Madox to keep tabs on her. I requested it in the most casual way I could, which, in retrospect, was probably more of a command than anything remotely casual.

Space and time are what Sadie needs, so I’m trying to give them to her.

If I can figure out this code and find the murderous piece of shit endangering her, maybe I’ll actually start sleeping again.