Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(59)

I glanced up at Dominic who was sitting in the front passenger seat, arguing with Gabriel over the fastest route to Hawthorne. Though to be fair, Gabriel appeared to be ignoring him entirely, so it was mostly just Dominic making sarcastic comments to himself. At least they were managing to exist in the same space for longer than two minutes.

Every stride counted.

I liked to think I had a hand in bringing them a little closer together than they were when I’d found them, and that made me smile a little.

Trace made a noise at the back of his throat and my eyes slid back to him. He was watching me watch Dominic. I suddenly had the overbearing urge to disappear under the SUV.

Sinking deeper into my seat, I turned my attention outside the window. The blur of looming evergreens zipped by me so quickly, it was as though they were never really there at all. Sometimes I felt just like those trees, rooted in mud with no escape, while my life sat in a car and passed me by. I shifted uncomfortably. When did everything get so complicated? So off the rails? I thought about how different my life would’ve been if I’d never come here; if my father had never been killed. With one flip of a coin—one changed event, I might have been back in the Cape, studying for finals with my best-friends and making ridiculously irresponsible plans for the summer.

Then again, I would have never met Trace.

Or Dominic and Gabriel.

Or Taylor.

And I’d still have no idea who I really was.

I wondered which fate would have been worse.

“Hey,” called Trace quietly, stirring my attention back to him. “You alright?” he asked, studying me.

“Never better,” I said acidly and then shrugged my shoulder. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

“You look tired.”

“Thanks.” I self-consciously ran a hand over my hair, looking for flyaways.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He leaned over onto my side of the bench. “You know I think you’re beautiful,” he whispered, his breath tickling my ear as he spoke.

I smiled at him and then quickly faced forward, trying not to get swept up in his stormy eyes. I needed to keep a level head on and that was hard enough to do on a good day.

“You wanna lay your head down on me for a while? I can play with your hair,” he offered, making my stomach do a little back flip.

That sounded like heaven. For me, that is. Unfortunately, that kind of contact would only make him privy to the sickening number of times Dominic ran through my head in the span of sixty seconds and he so didn’t deserve that kind of suffering.

I quickly shook my head. “Thanks though.” I gave his hand a quick squeeze and immediately released it.

Trace’s eyes veered down to his hand, his eyebrows drawn together as the muscles in his arm tightened.

He was still looking at that same exact spot when I returned my attention back to the passing trees outside my window. It’s for his own good, I told myself, but all I could see in my mind was that heartbroken look on his face.



I must have fallen asleep watching the monotonous trees pass us by because when I opened my eyes, it was noon and we were stopped at a gas station, though you wouldn’t have known the time from the dull, overcast sky. It looked as though it had rained, or was just about to rain, though to be fair, it always looked that way around here. Gabriel was outside of the truck, pumping gas while Trace just stared out his window at the byway across from us. He looked preoccupied with something. Lost in some other moment in time.

“How long have I been sleeping?” I asked no one in particular, stretching my arms as my eyes adjusted to the gloomy light.

Dominic turned around and smirked at me. “Nearly the entire time, love. We’re in Hawthorne.”

My back straightened at this news. “Already? That was fast.”

“Time flies when you’re dreaming of better days.”

Trace abruptly kicked the door open and bounced out of the truck without saying a word to me as he stalked off to the convenient store attached to the gas station.

Um, okay. That was weird.

“What happened? What’s wrong with him?” I asked, confused and probably still a little groggy from having slept the whole way here.

Dominic’s smirk widened into a sweeping grin.

“What did you do?” I accused, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Absolutely nothing, angel,” he said, holding his hands up innocently. “Scouts honor.”

“Oh, please. As if you were ever a Scout, Dominic.”

“Touché, angel. Touché.”

Gabriel hopped back into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition on before checking on me through the rearview mirror. “Good, you’re up.” He glanced over his shoulder at the empty seat. “Where did Trace go?”

“He took off inside the store. Dominic did something to piss him off and he’s not telling me what it is.” I didn’t care that I sounded like a ten-year-old. He was going to answer to somebody for this. Might as well be Gabriel.

Gabriel looked at Dominic who was practically laughing now and then faced forward again—not doing anything about it. That was so unlike Gabriel.

“Um, hello? Aren’t you going to say something to him?”

“Jemma…” Gabriel’s expression tensed. Whatever was going on, he was having a hard time coughing it out.