up the phone. Please, Hendrix, do you know where she might be?”
“Why do you think I’d know anything?” I was still a little wary, but the implications were slowly sinking in, making my shoulders tense. Mena wasn’t one to lie, and I couldn’t deny the fear in Harlow’s eyes. Even Amaya—who I’d never seen bothered by anything—looked worried.
It could be a trick, another game, but I didn’t think it was. Maybe I was just desperate for it to be true. I so badly didn’t want it to have been her who’d ruined me.
“We know you two have been hooking up,” Amaya answered. “We know there’s more to the story, but that’s not important right now.”
I watched them for a few moments longer, trying to hold on to my anger, my hurt. But in my gut, I knew this was the truth. Donna hadn’t done it. It was Will and . . . they had a history, maybe even a future from what she’d told me . . . they’d argued . . . she’d be blaming herself. On top of everything else.
“Fuck.” I dragged a hand down my face. “I know where she might be.”
I pulled on my shoes and grabbed my keys off the side table. “I’ll drive, but you three need to be prepared. This . . . is not going to be pretty.”
I white-knuckled the steering wheel, wishing for the first time I’d spent dear Dad’s money on some obnoxious sports car instead of the Tesla. Not because the Tesla wasn’t fast—it was. It glided through the night, practically flying toward our destination. No, it was the absolute silence of the high-tech machine that made me wish for something with an engine that grunted. I wanted a beast under me, one that growled with all the rage I wished I could let loose.
Amaya sat next to me in the passenger seat, Mena and Harlow in the back. For the first twenty minutes of the drive, I’d told them everything—how Donna and I first met at Davey’s, how she’d been going there for months, the early acceptance and her constant self-destructive behavior. Every single one of their questions I’d answered without hesitation.
She’d kept my secret—it was Will who’d exposed me, I was sure of it now—and I was betraying all of hers. I wasn’t sorry. I had half a mind to call her parents and put them on speaker as I let it all spill out. It was the only thing I could do until we found her. The only thing keeping my fear at bay until we could figure out if she was . . . I couldn’t let myself think the worst.
I’d texted Shady before we took off, asking him to keep an eye out for her, but he hadn’t replied.
The girls had all fallen into silence. Amaya was staring out the front window, watching the headlight beams illuminate the road as it whipped past. Her eyes were a little wide, her chest rising and falling with labored breaths.
I wanted to look into the back seat, but I was pretty sure the other two would be wearing matching expressions, and I had to focus on the road.
We were nearly there, and I needed to keep my shit together. I needed to figure out how to get the three girls to stay in my car while I went inside and looked for her. All three of them would certainly fight me on it, demand to help me look, but I couldn’t risk them getting hurt—Donna would never forgive me.
I should’ve been thinking of a way to convince them, should’ve already started making my case as I pulled onto the dim, run-down street, but I couldn’t get my mind off what we’d find.
The worst-case scenario—the one where she was dead in a ditch, as I’d practically told her that morning I hoped she would be—was too hard to even consider. But there were so many other scenarios. What if someone spiked her drink again and took her? What if she pissed off the wrong person? What if she’d gotten in an accident on the way here? What if she’d already found some biker dude with a cocky attitude and big biceps? What if they were already out in the back alley where I’d . . . where we’d . . .
What if she wasn’t even there and we’d wasted precious time?
I was so lost in the worry, the rage, the abject fear of what we’d find—or wouldn’t—that I