by Isla Jones
Blake had an inkling that their dad was gone a lot.
Hunter fiddled with a bolt at the side of the bike. “Told who, Spud?”
“Blake Harper,” said Spud, and he pointed right at her.
Hunter stiffened. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder at her.
Blake approached, wringing her hands behind her back.
Spud grinned from ear to ear. “That’s the girl you talk about, yeah?” He looked between a tense Hunter and awkward Blake. “The one from the other side of the tracks with two dads?”
Blake puckered her lips at the mention of her dads. Forgotten fury erupted within her belly, but she had other matters to focus her attention on.
Hunter stood and turned to face her.
Blake shifted her eyes to the ground. Heat burned at her cheeks—Hunter’s bare chest had caught her off guard.
Hunter snatched a dirty rag from his bike and wiped his hands with it. “What’re you doing here?” His tone was blunt. Blake knew she wouldn’t be welcomed with open arms, but his hostility left her uncomfortable all the same.
“I needed to talk to you,” she said, closing the distance between them.
Blake looked down at Spud, who made no effort to conceal his interest in Blake. He stared at the white-gold watch wrapped around her wrist.
Spud pointed at the watch. “Is that real?”
Blake nodded. “It was a gift.”
Spud’s face slackened with awe. “That’s a cool present.”
Hunter ruffled Spud’s black hair. “Get lost, kiddo.”
Spud spared a final glance at Blake before he ran away.
“Cute kid,” said Blake. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”
Hunter’s chocolate eyes regarded her as he perched himself on the seat of the bike.
“You haven’t got a right being down here,” he said. His tone wasn’t sharp or rude; he was stating what he believed to be a fact.
Blake shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I had to,” she said. “I didn’t have much of a choice—it’s not like I want to be down here any more than you want me here.”
Hunter appeared bored. “And why’s that? Why’d you come if you know you’re not wanted?” He folded his defined arms over his chest. A thought seemed to strike him. “I’m not selling you anythin’, Harper,” he added. “If drugs are what you want, you aren’t getting it.”
Blake scoffed and pulled Zeke’s note from her back pocket. “I’m not partial to drugs,” she said, and handed him the sheet of paper. “This is about something else. I got a note from Zeke Prescott yesterday.”
Hunter scanned the confusing note. His hard mask didn’t crack once as he read it.
“I know it doesn’t make much sense,” she said. “That’s because it’s coded.”
Hunter scoffed and looked up at her from beneath his long lashes. “Is he in the CIA or something?”
Blake ignored his jab. “The first code, I figured out pretty quickly. It was ‘diadem’. And, as you can see, he asked me to meet him at the reservoir an hour before the party.”
Her fingertip tapped against the written time on the paper. Hunter glanced down at it before he returned to staring her with hard eyes like lumps of coal.
Blake continued, “He didn’t turn up. But someone else did—someone I thought was Zeke’s friend. He said something about Zeke that scared me, so I went to Zeke’s place and …” The image of his slaughtered body flashed in her mind. She paled and her eyes twitched. “It’s hard to explain,” she said. “Anyway, I had to look at the note again and I realised there was a second code in it: Bayou. Does that mean anything to you?”
She’d left out the part of the mad-grandmother-zombie attacking her, of course. She couldn’t lose her credibility with him, too.
But Hunter’s stoic expression hadn’t wavered since she’d arrived. His smouldering eyes were shrouded in secretive silence. Blake didn’t have a clue as to what he was thinking.
Hunter handed the note back before he pushed himself from the bike. “You best get going, Harper,” he said and grabbed the rag again. He scraped it along his chiselled jaw, removing blotches of grime.
“What?” Blake frowned at him. “Didn’t you hear anything I just said?”
“I heard you. And I don’t give a damn. Your problems are yours alone, not mine. I’m not sure why you thought to come to me, but I know you shouldn’t have.”
Outrage flashed in her green eyes. Blake raised her chin and clenched her hands into fists at her sides. “You asked me to not talk to anyone about that stuff at Frank’s Diner. I didn’t. I kept my lips shut. Now I’m asking for a favour.”
