Surge - Maya Nicole Page 0,56

asking you that same question. You are the ones taking secret pills."

Jax cursed, and the bar rolled from his back and hit the floor. I backed up a step right into Morgan, who had somehow, in my distracted state, moved right behind me. The heat radiated off his body but sent chills across my skin.

"What are you talking about?" Jax stepped closer and Morgan grabbed my arms, holding me in place.

I looked down at his sweaty chest and gulped. He was too hot for his own good. Maybe I was experiencing something similar to Stockholm syndrome because they were hot.

"The pills in your bag." I lifted my eyes from his chest and looked between him and Blake.

"You've gone crazy." Jax and Blake lifted the bar to re-rack it. "You aren't allowed in here when the team is working out."

"My car. Where is it?"

"We didn't do anything to your car, Riley. We aren't stupid." Blake laughed. "I take that back. We're a little stupid when it comes to you."

Jax hit him across the chest. "Morgan, get her ass out of here before someone drops a weight on her foot."

I opened my mouth to say something back, but Morgan was already moving me toward the back exit like I was some kind of livestock being herded. Ivy jogged across the room and took my hand, leading me the rest of the way out of the building.

"They're lying," I said through clenched teeth.

I slid into Ivy's car the next day, and she gave me a smile that didn't reach her eyes. She was worried for me and what the Tritons would do next if I didn't locate my father.

I had to find him, but how? So far everything I had tried was a dead end. He didn't have social media and calls to his company went unanswered.

After stopping for coffee, we drove to school in silence. Coffee was growing on me now that I wasn't getting seven or eight hours of sleep every night. It also made me more alert.

The cameras in the parking lot still weren't working. I had filed a police report about my missing car, but so far, they had turned up nothing. The Tritons were going to get away with stealing my car.

"I think something is wrong with Aiden." Ivy unbuckled her seatbelt and turned toward me. "He hasn't been himself, even last week. Then yesterday..."

It was unlike Aiden to miss school. He had texted us on Sunday that he didn't feel well and would be absent.

She looked out her front window and then leaned forward a bit. "Holy shit. Look."

Aiden was standing with the Tritons and their groupies. "What the fuck?"

I pulled out my phone and sent him a text. He looked at his phone, but instead of responding, he put it away. My stomach twisted.

"This isn't good." Ivy gripped the steering wheel. "Why would he be hanging out with them?"

"Maybe he just wants to be near Miles." I looked back in their direction and met Jax's stare. "He wouldn't just..."

Would he?

In English, I turned to Aiden, ignoring Blake's glare from across the room. "What's going on, Aiden?"

Aiden looked at Blake and then down at his notebook. "Later."

The word was barely audible, but I tried to focus on school. This was the exact reason I stayed away from drama; it was distracting. Instead of focusing on what literary devices were being used in a poem, I was thinking about my mom, Aiden, and the three assholes.

The bell rang and snapped me out of my inner turmoil. Mrs. Williams walked over to my desk as everyone else was exiting. I had missed her telling everyone minutes earlier to pack up their belongings.

"What's going on with you?" She looked around the room to make sure the last student was out and sat down in the desk Aiden had vacated. "I see that you're struggling."

"Everything is kind of falling apart right now." I put my notebook in my bag and then looked over at her. "Any adult I tell about it seems to suddenly go on a leave of absence."

"Are they hurting you?" She reached over and put her hand on my forearm. "If they are then you keep telling until someone does something about it."

"They want me to get into contact with my father. They aren't physically hurting me... yet."

"What would three teenage boys want with your father?" She leaned back in the chair as the first student from her next period entered. "I think we should contact their parents."

I