Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
“Dylan,” Kade grits out.
But I ignore him. “I need to get out of here for a couple of weeks,” I tell Farrow.
Farrow chuckles, looking to Kade. “Did I really just get this lucky?” But he switches his attention back to me before Kade can answer. “Daddy gonna be okay with this, Baby Trent?”
“Do you care?”
If he’s afraid of my father, he won’t admit it in front of everyone.
But he’ll take me. I’m perfect payback for Aro.
“We don’t trade women to Weston,” Dirk states.
But Farrow is already pulling out handcuffs and binding my wrists in front of me as a dark-haired young woman with three roses inked on the back of her left hand rips off a piece of duct tape and plants it over my mouth. It’s all a part of the ceremony of being a prisoner.
She smiles at me. “This won’t be fun, honey. Brace yourself.”
My stomach dives, and air pours in and out of my nose.
They shove over a guy with chestnut brown hair in exchange—I think his name is Stellan—as another one pulls me by the chain between the cuffs and leads me away with Farrow and the two young women.
“Dylan, goddammit,” Kade growls. “You’re going to get hurt.”
He says the same words he said five minutes ago about racing.
I resist the urge to look back at him as we cross the bridge, because he sounds almost angry enough to come and take me back.
Would I let him? I might’ve before. Kade liked to tug, and his pull was always strong.
Hunter was kind.
Kade gave his attention sparingly.
I always thought Hunter would be there.
Kade was so loud sometimes, I couldn’t hear anything else.
Hunter only took off his headphones to hear me.
But Hunter is gone, and I don’t know why Kade wants me around. The only thing that feels good anymore is racing.
Chimes pierce the air as all four Weston students flip coins over the edge of the bridge and into the water below.
Pay to pass.
An offering to the girl still locked in the car at the bottom of the river.
Legend has it, she was from Shelburne Falls too. The only other female we traded.
And Weston never gave her back. That’s why we don’t trade women anymore.
Until me. Until tonight.
They push me into an old pickup truck, Farrow driving in the front with me sandwiched between the two girls in the back. He starts the engine, and we speed off, away from the docks and the warehouses, and I try to smile behind my tape. Two weeks, on my own, doing my thing, and not at the beck and call of anyone else.
When my dad or Kade look for me, I won’t be there for once.
My phone dings with a notification, and I reach into my pocket, struggling with my cuffed hands to pull it out.
Swiping open the screen, I see a text from Hunter. My heart skips a beat.
That…was a mistake.
Dylan
I study the words.
What is he talking about?
Is he…
Is he here? I dart my gaze around the inside of the car, scanning one face after another, and then I look out the windows, tossing glances over both shoulders.
But I don’t see Hunter inside the truck, and there aren’t any cars following us.
How did he see the exchange?
I draw in air through my nose, hovering my thumb over my screen for a moment before I type.
But instead of asking Can I see you? like I’ve asked before, I text Where are you?
Where the hell is he? Why is he texting me now? After all this time?
The Read receipt appears, but he doesn’t reply.
Of course. I have half a mind to block his number. He doesn’t get to show up tonight. Now that I’m leaving.
Was Beck lying? Was Hunter in one of the St. Matthew’s cars, watching the whole time?
“We haven’t gotten a girl in the prisoner exchange in…” the guy in the passenger’s seat muses, checking with Farrow. “In how long?”
“You know how long,” Farrow Kelly replies, gripping the steering wheel with one hand and digging in his back pocket with the other.
He pulls out his phone, which I can hear buzzing.
The other one smiles back at me. “Oh, yeah,” he coos. “That.”
That.
The only other Pirate girl to get traded who, legend has it, died here.
I tear off the tape over my mouth.
They think they’re going to be something that happens to me. I’m done with that.
“Farrow, right?” I ask, meeting the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror as he looks up from his phone. “I know you. Football star, team captain…” I pause and then say under my breath, “But that’s not fair, since you were also captain your senior year…which…was…last…year.”
A gleam hits his eyes, and I wonder if he blew off last semester just so he could play another season.
I turn to Coral Lapinski at my right, dropping my eyes to the necktie wrapped around her wrist over and over again like some kind of bracelet. “I watched you run last spring in the Regionals. One of the fastest miles in the state.”