Fracture (Blood & Roses #3-4) - Callie Hart Page 0,48

trying to focus on the task at hand.

Lacey tuts, leaning the paper against her knee to quickly insert some commas, and suddenly the information on the paper is no longer a string of random numbers but coordinates. “It’s out in the desert,” she tells me, handing over the paper.

“Who gave you this? How do we know this is the right place?”

“Because Zee told me about this place a few times. Never gave me specifics, but my old boyfriend runs in the same circles as Zeth. Kind of. He knew where I was talking about right away.”

“Oh god, Lacey.” I scan the coordinates over and over as if to make sure they’re actually real. “There are probably a thousand of these places in L.A. This can’t be the only one out in the desert.”

“Not that charge fifteen thousand dollars a night and are invite only,” Lacey argues. This girl standing before me is an entirely different creature to the panicking girl who smashed a rock over a guy’s head last night. She’s self-possessed and a light has sparked from somewhere in her eyes, replacing the dull look of anxiety. She’s barely recognizable. Even her voice is stronger. Firm, in fact.

“That’s the right address, Sloane.” She nods her head to cement the truth of this statement. “Zeth will be there. Don’t worry. We’re gonna go get him and he’s gonna take us the hell away from the state of California and everything bad that ever happened in it.”

****

It’s probably a bad idea renting a car under my own name, but I don’t really have a choice. Perhaps I should try and bribe the clerk to change my details, but these places aren’t exactly like that. The only companies I can find are corporate ones that want to photocopy your ID and make you fill out sheets and sheets of paperwork, and besides, the kid behind the desk doesn’t look smart enough to actually understand that I’m trying to bribe him in the first place. I go for something that’s not going to break down on me before we even hit California, and then we get moving.

We’re on the road after that. I feel hideous. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it; Lacey is practically happy as I drive in distressed silence for the next ten hours. I’m distressed because I’ve decided that I can’t take her with me to this place. Zeth wanted to keep both me and his sister (even if he doesn’t know that’s who she is) away from the compound, and he’s right. There’s no way I can in good conscience expose her to that kind of environment; she’s too damaged, and God knows what will happen to her if I put her in a position where technically anything could happen to her. Technically anything could happen to me as well, but I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about going in there, screaming at Zeth for completely fucking up my life in the space of a few short weeks, notwithstanding the events that took place in a hotel room two years ago, grabbing my sister and then getting the fuck out of there. In my head, there’s no room for deviations from this plan. Even the prospect of the slightest hiccup might persuade me to stay with Lacey where I intend on leaving her, where we could wait it out and spend some time figuring out another way of reaching Zeth.

Which brings me to where I’m taking Lacey. Where I plan on leaving her while I pursue this undeniably nutso plan. As night begins to fall, Lacey doesn’t even bat an eyelash when we pull into Dana Point, at least an hour from our destination to the northeast. She knows the compound is in the desert, so she also has to know that this is not the direction we need to be heading in to find Zeth. I can barely remember the route to the quaint three-bedroom ranch-style house, painted a dusky orange, set back from the oceanfront—in my defense, I’ve only visited here three or four times. With my degree and then my internship and residency, I haven’t had much time for visiting. I pull into the driveway, silencing the engine, still waiting for Lacey to realize that we’re not where we’re supposed to be. She just sits on the back seat, comfortably staring out of the window even though we’re now stationary, not even blinking.

I get out of the car, wondering what she’ll do. She follows