A loud pop shoots off behind me, and there’s Dakota racing toward me with a—with a gun! In her hand! An actual gun!
Oh hell no. I hit the gas, my tires spinning for a moment before I take off just in time to hear another pop echo behind me. She’s shooting at me! Dakota—the girl I kissed just yesterday—is now shooting at me.
I get one last glimpse of Dakota as she chases after my car, dirt flying up around her and a black pistol dangling from her fingertips as I speed away.
25
For what feels like hours, I drive in circles. I can’t go home. They know where I live. And not only that, they know what I can do. I wish I could talk to Ches. Maybe she’d have some kind of answers for me.
Guilt and anger assault me in waves. Ches. I should visit Ches.
I’m almost out of gas and I have to go home eventually. I can’t leave Grandma Lou alone for that much longer.
When I finally pull into the driveway, the porch light is on. “Grandma Lou?” I call, walking through the front door and past the living room, where the TV plays through her shows. “Grandma Lou?”
“We’re in here,” she calls from the kitchen.
My whole body tenses. Sitting there at my kitchen table is Dakota, flanked by two hulking men in black T-shirts and jeans. All these bodyguards look the same time. Beefcake meatheads. I guess Nigel was still a little shaken up from his quick little flight, which I still don’t understand at all.
“Dakota was just introducing me to her friends, Remi and Carl,” she says, pointing to each of them before spooning some casserole into a dish for me. “I told her you must have gotten held up at the shelter.”
I nod, barely able to keep my cool. I wish I could send some kind of signal to Grandma Lou by simply raising my eyebrows. “Yeah. The shelter.”
Grandma Lou looks from me to Dakota and back again. “I’ll, uh, give you and your friends a moment.” She points to Carl again. “You don’t leave before I can get you my casserole recipe.”
Carl nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
I don’t know if that totally freaks me out or at least gives me some sense of relief that they didn’t do anything to Grandma Lou, but I’m angry at just the thought of it. How dare Dakota come into my home with my grandmother? Especially when she knows everything that’s going on with Grandma Lou. Surely she wouldn’t use that against me. But who knows? I don’t think I even know her anymore.
I try to see if there are knives left in the knife block or anything else on the kitchen counters that might help me defend myself.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” says Dakota, catching my gaze as I size up the utensils drying by the sink.
I turn to her, my voice venomous. “Is that what you say to all the girls you chase after with a gun?”
She shrugs. “I was only trying to slow you down. Hit a tire, maybe.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” I say a little too loudly.
Dakota pulls out a chair for me to sit, and between Remi and Carl, I don’t think I have much of a choice.
I set down the plate Grandma Lou left for me on the table and push it away. I have no intention of eating right now.
Carl pulls the plate in front of him. “You mind?” he asks.
I shrug. “You probably left a bruise, by the way.”
He grunts before digging in. “If that’s all you walk away with, consider yourself lucky,” he says with a mouthful of casserole.
A chill crawls up my spine. “What do you want?” I ask Dakota, trying so hard to see her for what she is and not what I wish she were.
“I want to talk to you about what you saw.”
“Oh, you mean the unconscious girl hooked up to an IV and monitors in the middle of a warehouse where your TV show films? And how the A+ is coming from you all too?”
That last part I don’t know to be totally true, but maybe she can confirm that for me.
Remi cracks his knuckles before crossing his arms over his chest.
How is this even my life right now?
“Listen,” says Dakota, leaning toward me. “This is all part of something bigger. It’s more than a few missing people and animals and a harmless upper circulating around high schools.”
“You knew I was looking for Colleen,” I tell her. “And what about Gretchen? She’s still not responding to anyone! And what kind of person abducts animals?” I feel absolutely sick with myself that I fell so hard for her and that even now it’s difficult to parse out my feelings for her.
Remi grunts and Carl takes one last bite of casserole before mirroring Remi’s posture.
“Faith, you can be a part of something big. But if you want no part of this . . . or me, then you at least have to promise me your silence.”
“Why would I ever do that? Did you know Ches got caught selling that A+ garbage? Actually, not even selling it. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and her life is basically ruined now. And what about Whitney? Was she even a stalker, or was she just some other person whose life you ruined?”
Anger flares in her nostrils. She stands, and Carl and Remi follow her lead. “I don’t want bad things to happen to you, Faith. I don’t want bad things to happen to Grandma Lou or Matt or Ches or anyone else you love. But that’s up to you. All you have to do is keep a low profile like you always have. Besides, that shouldn’t be too much of a challenge for someone like you. You’re unnoticeable, Faith. Unremarkable. Do yourself and everyone you love a favor and stay that way.”
I pull my body back as far away from her as it will go. Unnoticeable. Unremarkable. How could she say that? I nearly hiss from the sting of it, but it takes just a second longer to really understand exactly what it is she’s trying to say to me. “Are you—are you threatening me?”
Dakota nods. “Yes, Faith. I am. And don’t for a minute think I won’t follow through.”
26
The moment Dakota and her two meatheads are gone, I check every door and window. After doing the dishes and mentally searching the last few months for some kind of clue, I sit down in the living room with Grandma Lou while she watches the news.
“Everything okay with you and Dakota?” she asks. “I didn’t realize she had bodyguards, but I guess when you’re as famous as she is, you can never be too careful.”
“We’re fine,” I tell her, pulling a quilt around my shoulders and lying down on my side as the blue glow of the television washes over us.
“You know you can be honest with me, right?”
I nod. “Yeah, Grandma Lou.”
“And you know I wouldn’t think anything of it if you and Dakota were . . . more than friends, right?”
My lower lip quivers. Of course Grandma Lou would see what was right there in front of her. I never even thought twice about what she might think about me liking other girls. More than anything, though, I hate that Dakota stole this perfect moment from me. “Thanks,” I tell her. “I think whatever was happening with me and Dakota is over . . . but I have a feeling it won’t be the last time I have feelings for a girl. Or boy.”
She chuckles. “We used to call that switch-hitting back in my day.”