Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute(39)

I’m not going to fit under a bed.

They’re already low to the ground, I’m pretty sure the mattresses sag when you sit on them, and we have to crawl under in pairs. Long story short, that narrow dark space does not look like a Celine-sized space and—

“Cel,” Brad whispers.

I whip around to find him standing by the open window. “What are you doing? Get in bed—”

“Get out here,” he says.

It’s dark outside. Dark on dark on dark, in fact: black night, plus blacker shapes that could be trees but could also be seventy-foot-tall murderers; the jury is out. “Are you taking the piss?” I demand.

There’s another murmur from the hallway, louder this time.

I jerk closer to Brad, closer to the cold-as-space window.

“I know why you’re here,” he says. “I saw your dad on the leaflet. You can’t get thrown off the program.”

“What?” The blood in my veins turns to liquid mortification. My pulse is slow. My tongue has weight. “I…don’t…It’s—”

“Get out,” he says, pushing me through the window, his hand on my hip.

There’s a knock at the door. My feet touch damp grass. Then the window snaps shut, and I very much realize that I am outside. In the dark. Barefoot. In my pajamas.

He’s locked me out here. He doesn’t have to let me back in. I could lose toes to frostbite or…or have to walk around to the front of the building and get caught sneaking inside, and it would all be revenge for every time I implied Bradley was shallow or snide or just not good enough, and maybe I’d even deserve it. Maybe I’d deserve it because—

“Yeah?” I hear Thomas say, his voice thick with faux sleep. These windows must be paper thin.

Holly’s voice is soft from the other side of the door. “Okay in there, guys?”

“Yeah,” Thomas repeats.

“I heard you might be having a little shindig,” Zion says lightly, as if a warm and encouraging tone will lead Thomas to confess all.

“Um, no,” Thomas says with the perfect touch of bafflement, “I don’t think so…”

Silent. Everyone, everything, is silent. I hold my breath for way too long before Zion replies, “All right, then. Night.”

My heart rate begins to slow, despite the very creepy hooting going on in the MASSIVE GODDAMN FOREST BEHIND ME. I don’t think Brad’s going to leave me out here. Which is a strange realization to have, when I’ve spent so long thinking of him as evil incarnate.

I lean back against the roughly textured wall of the cabin. At least the star-studded sky is pretty. If I had my phone, I could film this for a video about spooky season folklore, but I don’t, so I just stuff my hands under my shirt to keep them warm and wait for Brad to let me back in.

Thirty-six clouds have passed over the moon and I’ve thought about being dragged off into the woods by a hot werewolf nine times before the window clicks and eases open. I whip around and Brad’s eyes are somehow bright in the dark, gleaming like ink. “Celine,” he whispers, and I feel his breath on my cheek. Then the thirty-seventh cloud moves, and moonlight floods the space between us, and he realizes I’m standing approximately 3.2 centimeters away. “Oh.” He pulls back hard. There’s a pause before he’s right there again—not his face, but his hands, and they’re even warmer than they were before, red-hot. “Celine,” he says, “you’re freezing.”

I bump my head on the window. “Shit.”

“Shhhh,” someone tells me in the dark.

Brad tuts over his shoulder. “Shut up. She’s cold.” He turns back to me. The way I clamber into the room is not exactly graceful. He catches me when I stumble. I tread on his toes. Instead of collapsing in agony, he says, “Your feet are wet.”

“Um.”

“Sit down.” He pushes me toward the bed. I half land on Aurora—I can tell it’s her because she’s incredibly bony and because she squeaks “Ouch” like a little mouse.

“Sorry,” I whisper, then jump out of my skin when Brad drops to his knees in front of me. “Bradley. What are you going to do? Dry my feet with your hair?”

“Shut up,” he mutters, and drags a blanket from somewhere and touches my feet. Well, he pats them awkwardly with the blanket, but still. I think I am going to pass out. My stomach isn’t in knots; it’s in bows that loop and unloop with every heartbeat.

Okay, so I have a theory: Bradley Graeme isn’t two people, two faces, a best friend and an enemy. He is just one person, just one face. The other is smoke and mirrors.

Time to prove which is which. And maybe prove myself a complete and utter monster in the process.

“Aren’t you two cousins?” Thomas demands in the dark.

Solemnly, Aurora says, “They’re a very close family.”

“Aurora!” Raj is clearly delighted. “God, I enjoy you.”

Sophie snorts. “That’s one way of putting it.”

Another cloud passes over the moon. When Brad looks up and grins at me, I smile back.





SATURDAY, 11:01 A.M.


Brad: hey





Brad:





Brad: guess who that is