While I painted my bedroom, the ambush ran on a loop inside my mind. I wanted to discuss it with August; I wanted to get his opinion on the matter but was worried about what it might be. What if he aligned with Lucas and Liam and insisted Sarah was a traitor?
Could someone else have sent me the message?
No, it had been her handwriting.
Had they forced her to write the message? My fingers itched to call her, but what if they’d forced her to con us? Then getting a message from me would only seal her fate . . .
Dusk was falling when I emerged from my bedroom, dizzy with worry and paint fumes. “I’m done.”
August glanced away from the baseboard to which he was adding a final coat of white paint. “I’m almost finished here.”
“Me too,” Jeb said, dragging the lambs-wool roller over the ceiling in the hallway. Paint dribbled down his arm and onto the plastic tarp blanketing our lustrous floors. “How does Chinese takeout sound to you guys? I could go get some while this last coat dries.”
August caught my eye.
“Um.” I bit my lip. “I, uh . . . already have plans.”
Jeb nodded even though disappointment was written all over his face.
August rose from his crouch and dunked the brush into the almost empty paint bucket. “Maybe you could change your plans, Ness?”
I tipped my gaze up to meet his and mouthed a thank you. “Yeah. Maybe I could meet my friend after dinner.”
“Or maybe your friend can join you for dinner,” August said, and my heart performed a little backbend because inviting said friend would reveal who said friend was.
“It’s okay, Ness,” Jeb said. “Derek’s always up for getting out of his house. Let me call him.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” He rolled the brush one last time before setting it down and going to grab his phone from the kitchen counter that was also covered in plastic. He dialed Derek, exchanged a couple words, then gave me a thumbs up. After they disconnected, Jeb grabbed his car keys. “I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t lock up, okay?”
“‘Kay.”
As soon as the van vanished down the short driveway, August came at me with a predatorial gleam in his eyes that made him look more wolf than man. “You have some paint”-he dipped his fingers inside a bucket, then raked them down my side, over the patch of bare skin beneath my crop top-“right here.”
Goose bumps rose beneath the white paint dripping down my ribs. “Huh. Clumsy me. I must’ve brushed up against a wall.”
He smiled, then brought that smile closer to my mouth.
“A very big one,” I added.
“Very big,” he echoed. “We should clean you up, and I know just the place.”
I rolled my eyes but smiled nonetheless, and it dispersed some of my clinging stress.
When car beams splashed the window, I sprang away from August.
Jeb blustered back in, face so white it looked as though he’d dunked it in the bucket of paint. “Ness! Ness, you . . . she . . . Lucy . . .”
My spine snapped into alignment. “Lucy what? What happened, Jeb?”
“Lucy is . . . at Aidan’s.” He was breathing so hard I had trouble understanding the next words out of his mouth. I caught the last, though. “Dead.”
“Dead? Lucy’s dead?” I asked.
My uncle shook his head from side to side. “No. Maybe Aidan. She doesn’t know.”
Color leached from August’s skin. “What do you mean, she doesn’t know?”
“Aidan’s house. I need to get to Aidan’s house,” Jeb whispered.
My skin bristled, and white fur spouted from my pores. I was shifting. I pushed my wolf back before she could rip through my clothes and race across the forest toward the hateful Creek’s estate.
“Give me your car key,” August said, taking charge. “I’ll drive.”
“August, you can’t shift. I’ll go with Jeb-”
He shot me a glare that shut me up. “Like hell I’m letting you go without me. Get in the van.”
We all sprinted outside and into the car. My uncle was muttering to himself. I tried to make out what he was saying, but his words were all garbled.
I leaned between the front seats and said, “We should call Liam.”
August’s gaze was narrowed on the road he was hurtling down at breakneck speed. “I texted Cole.”
When, I wondered? I hadn’t even seen him use his phone.
He tore his gaze off the road to look at me. “When we get there-”
“Don’t tell me to stay in the car.”
He slammed his gaze back on the windshield and took a turn so fast I had to dig my nails into his headrest to stay upright. He veered again and then the van lurched up the long driveway toward Aidan’s glass and wood mansion. My aunt stood on the threshold, shivering like a strip of cut-out paper dolls.
Jeb flung open the passenger door and leaped out before the car had come to a full stop. He ran to his ex-wife and hugged her.
August spun around in his seat. “Ness-”
“Together. We go in together.” I jumped into the passenger seat and out the door that was still open.
August rounded the front bumper, long strides devouring the flagstones.
Amidst chest-wracking sobs, my aunt said, “He’s downstairs. With a knife in his throat.”
“Lucy!” Jeb said, gaping at her in terror.
“He helped Alex murder our son, Jeb. I heard them joking about it. Joking.”
My uncle made a pained sound as he gathered his ex-wife against him again.