Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“Disgusting, but I’ll survive.”
She smiles until she notices a struggling Jake Waterford as he fumbles with some sort of black vodka concoction. “Hold on . . .” She goes to his rescue just as Phoebe slips beside me.
“It’s a madhouse,” she says from behind the bar. “I have fifteen orders, and I can’t read half of them.” She hands me the slip of paper she wrote on.
I can’t even decipher her chicken scratch.
“I was trying to write shorthand like Hailey.”
“First mistake,” I tell her. “Never try to imitate Hailey.” It’s led many astray.
We’re both watching Jake mop up a vodka spill on the other bar, and Phoebe whispers to me, “I told Jake he could push me in the pool, but he said he’d never do that.”
I roll my eyes. Of course he wouldn’t.
Does that make me feel worse, knowing that I’ve pushed Phoebe in a pool plenty of times during cons? Maybe . . . I don’t know.
It doesn’t send warm fuzzies through me that Jake has lines he won’t cross that I’ve clearly vaulted over with no question or problem.
“You should push Jake in the pool,” I tell her.
“Funny.”
“Not a complete joke . . .” I trail off as my phone vibrates in my pocket. I take out my cell, and Chelsea urgently waves at Phoebe from across the patio.
“I’ll be back,” Phoebe tells me. She’s quick to respond to Chelsea’s SOS.
As she leaves, I glance down at my phone. It’s my brother. He should be holed up at our sister’s loft. Last we heard, Boyd didn’t reach the port and board the cruise ship as planned. For whatever reason, he didn’t accept the free vacation that Trevor paid for. Either he didn’t buy into the scam or his desire to be in Connecticut right now won out. So my brother should be spending Halloween eating the remaining fun-sized candy and keeping the door locked.
“No trick-or-treaters,” I told him before I left. “Promise me. Don’t answer the fucking door. The only people allowed inside are the ones with keys.”
“I promise, Rocky,” he said.
I didn’t believe him.
There was a look in his eye, and I knew he was lying to me. But I left him anyway. Because he’s nineteen, and what am I supposed to do? Babysit him all night? He’s not a kid anymore . . . but he is my little brother.
Dread seeps into me just seeing his number on my phone.
“Hey?” I answer quickly.
“Rock . . .”
I’m on my feet in seconds flat, slipping my arms through my leather jacket—and I speak low into my phone. “Grab the gun on the bookshelf.”
“I’m not . . . there.” His voice sounds choked.
He’s not at the loft. Fucking Christ. I push through college students and older club members.
“Grey!”
“Hey, Grey!”
Their voices recede the second they see me tearing out of the patio and to the parking lot. I climb in my McLaren and start the engine. “Where are you, Trev?” I don’t leave yet. If he’s somewhere closer to the loft, parking will be a nightmare tonight and it’ll be faster for me to walk.
“Trevor?”
“. . . help, Rock.” His fractured voice is one full of fear. An emotion I’ve never heard from my brother. In my entire life. He’d fallen from a tree when he was eight and stared at a bone poking from his calf. He didn’t even cry.
“Where are you?” I almost shout, fisting my phone against my ear.
He doesn’t say anything, but my phone beeps and I check it quickly. He sent me his location via pin drop. My pulse skyrockets. We don’t send our locations like this.
He’s close.
Abandoning my car at the country club, I start into a sprint. Cold October wind whips against my face, and as I run, I check the map on my phone to ensure he hasn’t moved. He’s still there. The town’s main street is alive with late-night trick-or-treaters, mostly teens, and adults attending costume parties at the restaurants and bars. Kids in Ghostface masks from Scream whack each other with pillow sacks of candy.
Purple and green streamers tied to lampposts blow in the chilly night. Witch cackles and tiny screams echo around me, and my pulse races as fast as my feet.
“Ahghgh!” A bloody soccer player tries to scare a cheerleader as I pass.
“You’re not funny, Vincent!”
I never slow down.
Halloween remixes pump from the nightclub as I close in on a darkened alley behind the Gulp Seafood & Lounge. And I spot a crumpled figure on the cobblestones beside a dumpster.
It can’t be . . .
But I know it’s him.
The gray zip-up jacket, black pants, and sneakers should throw me off—so should the hockey mask—but I recognize my brother’s tall, lean frame and the dyed black hair that touches his neck. He’s dressed as Jason from Friday the 13th.