Hunter threw his head back and barked a sharp laugh. His pecs and torso jolted from the laughter rumbling up his chest, and his arms dropped to his sides.
“You have gall, Harper,” he said as his laughter died. He ran his fingers through his thick black curls and grinned at her. “I didn’t ask for a favour when I told you to keep quiet,” he said. “I gave you a free pass. Now, you come down here to parts you don’t belong and stick your upturned nose all over the place.”
Blake gasped and cupped her nose.
Unfazed, Hunter continued, “Again, I’m giving you an out. Leave now and don’t ever come back if you know what’s good for you.”
Her upper lip curled into a snarl. “You’re threatening me, again? All I want are bloody answers!”
Hunter rounded on her, but she didn’t flinch as he towered over her. Her chin lifted as she met his guarded stare. “I’m not threatening you, Harper,” he growled. “I’m warning you.”
Jabbing her finger against his bare chest, she hissed, “You know something, don’t you?” He only glowered at her. “Is this connected to Frank?” she asked. “With all that business that your lot had with him—”
“Frank’s business with us hasn’t got anything to do with you. He owed money. We paid a visit and he coughed up the debt. Leave it at that.” Hunter snatched her arm and hauled her away from the house.
Blake whacked his shoulder and head, trying to wriggle out of his solid grip. “Let go of me, scumbag!”
Hunter dragged her—kicking and screaming—through the muddy alleyway, back down to the road. Spud watched and waved goodbye to her, but Blake was too distracted with fighting Hunter to notice.
“Get your grubby hands off me!” she shrieked, digging her heels into the soil. It made no difference—he towed her with ease, only releasing her when they reached the parked Jeep.
Blake staggered to a stop before she whipped around to face him. “You know!” she shouted. “You know something, and you’re booting me out of the swamps because I’m catching on!”
Hunter’s hard eyes slewed to the cabins. She followed his gaze and saw that at least eight Grey Wolves had emerged from the houses, some drinking beers, others smoking joints. But they were all watching her.
“Get out of here, Harper,” whispered Hunter. He flicked his unreadable gaze back to hers. “Don’t come back.”
“Hell no,” she said. “You know that weird stuff is going on in Belle-Vue. Not normal stuff,” she emphasised. “I told the Sheriff this morning, and he thinks I’m bonkers. If you don’t help me, my dads are going to send me to—”
Hunter snatched her cheeks with both hands and yanked her against him. Before she could shout, his lips crashed down.
Blake froze. Her hands hovered in the air, her eyes gawked up at his, and her lips clamped shut. Either way, it didn’t matter. Because Hunter didn’t kiss her. Their lips were close together, and to the bayou folk it would seem like they were kissing, but Hunter just held her face close to his.
“I’m not messing around, Harper.” The warmth of his coffee breath brushed over her lips. “This is serious attention you’re drawing to yourself right now. If you want to make it out of these swamps alive—” Her eyes widened. Hunter nodded, a slight motion that she almost didn’t notice at all. “—then pretend I just kissed you, all right?”
/> “Why?” Her voice matched the shakiness of her hands.
“Because if our audience thinks we’re just having a lover’s fight, they’ll leave you be. But if they think it’s more, you’ll be dinner for the gators.” Hunter released her cheeks and inclined his head. “I’m not playing around, Harper” he whispered. “Hit me, and make it damn believable.”
Blake didn’t take a moment to think about it—she lifted her hand and whacked him over the head so hard that a loud crack tore through the lot. She’d always wanted to do that.
Blake shouted, “What the hell was that!”
Hunter grinned and dragged his tongue over his lips. “I had to shut you up,” he said, his loud voice carrying back to the village. “You were giving me a headache.”
Some of the onlookers laughed, others lost interest and walked away.
Hunter shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped back. “Now go back to your pretty little life and stay out of mine.”
Blake’s narrowed eyes moved over his shoulder. At least a dozen Wolves had joined the spectators, and every single one of them watched her—thought, not with the same suspicion as before. Still, the nerves clenched her muscles and she turned her back on them.
