Chapter 16

“You’re still over the legal limit,” she finally whispers, careful not to strain her nonexistent voice.

I can’t exactly argue with that. There is no way that a few hours of dozing in this car has sobered me completely. I drank enough liquor to black out most of the night, and the resulting headache is massive. I’ll probably be drunk for the entire fucking day, or half of it. I can’t tell. I can’t even remember how many drinks I had . . .

My jumbled counting is cut short when Tessa parks in front of a gas pump and reaches for the door handle.

“I’ll go in.” I climb out of the car before she can argue.

There aren’t many people inside at this early hour, only men dressed for work. My hands are filled with aspirin, water bottles, and bags of snacks when Tessa walks into the small store.

I watch as every head turns to look at the disheveled beauty in her dirty white dress. The men’s looks make me even more nauseated.

“Why didn’t you stay in the car?” I ask as she approaches.

She waves a hunk of black leather in front of my face. “Your wallet.”

“Oh.”

Handing it to me, she disappears for a moment, but takes her place next to me just as I reach the counter. In each hand is a large, steaming cup of coffee.

I drop my pile of things on the counter. “Can you check the location on your phone while I pay?” I ask, taking the oversize cups from her small hands.

“What?”

“The location on your phone, so we can see where we are.”

Grabbing the aspirin bottle and shaking it before he scans it, the portly man behind the counter remarks, “Allhallows. That’s where you are.” He nods at Tessa, who politely smiles back.

“Thank you.” She widens her grin, and the poor bastard flushes.

Yeah, I know she’s hot. Now look away before I rip your eyes from your head, I want to tell him. And next time you make a god-awful noise when I’m hungover, like you did with that aspirin bottle, it’s all over. After last night, I could use the outlet, and I’m not in the mood for this mopey shit’s eyes to be raking across my girl’s chest at seven in the fucking morning.

If I weren’t immensely aware of the lack of emotion behind her eyes, I would probably have pulled him over the counter, but her fake smile, black-rimmed eyes, and dirt-stained dress stop me and yank me from my violent thoughts. She just looks so lost, so sad, so fucking lost.

What have I done to you? I silently ask.

Her focus shifts to the door, where a young woman and child are entering, hand in hand. I watch her as she watches them, following their movements a little too closely, if you ask me; it’s borderline creepy. When the little girl stares up at her mum, Tessa’s bottom lip trembles.

What the hell is that about? Because I threw a fit over the new revelation in my family?

The clerk has packed up all of my stuff and holds the bag somewhat rudely in front of my face to get my attention. It seems that as soon as Tessa stopped looking at him, he decided he could be rude to me.

I snatch the plastic bag and lean toward Tessa. “Ready?” I ask, nudging her with my elbow.

“Yeah, sorry,” she mutters and grabs the coffees from the counter.

I fill the car up, all the while considering the consequences of driving Vance’s rental into the sea. If we’re in Allhallows, we’re right next to the shore; it wouldn’t be hard.

“How far are we from Gabriel’s bar?” Tessa asks when I join her in the car. “That’s where the car is.”

“Only about an hour and a half, traffic considering.” The car slowly sinks in the ocean, costing Vance tens of thousands; we take a cab to Gabriel’s for a couple hundred. Fair trade.

Tessa twists the top off the small bottle of aspirin and shakes three of them into my hand, then frowns and stares down at her screen, which has started to light up. “Do you want to talk about last night? I just received a text from Kimberly.”

Questions begin pushing through the muddied images and voices from last night and into the surface of my mind . . . Vance locking me outside and walking back into the burning house . . . As Tessa continues to stare at her phone, I grow increasingly worried.

“He’s not . . .” I don’t know how to ask the question. It won’t seem to pass over the lump in my throat.

Tessa looks at me, and her eyes begin to fill with tears. “He’s alive, of course, but . . .”

“What? He’s what?”

“She says he was burned.”

A slight and unwelcome pain tries to seep through the cracks in my defenses. Cracks that she caused in the first place.

She wipes one eye with the back of her hand. “Only on one leg. Kim said one leg, and that he’s to be arrested as soon as he is released from the hospital, which should be soon, any minute, really.”

“Arrested for what?” I know the answer before she gives it.

“He told the police that he started the fire.” Tessa lifts her shitty phone in front of my face so I can read the long text message from Kimberly for myself.

I read it all, not learning anything new, but getting a good sense of Kimberly’s panic. I don’t say anything. I have nothing to say.

“Well?” Tessa asks softly.

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you even slightly concerned about your father?” Then, taking in my murderous glare, she adds, “I mean Christian.”

He’s hurt because of me. “He shouldn’t have even showed up there.”

Tessa looks appalled by my nonchalance. “Hardin. That man came there to help me—to help you.”