24

ELIZABETH

“NICK?” I TRIED TO KEEP MY VOICE level and calm.

The speedometer said he was going fifty miles an hour and we were still in the woods, on the two-track, the trees crowded around us. It felt like we were going a hundred.

“Nick.”

He glanced at me, and my heart leapt into my throat. His face was hardened to a razor’s edge, his eyes burning fire blue.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Please slow down.”

“You’re not okay.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “None of this is okay.”

I pulled the napkin away from my face. It was red with blood, my blood, but the pain was already gone and I couldn’t let him take me to the hospital.

“Stop the truck for a second. Just look.”

He slowed and checked me. Finally, he stomped on the brake, and I had to brace myself against the dash. I’d forgotten to put my seat belt on.

Nick threw the truck into park.

“Cuts to the face usually need stitches,” he said. “They’ll keep bleeding and bleeding and—”

“It’s not bleeding anymore. And I think the glass must have hit somewhere in my hairline, because I can’t find the cut.”

He frowned and scooted closer, taking my face in his hands. Even though he’d just finished fighting, leaving the boys in the clearing sweating and panting, his hands were cold and dry.

He examined me with a quick swipe of his fingers. I knew he’d find nothing there.

A frown narrowed his eyes. He parted my hair, searching for the cut, and I had to bury a shiver that threatened to race up my spine.

“Really,” I said. “I’m okay.”

The frown deepened, and a look of suspicion followed closely behind.

That was exactly what I’d been worried about.

“It was probably supersmall,” I tried explaining. “It probably just looked worse than it was.”

“Blood was pouring down your face.”

“Right. But now it’s not. So you don’t have to drive so fast.”

His mouth turned down at the corners. He pulled his hands away, but stayed in close proximity.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Maybe you could just take me home?”

He slid behind the wheel, and like a magnet, I felt compelled to close the distance between us again. I buckled my seat belt to keep me in place.

Nick put the truck in drive. This time he kept the speedometer needle below forty, and I was thankful for it.

“Where did you learn how to fight like that?” I asked.

The line of his jaw tensed. “The Branch.”

“You could have killed them, couldn’t you?”

He flicked his eyes to me for a second, a look that was meant as a warning. A warning not to ask that question, because I wouldn’t like his answer.

Was I safe with Nick?

God, I didn’t even know. I didn’t know anything anymore.

Evan had provoked the fight. I couldn’t blame Nick for that. Of course, if he hadn’t gone off with Heather, none of this would have happened in the first place. I didn’t know why I’d even pushed him to go. Maybe because I didn’t want him to, and I wanted to see what his reaction would be. It was the wrong one.

When we pulled into Aggie’s driveway after a long, silent ride, Nick shut the engine off. Neither of us moved.

“What really happened?” I asked, crumpling the bloody napkins in my lap. “With Heather, I mean?”

Heather had a reputation around town. Everyone called her a slut. I didn’t like defaulting to labels, considering all the ones attached to me. But she did tend to throw herself at anyone and everyone, so I didn’t think Heather had reacted the way she had because of Nick’s advances. It’d been her idea to go up to the cliff anyway. And I didn’t think she’d ever intended to take him up there for the view.

“She wasn’t very nice,” Nick said.

“To you?”

“To you.”

My face warmed, and I looked away, out the passenger-side window. Heather wasn’t a close friend of mine. She never had been. I could only imagine all the things she’d whispered in Nick’s ear. The stories of how I’d had panic attacks in public. How I’d been tossed around between foster homes because of them. How I’d been found once in school, cowering in the bathroom, nearly hysterical after smelling the sterile smell of bleach. Bleach always reminded me of the place where I’d been held captive. The scent unnerved me.

“What did she say about me?” My voice squeaked.

“It doesn’t matter. And I didn’t believe it.”

“It’s probably true.”

He turned in his seat. “Don’t let them get to you. They have no idea what it’s like to be you. They have no idea the things you went through. The things you’ve seen. They can pretend they know. They can dream up the worst-case scenario, but chances are, it doesn’t even come close. You are stronger than they are.”

Tears burned in the depths of my eyes, and I covered my mouth when I felt a sob race to get out.

“Elizabeth?” he said.

I looked at him.

A horrified expression crossed his face.

“Don’t,” he said.

And then I did.

I started crying right there in the cab of Nick’s truck and couldn’t stop. I buried my face in my hands, embarrassed and upset that I had let them get to me, Heather most of all. Why did I care what she said about me?