Blake yanked open the door to her Jeep and climbed inside.
“Thanks for nothing,” she shouted before slamming the door shut. She rolled down the window and added, “By the way, you’re a crappy kisser and you taste like an ashtray!”
Hunter’s face was impassive. Spud’s giggles reached her ears before she sped down the dirt road.
Her fingers coiled around the peeling steering wheel as she slumped. Hunter might have saved her from some gruesome fate with the Wolves, but he might’ve just gotten rid of her for his own benefit. She couldn’t be certain.
But none of that changed the facts—the final clue she had to follow led to a dead-end. She had nothing, now.
Hunter had been her last hope of unravelling Zeke’s secrets. The note had told her to go to the bayou, and she had, and she’d left empty handed. If she didn’t think of another route, she’d find herself at Harmony in a matter of days, maybe less.
*
Blake had been gone for an hour, but Abe and Jack hadn’t noticed. She parked her Jeep where it’d been before, snuck in through the front door, returned her keys to the bowl, and crept upstairs to her bedroom, all without getting caught. When she’d tip-toed up the staircase, she’d heard Abe’s sobs coming from his studio. Her dads were too distracted by their emotions to notice that she’d snuck out again. Stuff them, she thought. They were the ones who’d betrayed her, not the other way around. Where she was concerned, they didn’t deserve her sympathy.
It wasn’t until dinner time that Jack hollered her name up the stairs. Blake went down only because her groaning stomach demanded it. The chocolate supply she’d had stashed under her bed wasn’t sufficient to feed her for the whole day. So, she swallowed her pride and huffily shoved through the kitchen door. But she paused in the threshold.
At the dinner table was Jack and Abe, as expected, but no meals or plates. In place of her stomach’s desires was Sheriff Cotton, sitting in her seat.
“Blake,” greeted the Sheriff. “Pull up a chair.”
Blake kicked a chair out from under the table and plopped down into it. Her arms folded over her chest as she glowered at them, one by one. Jack avoided her eyes, and Abe stared at the table in absolute dismay.
Sheriff Cotton flipped open a notepad on the table. “I went to the Prescott’s manor today.” Blake’s head jerked up and she looked at him with hope-filled eyes. “Talked to Bethany Prescott about last night, got a few details off her.”
“And?” she whispered, scooting the edge of her seat.
“And,” sighed the Sheriff, “I also talked to Zeke, as well as Peggy Prescott, their grandmother.”
Blake’s brows knitted together in confusion. Her head tilted to the side as she said, “That’s not possible, Sheriff.”
“It is,” he argued, “and I did. In fact, Peggy Prescott wanted to make a statement about you. About how you broke into their house, wandered around, and attacked her while she slept in an armchair.”
Blake gaped at the Sheriff. That couldn’t be true. He was lying. He had to be.
“You used a weapon when you attacked her,” he continued. “The Diadem of Deities, as it happens. Isn’t that right, Ms Harper?”
Blake’s lips remained open. All she could manage was a slight nod.
“How did you come to be in possession of the Diadem?”
“I … I told you,” she whispered. “I found it—”
“You didn’t mention the diadem to me,” he interrupted. “We had it checked for prints. Yours were all over it, Ms Harper. Nobody else’s.”
Blake shook her head, her lips thinning and brows furrowing—a sob was brewing. “No, that’s not true. I found it in their house. Maybe … Maybe I forgot to mention it this morning, but that doesn’t mean I’m lying, Sheriff. It was under a table on the landing.”
“Ms Harper,” he said. “Zeke Prescott is alive and well. Though, Peggy Prescott does have some injuries from your attack. A few bruises; enough that she is able to press charges if that’s what she chooses.”
There they were—the sobs she’d been fighting off.
Blake’s face crinkled as tears flowed from the corners of her creased eyes. It took seconds for her weeping to burst into blubbers.
“Sheriff,” said Jack. “What are we looking at here?”
