He’s glaring at me with intensity, the heavy rise and fall of his chest stirring up the instinct to run. I knew he was mad at me, but with the way he’s looking at me now, I’m afraid he might actually want to kill me.
His expression changes, almost like relief as he charges toward me. There’s a scream building in my chest, but it doesn’t make it past my lips before he’s crushing his body against mine. With one large hand behind my head and the other around my waist, Cullen cradles me in his arms like he doesn’t want to hurt me at all.
“I thought you were gone,” he sobs into my neck.
“What are you talking about? I came looking for you.”
His chest shakes, and I don’t know if it’s a laugh or a sob. Something isn’t right. Is he really so upset because he couldn’t find me for a couple hours?
When his hands find my face, cupping my chin, he pulls me closer so we’re breathing the same air.
“Cullen, I’m sorry about what happened earlier, but—"
He stops my words with a kiss that nearly lifts me off my feet. My lips are devoured by his, and when he licks into my mouth, I open for him, practically melting in his arms.
It doesn’t matter that we’re out in public or that other students could see us from the dorms. Right now the only two people who exist are him and me.
When he finally pulls away, he presses our foreheads together. “Don’t you fucking apologize to me, Everly. I swear to God.”
“Okay, okay. Will you please tell me what’s going on?”
Suddenly, he pulls his face away, glancing around us skeptically as if he’s looking for someone—or rather afraid of someone. As he turns his head, I notice a streak of red in his stark white hair.
“Cullen, you’re bleeding!” My fingers skim through his dried blood in his hair. He definitely took a pretty good hit at some point.
“We need to get out of here.”
He pulls me to the car by my hand, and I slide into the passenger seat.
“I was waiting for him. I knew he’d come back for me. I never would have thought you’d show up.”
“I don’t understand,” I stammer as I take in his appearance. Still in his rugby uniform from this morning, his shirt sleeve is nearly ripped off the body. There is ash or dirt covering his face and neck, and bright red scratches up his arms. “What do you mean you were waiting for him? Your father? Did you see him? Is that who hurt you?”
Questions are rattling off in my brain rapid fire as he puts the car in reverse and drives out of the parking lot. “We need somewhere safe to go so we can talk,” he says, and I notice the way his hand is clutching the steering wheel tight.
“Somewhere safe? Let’s go home. We’ll call the police.”
He turns his head to look at me, a solemn expression on his face, and I feel my chest tighten.
“We can’t go there, Ev. It’s…it’s gone.”
“What do you mean, it’s gone?”
“I mean it’s gone. That’s why I thought you were dead. After I left you, I drove around for a while before I went back to my dorm. He was waiting for me there, and he…he basically confessed everything, but I don’t think he knew how close you and I are. Because as soon as I brought up the nanny, he knew. He must have found out you were digging into her files because that attack was him. All of it was because of him.”
“I figured that out. And I think there’s more. It’s not just a pregnancy cover-up, Cullen.”
“I think you’re right.” He reaches across the console, and takes my hand in his, squeezing tight while we coast down the busy street.
“I barely got away,” he says, continuing his story. “He had some security guard with him, and I think he would have killed me, but I had to get back to you. Until I got to your house, and I thought I was too late. Your house, Ev…it was up in flames.”
“Oh my god,” I gasp. My heart is pounding in my chest. And it’s not the house that immediately comes to mind. It’s the fact that I was supposed to be in it. They burned down my home because someone wanted me dead. Or at the very least to send a message.
Then I look at Cullen, and I see the stress in his expression, those bags under his eyes, tracks of tears through the ash covering his face. And my heart breaks.
“You came to my house. You thought I was…”
My hand slaps against my mouth as I stare at him, everything becoming so very clear.
22
Cullen
We drive an hour out of town to get a hotel. It’s silent the whole way, but not because we don’t have anything to say to each other. There are so many things left unsaid. We’re just both too exhausted and strung out to talk. Besides, it doesn’t feel like we need to say them out loud anymore. Everything I want to say to her is in the way my hand won’t leave hers for the entire drive or the way I reacted when I saw her walking toward my dorm.
It felt like a dream. As if my brain never truly accepted she was gone so none of it felt real, but seeing her and holding her in my arms—that was real.
Everything has shifted between us. We’re not the same people we were at the start of the semester. I don’t even care about the article she wrote or the case against my dad anymore. Maybe I never did. Right now I just care that she’s here.
“Are you okay?” I whisper as we close ourselves into the hotel room. We don’t have anything. No clean clothes or toiletries. She has her work bag with her laptop and I have a sweatshirt I left in her car and that’s it.
She nods. “Are you?”
I nod in return. “Are you hungry? Want me to order you something?”
With a shake of her head, she adds, “I need a shower.”
“Okay.” I walk her to the bathroom where I start up the shower. Things feel strange between us. The way we left things before is lurking around us as a reminder that we are fucked up. But instead of talking, we strip each other of our clothes. She looks at my head again and the bruise on my arm. I keep touching her face and her neck, my chest so full of emotion I didn’t expect.
As I pull off her pants, I find her phone in her back pocket. Opening it up, I go straight for her settings.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Taking off everything I added to it before. I don’t need to track you anymore.”
She doesn’t say a word as I remove the tracking and every other invasive thing I put on there to keep tabs on her. Then I pull out my phone, finding the photo. She watches as I click the trash icon.
“Stop!” she screams, grabbing my phone from my hand.
“I don’t want it anymore,” I reply, staring intensely into her eyes.
“I want to keep it,” she whispers, those big brown eyes stare up at me, soft and begging, and there’s only a beat of silence, letting her words sink in before I gather her naked body up against mine.
“We can keep it,” I whisper back, wanting her to know how I feel, hoping she reads between the lines. Holding her face in my hands, I reach my lips down to hers, kissing her softly, afraid I’ll hurt her.
I almost ended things today. Yesterday, I was so sure I needed to be rid of Everly. Then I almost lost her, for no good fucking reason, and it shook everything I thought I believed. It rocked the foundation, making me realize I need her more than I need revenge or justice or payback. I just need her.