Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,174

watch from my periphery as he takes another slow draw from the bottle. “My dad made me go with him to this fundraiser a couple years back. Some dumb law enforcement banquet. It was supposed to be a good opportunity to build connections—you know, collect a couple ‘get out of jail free’ cards.” His laugh is a sharp, gnarled thing. “I recently discovered that those connections will not get you out of sex offenses.” He gestures to the building. “But hey, turns out, it does get you access to the six dispatchers working the night shift, and they’ll gladly ignore any call you want for a cool grand each.”

My mouth parts, but nothing comes out. Something inside the club jostles, followed by the muffled sound of a distant crash that would make me flinch if my muscles were working. When Heston wordlessly extends the bottle to me, I mechanically reach out to take it, wondering for a moment what he expects me to do with it.

I look at the mouth of the bottle and then throw it back for a thick gulp of whiskey that burns as hot as the flames slowly engulfing Underworld.

Maybe I fell asleep hours ago, and this is all a very weird and concerning dream.

“How long?” I ask, voice emerging rusty and cracked. “How long until someone comes?”

His eyes reflect the glow of the flames when he takes the bottle back. “Three hours maybe.”

I don’t have to ask to know that he’s going to stay here, watching. “Oh.” I’m silent for a long while, trying to wrap my head around what’s happening. “Arson is a felony.” I aim for shocked disgust, because that’s exactly how I should feel. Instead, it comes out in a flat, awed sort of disbelief. “Even without your probation, that’s like…a fucking million years in prison.”

When I turn to him, he’s gazing up at the club—his club—as it blazes away. “Yeah.” He swings his eyes to mine, raising the bottle. “To my very last gamble, huh?” He drinks to it, throat jumping with two hard swallows before he passes it back to me.

I pause before following suit, taking one last drink. And then I tuck it into my jacket, securing it tight within the zipper. “This was all you had.”

“Not all.” His words are heavy with meaning.

The fire pops, and something cracks and falls inside. I take a reflexive step back. “I can’t thank you for fixing a problem you created.”

There’s a heaviness to his nod, resignation swimming in his weary eyes. “I know.”

Reaching up, I unwind the scarf and step in front of him. His blue eyes settling on my face feels just as intense as it always has, making my stomach twist. Sniffing against the cold and smoke, I feel just as choked by the knurled, hard thing in my throat when I stand on the tips of my toes. He remains silent, perfectly motionless as I wrap it around his exposed neck. I smooth the ends down with my palms, combing out the black and green fringe.

…an ode to the endless cycle of rebirth.

Behind me, Underworld burns, and somewhere in the storm of flames and cinder are Heston’s past and future. I can’t thank him.

But I can make sure it counts for something.

“I won’t hurt myself anymore.”

The way he looks at me then—searching and achingly soft—tells me what I already suspected: this promise means more to him than any thanks ever could.

When I walk away, he lets me go.

The enormous, unavoidable presence of him becomes branded into my brain, and it doesn’t matter how much time will pass. I know that I’ll always remember the way he looked right then, standing so tenaciously as he burned his life to the ground.

It’s the moment I realized Heston Wilcox loves me.

28

Heston

Warren is waiting for me when I come out of the doors, papers clutched in my hand. He stands up when he sees me, setting an issue of Good Housekeeping down on the table at his side.

“All good?” he asks, and I can see that he’s worried, although I'm not sure why. Who am I? Just some fucker who went to the same school he attended a couple decades ago.

I hold up the paper, voice hoarse when I speak. “Need to get these filled.”

He nods, looking like he expected this much, and says, “I’ve got a pharmacy.”

Before leaving, I pay the receptionist two of the five hundred dollars I have left. God only fucking knows how much the three prescriptions are