sound in his throat but met my gaze in the mirror. Surprisingly, he didn't look as pissed off as his whole body language was implying. Instead he looked... I didn't even know. Curious, maybe. Intrigued.
Regardless, it made me shiver.
"So, are we ready to tell poor, clueless Madison Kate where the fuck we're going today? I'm in the car now and have no intention of doing a tuck and roll out onto the highway just to save myself the boredom of your company." I was speaking to Archer, and he knew it. His lips curved up in the mirror, but his eyes remained on the road ahead.
Neither Kody nor Steele answered for him, though, and eventually his eyes flickered to mine for just a second. "We're visiting the D'Ath family estate," he finally told me.
I jolted, shocked by his response. Whatever I'd been expecting him to say... it wasn't that.
"Don't worry," he continued, clearly misreading my expression of surprise. "Zane was disowned years ago when he took over the Reapers from our father. He won't step foot anywhere within two hundred miles of D'Ath land."
I thought of my last conversation with Zane. He'd vaguely offered to help me, but then not so vaguely threatened my life if I trespassed on Reaper grounds again. Apparently being contradictory and infuriating was a family trait.
"Well, that's something," I muttered under my breath. "So, you're taking us home for Thanksgiving dinner? That's a bit cute." Except... Cherry was on a cruise with my father, Zane had been disowned, Damien had died years ago, and Archer had told me his grandfather was dead, too.
"Something like that," Archer mumbled back and turned the stereo up in a clear end to any conversation. It was the same song from his fight at the Laughing Clown, "Paranoid" by I Prevail, and I couldn't help feeling like it was becoming my anthem. I was constantly paranoid these days.
"It's about a four-hour drive from here," Kody told me quietly, leaning across the middle seat to be heard over the thumping music. "In case you really did need to nap. I know you haven't been sleeping well since... you know. Halloween. Or since you’ve been home, anyway."
I shot him a lopsided smile. Was it really any wonder I'd been struggling to sleep since being run off the road, then stalked through an abandoned amusement park and then stabbed by—in my mind at the time—someone I had started to trust? Yeah. I was a bit fucked up at the moment.
"You guys need to stop keeping such close tabs on me," I muttered back, staring out the window. "It's creepy."
It was one thing for them to insist on chaperoning me to and from university, but knowing that I went to the gym at three in the morning to run? Maybe Archer hadn't been bullshitting about that tracking device, after all.
"I'll take creepy over you being dead any day, MK," Kody told me, his voice low and serious. I didn't reply, but his words struck a chord with me. Maybe Bree had been right about their motivations after all.
I kept my gaze locked on the snowy scenery, but I reached out across the seat to take his hand in mine. All their secrets still hurt like crazy, and we were bound to have countless fights ahead of us. But damn, I loved the part where we got to make up.
It almost made all the fear and heartache and paranoia worthwhile.
13
At some stage on the drive, I took Kody up on his offer. I woke again when the car was still and silent, my face buried in the denim crotch of Kody's jeans.
Blinking to clear the thick fog of sleep from my brain, I rolled slightly away from his... uh... zipper.
"Hey," he said, giving me a shit-eating grin. "How'd you sleep?"
Frowning, I sat up and stretched some of the kinks out of my spine. "Like the dead," I mumbled, rubbing a hand over my face and grimacing when I touched the grooves his seams had left in my skin. Such a good look for when I needed to meet Archer's... uh... whoever the hell lived here. I peered out the windows at the impressive, old money mansion we were parked in front of. The front of the car was empty, and I wondered how long we'd been there.
"You could have woken me up," I told Kody, feeling a bit embarrassed for sleeping on him so long.
He scoffed a laugh. "Uh, babe, you were sound asleep with