“Well, she’s not with me, Miranda!” I shove one shoe on, the laces still tied, and the back of the shoe folding down and annoying me. “She’s not here, so she’s either spending the night with another guy, or he chopped her the fuck up. Where’d she go?”
“Some place called Pinocchio’s. An Italian restaurant on the corner of—”
“I know the place.” I shove my second shoe on. “I’m gonna go find her. I’ll call you back as soon as I know where she is.”
“I’m in town too.” Her words bring me up short, so my heart gives a painful thud, and with it, my brain pulses. “I’ve been calling her for the last two hours, so after the first, and the being-chopped-up thing fresh in my mind, I got in the car and headed down. It took longer because of the storm, but I’m coming into town now, and figured before I headed to the restaurant, I should first check to see if she was with you.”
“She’s not.” Rage and helplessness war inside my veins. Terror and fury. “We had plans to spend the night together, but she hasn’t come home yet.”
“Alright. Why don’t you let me deal with this? I’ll go find her, I’m just a few minutes away. If she’s safe, you have to leave it alone, Luke. You can’t go racing in there, all guns blazing. She will smack you down if you try to tell her where she can be, and with whom.”
“Yeah, well, if she thinks she can get dinner with this other dude, who she knows I can’t stand, then I’m gonna have some shit to say to her anyway. It’s time she fuckin’ laid her cards on the table for me to see.” I bound up from my seat, and snatch my keys from the hook by the door. “It’s storming out, and I’m heading to my truck now. I’ll call you back in a bit. If I beat you there, I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Luke! No.”
Miranda has the mom-voice perfected. Too bad I was always a rebel.
My stomach continues to swirl with both rage and worry. Fury, and paralyzing fear. Because Ally’s not a liar. She’s not a cheat. She might hate the jealous boyfriend act, and maybe she refuses to commit, but she doesn’t demand I stop that nonsense then give me reason to be jealous. She’s brutally honest and painfully independent, so if she wanted a night away from me, she’d have told me so.
Which means this isn’t a cheating-on-me situation at all. It’s a Jason-is-about-to-get-himself-fucked-up situation.
“I’ll call you back, Miranda.” I hang up and slide my phone into my pocket.
“Wait.” Rob grabs the front door before I can race through and slam it shut again. He knows what this is, too, and he knows I’m about to land myself in a world of trouble. “I’m coming with you,” he growls, and jogs along the hall of our apartment building when I turn and dash away.
“Wait!” Emma slams the apartment door shut and follows. “No way are you idiots blowing shit up and leaving me at home.”
We sprint down the stairs and annoy the neighbors with the heavy thump-thump-thumping of our feet on each step.
Despite being the smallest, Emma is the fastest. She’s agile on her feet, smooth around corners, and has an uncanny ability to slide on the railing when the opportunity arises, so when we reach the bottom floor, she bounds out the lobby door first, only to squeal and spin back until she and Rob slam together.
“What the fuck?” I skid around them and open the door again.
Icy cold wind blasts my face, and with it, freezing shards of snow sting my nose and fingers.
“Holy shit,” I shiver so hard that it hurts my entire body. “What the hell kinda storm is this?”
“A cold one.” Emma extricates herself from Rob’s hold, slowly approaches the door again, and preparing herself, she pushes through and shivers until her entire frame vibrates. “We gotta get in and out, then back inside. We’re not wearing the right clothes for this shit.”
“Go. Get into the truck,” I urge.
“I’ll drive.” Rob snatches my keys and jogs around to the driver’s side. Yanking the door open, he pushes Em up so she’s in the middle of the long bench seat.
I climb in on the passenger side and slam the door shut, and when Rob closes his door, we’re left in silence but for the sound of our heavy breathing and the howl of the wind on the outside, so strong it literally makes the truck rock back and forth.
“You need to calm your shit.” Rob stabs the keys into the ignition and turns the engine on. It takes a second; the engine starts with a slow rr-rr-rr before it turns over and roars like it should. “If you do this up wrong, your ass is going to jail, and no, I’m not gonna take the fall and say it was me.”
“I’m not jealous, Rob.” I look to him in the dark, and meet his eyes. “Honest. Something is wrong, because now she’s not even taking her mom’s calls. That’s a massive red flag for them. They talk more than Mom and Kit talk.” I look to Emma, to Kit’s second clone, and shake my head. “Miranda driving her ass down here is a massive problem. Let’s go.”
Ally
Well, Hell
Alcohol zips through my blood and leaves me with a swishing stomach and a goofy grin. But across from me, Jason sits sober as a monk, and with eyes that look like they’ve seen death.
“I never ever wanted it to be like this.” His head droops low with defeat. “And if I’d known, I would have done something about it. I would have taken care of business, ya know? I would have done what I was supposed to do.”
“And now you’re… what? Looking for revenge? Because they lied to you?” I try to use my therapist’s brain, but maybe around my fifth or sixth glass of wine, it ran away, and now I’m just a girl again, barely an adult, a child with secret abandonment issues. “That’s not…” I swallow and shake my head. “It shouldn’t…” Sonia, Sonia, oh where for art thou, Sonia. “Um… and how does that make you feel?”
“Pissed!” He tosses his silver knife down to the table. “I’m pissed, Ally. Because a life was stolen from me, and I was never given a choice.”
“So, what? You’re going to avenge it all now? Payback is sweet and all that?”
“Maybe! I already lost it all, so what do I have to lose now?”
“Well…” My dinner sits high in my belly, on top of the alcohol, and reminds me every few minutes that I ate garlic. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I think you still have a lot to lose. So don’t get ahead of yourself with this plan of revenge. Haven’t you watched any Road Runner cartoons? The coyote never wins.”
“He might this time.” He grabs the knife again and turns it on the tip. Anyone watching us from the outside might be scared of that knife, but not me. I’m on the inside, and mostly, I’m still wearing my goofy grin.
It all makes so much sense now.
“Do you wanna go someplace else?” Jason’s haunted eyes come up to mine. So much pain. So much heartache. “We could head back to the hotel, and maybe get a little coffee in that front parlor.”
“Mm. I wonder if they have the fire going?”