Sheriff Cotton ignored Blake’s sobbing fit as he said, “I’d recommend seeking legal advice. Register your daughter for Harmony’s Institute as quickly as you can. If the case is taken to court, they’ll go easier on her if the Institute is on her record.” He paused and closed the notebook. “I’ll also need to question your daughter about a few other cases, but that can wait until she is settled at the Institute. I can hold the interviews off for a few days.”
“What other cases?” asked Jack. His voice carried over Blake’s wails.
“The theft of the diadem, for a start,” he said, shooting the crying Blake a side-glance. “The murders of Mr and Ms Prescott. The two Wolf members who were killed last week.”
Blake cried out in frustration. Her legs kicked out at the floor as her hands clasped over her face, but the others ignored her.
Abe said, “Is my daughter a suspect? Is that what you’re saying?”
The Sheriff tucked the notepad under his armpit and rose from the chair. All he said before he took his leave was; “My advice is to hire a lawyer.”
9
Girl, Interrupted
Abe and Jack Harper didn’t wait long to register Blake at Harmony’s Institute for Troubled Youths. After the Sheriff left, Abe had spent the following two hours on the phone to the Institute; while Blake spent the entire night crying on the sofa. When the sun had risen to shine through the window, Blake realised she’d been weeping all night long. And that’s when a fresh wave of tears had hit her—Abe had come in and told her that they were taking her to Harmony at midday.
In her bedroom, Blake dragged her feet across the carpet—she packed, moving like a sloth. They were set to leave in one hour.
It was over. It was finished; she had lost. Hunter was a dead end, the note was useless now, and Zeke was alive. It didn’t make any sense at all. Maybe, she wondered, she was crazy? It looked that way—to the Sheriff, her dads, her friends … and to herself. But Blake couldn’t fall into the acceptance of being a nut—because it didn’t feel that way.
The memory of the ghoulish creature was vivid in her mind; Zeke’s corpse, sprawled out in a pool of crimson blood, haunted her every waking moment. Then again, she thought, crazy people always believed themselves to be sane. What if that was the case for her? Blake shuddered to think of it.
Blake stifled a yawn and looked for her phone. It would be confiscated from her soon, either by her dads or the orderlies at Harmony. After a few minutes of riffling t
hrough her bedroom, she found her phone tucked in the pocket of her discarded denim jacket in the laundry basket. It was out of juice. She fumbled around for the charger, hooked it up, then sagged on the floor as it started up. As she waited, she rummaged through the pockets of her white dress. Her fingers touched a crinkled piece of paper; she pulled it out. When she’d been at Bethany’s house, she’d found that same sheet of paper with the diadem. In the chaos of everything, she’d forgotten all about it.
Her phone turned on. It flooded the room with a melody of overlapping dings and beeps. Rachel had tried to call her twelve times, left her eight voicemails, and sent her twenty-six messages. Blake didn’t have time to listen to them all, or even go through the messages. Instead, she called her.
On the third ring, Rachel picked up. Her fraught voice shouted into the receiver; “Blake? Oh my God, I’ve been trying to reach you! What the hell is going on!”
There was a pause, and Blake could hear the distant sound of voices. Rachel was speaking to someone, likely her dad or mum.
Rachel cleared her throat and said in a whisper; “I got your voicemail—Are you ok, Blake?”
Blake’s bottom lip wobbled as tears collected in her clenched eyes. “No,” she squeaked. “I’m not all right. They’re sending me away, Rach. I’m leaving soon.”
“Where? Where are you going?”
Blake licked her salty lips. “Harmony.”
“Harmony? Have your dads gone mad!”
“I think I have,” she said in a strangled voice.
Silence came from the speaker on the phone. Rachel said, “I spoke to Bethany. I couldn’t get a hold of you, so I called her. She said some strange things, B.”
Blake choked on a word that almost resembled ‘what’.
“Bethany said you broke into her house the night of the party,” she explained. “And that you attacked her grandmother with the diadem. And, well, you said in your voicemail that Zeke was dead, but I talked to him, B. He’s worried about you … We all are.”
The bedroom door swung open. Blake glanced over her shoulder to see Abe enter.
