My mouth goes dry. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
Ends up, not very far. Griff takes me to the kiddie park near my house, where we sit on the swings and eat cold Chick-fil-A sandwiches. I twirl my swing in circles, noticing how the shadows suddenly don’t feel so smothering. Maybe it’s Griff. Maybe he chases away my dark.
“What brought this on?” I ask.
A pause. “This is the kind of stuff I always wanted to do with you.”
I dip my eyes away from his, end up looking at the curve of skin above his collar. It makes my mouth go hot.
“What do you want, Wick?”
You. But I don’t say it because that’s not what he means. Griff is talking about school and college and life after college. He’s talking about all the things he has figured out.
And I don’t have a clue about. I can’t think that far ahead. I wasn’t supposed to have this life. Tates don’t go to college. They go to jail.
Or the morgue.
I shrug, look away. “What do you want?”
“To keep drawing. To afford painting. SCAD. For food stamps to be part of someone else’s life. For . . . it isn’t hard, Wicked. Tell me what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want yet,” I say at last, pressing one hand against my forehead. I can feel a migraine coming on. Stress. The space behind my eyes is beginning to thump. “I’m just taking things as they come. It’s hard to plan anything with Carson in the middle of it.”
“Then let’s take him out of it.” Griff hesitates. “What if we tell my cousin? He could help us bring a case against Carson.”
“And take me down in the process. Worse, it’ll take Bren down.” Saying it aloud makes guilt squeeze me breathless. “My sister will go down.”
I’ll be alone. It’s brief and brilliant, blazing across my brain in a language I didn’t think I understood. When did I become that girl?
“They won’t go down,” Griff says, edging closer even as I’m straining away. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll weather it together.”
We. Not them. I shake my head, can’t stop.
Griff makes a strained noise. “Bren and Lily will be fine. They wouldn’t want this for you.”
“I don’t want any of this for them. It’s my burden, Griff.” What I really mean is it’s my fault. I want to fix this for them. I also want to fix it for me.
“I’ll minimize the damage, Wicked. I did it once.”
He did. Carson tried to catch me helping my father and I would have gone to jail for sure—if I’d been caught. Griff erased all my digital fingerprints from the files I gave my dad and his right-hand man, Joe Bender. They went to jail. Griff saved me.
No guarantees I’ll be that lucky the second time. “There’s more at stake here than just me, Griff.”
Besides, even if I could take Carson down . . . I want to finish Bay first. Two for the price of one.
“Think about it,” Griff says. “It’s your decision.”
Funny how three little words can make me feel so warm. So do these words: I will save myself. I will protect Bren, and by protecting Bren I’ll protect Lily.
I look at Griff and smile. “I don’t know what to do with you.”
Now he’s smiling. “I have a few ideas.”
For the rest of the week, I spend my afternoons watching Bay’s house from the shelter of the woods. In some ways, this is stupid easy because my hiding spot is well hidden and, more importantly, no one at home misses me. Griff is finishing an art project for his college application portfolio. Bren and Lily have their own things going on in preparation for the cheer meet. Ian . . . well, Ian is still bugging me about our project, but I’ve managed to put him off. Everything’s working.
Sort of.
Because I haven’t made any headway. For days, all I get to watch is the guards and the Bays go about their business—come home from school, eat dinner, walk around the backyard; it’s every bit as thrilling as it sounds.
Then, on Sunday, I get a break. Just after lunch, one of the guards reaches into his pocket, pulling out a cell phone. He messes with it for a moment, waits, and then shows it to his partner. They both stare at the handset. The guard on the left shrugs and turns for the car. I sit up straight. What the hell?
The second guard fiddles with his phone—I think he’s texting—then follows the first. They climb into the sedan and drive away. This makes zero sense. The Bays have been gone all weekend. I even saw the emails between Bay and the security firm. The guards are supposed to be here until the family gets home sometime tonight.
I shift, pressing one shoulder against a tree. This is too good to be true.