Overhead the class bell rang, and before Violet could change her mind, she nodded. “Fine. But not here,” she insisted, staring at the students who were still settling into their seats. “Grab your backpack and let’s get out of here.”
Rafe looked confused at first, like he hadn’t really expected her to take him up on his offer. Like she’d just said the very last thing on earth he’d expected her to say. But it only lasted a second, that stunned expression, and then he was lifting his backpack off the floor and his desk screeched as he stood too abruptly. Too impatiently.
Violet stood too, just as Mr. LeCompte sauntered into the classroom, wearing a self-righteous smile on his face, ready to teach thirty-three high schoolers the finer points of AP Lit.
His pointed gaze fell on the two of them as they stood in the aisle, but ultimately landed on Violet, giving her his signature reproachful shake of the head. “Tardy again, I see,” he drawled in his pretentious, false accent.
She opened her mouth to respond, even though she had no idea what she actually planned to say, but Rafe didn’t give her the chance. He dragged her, instead, down the row as every student in class watched them head to the front of the classroom. “Actually, we are late. But not for class,” he explained as they passed the smug instructor on their way out the door.
“Well, I—you can’t just . . .” Violet heard Mr. LeCompte sputtering behind them, but it was too late. They were already halfway down the hallway. She thought she heard him bellowing something about the principal’s office and detention—or maybe it was suspension—but she couldn’t be sure. Rafe didn’t slow down, and neither did she.
He led her past the front office, out the entrance, and through the parking lot. It wasn’t until they were standing in front of his motorcycle, and he was handing her a helmet—a sweet bubble-gum-pink number that could only belong to Gemma—that she realized his intention.
“Oh no.” She threw her hands up in front of her, warding off the offensive fiberglass helmet. “Not in a million years. I saw what that thing did to you. There’s no way I’m getting on it.” She still couldn’t look at his new bike without remembering the way his old one had sounded as it had skidded across the concrete—metal against asphalt. Without imagining Rafe lying in the center of the intersection, looking hopelessly broken. “I can’t believe Gemma agrees to ride it at all.”
Rafe grinned slyly. “She only gives me one day a week. The rest of the time I have to ride in that little Barbie-mobile of hers. I’m likely to get my ass kicked just for being seen in that thing.”
Violet had seen Gemma’s car, a Mini Cooper that was just a few shades lighter than the pink helmet Rafe was holding now. She’d wondered how Gemma could afford a car like that, especially knowing Gemma’s background as a foster kid, but she’d held her tongue. Asking questions insinuated curiosity, and curiosity might be misconstrued as caring.
And she definitely didn’t want Gemma to think she cared.
“If it makes you feel any better, this isn’t the same bike,” Rafe offered, still trying to persuade her to get on. “If you recall, that one was totaled.”
“Is that seriously supposed to make me feel better?” She reached out and punched him in the arm. “You can be a real ass, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told. Come on, V. It’s safe, and I’ll drive real slow. I promise.” He held Gemma’s helmet out again, and this time Violet’s resolve cracked. Not because she wanted to ride his stupid death-mobile, or because she trusted his word necessarily, but because she could see Mrs. Jeffries from the office coming out the front entrance to investigate. She wondered if Mr. LeCompte had made good on his threat to call the principal.
She wrenched the pink helmet from his grasp and forced it over her head, realizing too late that her head must be at least two sizes larger than Gemma’s as the helmet crushed her skull. She tried to make herself feel better by telling herself it was probably just because she had so much more hair than Gemma.
Rafe secured their backpacks using bungee cords, while Violet kept checking over her shoulder. So far, Mrs. Jeffries was just watching them, but she was positive the office lady knew who they were, and she was equally sure they could expect letters in their permanent files when they returned to school. When Rafe reached out for her, Violet let him help her climb on clumsily behind him.
She felt wobbly on the bike, and she waited for Rafe to give her a quick lesson on how this would work, explaining to her where she should put her hands and her feet . . . to give her some instructions about motorcycle etiquette. Instead, he started the engine. It rumbled up through her entire body but was muffled through the thick layers of foam that lined her helmet.
“Hold on,” he called over his shoulder, his only piece of advice before he hit the accelerator and took off, leaving the school and Mrs. Jeffries behind.
She was surprised when they pulled to a stop in the nearly empty parking lot of Wally’s Drive-In, not that she’d given a lot of thought to where, exactly, they were headed. She sort of thought they’d go to the Java Hut, where other kids from school would go if they were ditching class. Rafe didn’t exactly seem like a Wally’s kind of guy.
Violet turned around to squint at the restaurant behind her. Java Hut might be where all her friends hung out, but if Buckley had a tourist attraction it was definitely Wally’s. People came from all over to eat at the drive-in burger joint. There wasn’t a kid in town who didn’t love pulling up to one of Wally’s menu boards, which were set up in each individual parking space, then having their food delivered right to their car.
Rafe pulled off his helmet as he dropped the kickstand in place. From behind, Violet could see that his dark hair was rumpled, but after he ran his fingers through it a few times, it fell into place, as if on command.
Violet wished her hair would be so manageable. She knew what hers must look like as she stripped off her own helmet. She could feel her curls twisting and coiling, tickling her cheeks and standing up riotously all over her head.
“I hear this place has great shakes,” Rafe said, stepping off the bike gracefully and leaving Violet feeling somewhat trapped on the machine. He reached out to give her a hand.
She stared at him, suspicious of his words. “Who told you that?”
Rafe just shrugged. “Everyone says it. I’m surprised you haven’t heard. I figured it was something everyone here in Podunk knew.” He spent extra time saying the word Podunk, making it more than clear what he thought of her hometown.
He was right, of course. Everyone did know about Wally’s shakes. But it was hard to imagine Rafe carrying on an entire conversation with anyone about milk shakes.
She took his hand and eased off the motorcycle. It hadn’t been bad, the ride. Not nearly as perilous as she’d imagined it would be. If she was being honest, and she supposed she could be—at least in the privacy of her own thoughts, right?—it had even been sort of fun. Sort of. In an I-can-barely-breathe-because-I’m-a-little-terrified kind of way.
And if she was being completely honest, she might even admit there were moments there when she’d allowed herself to relax—brief snippets of time when she hadn’t been thinking about the accident, or about whether she was holding on tight enough, or too tight, or listening to the whine of the engine—when she’d felt sheer exhilaration as they whipped down the highway. When she felt free.
Although she’d never admit as much out loud. And never to Rafe.
They went inside and ordered—a chocolate shake for him and a peanut butter chocolate chip one for her. The woman behind the counter gave them a strange look, probably because it was only eight in the morning and milk shakes weren’t much of a breakfast. Or maybe because it was obvious they should’ve been at school.
Either way, they took a booth as far from the counter as possible. The red vinyl booths were retro-style, looking like they were made from vintage car seats, and there were pictures of icons like Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elvis, and even some o
f Betty Boop plastered all over the walls. With the black-and-white-checkered tiling on the floors, it was like stepping into an old-fashioned soda shop.
Rafe, never one to mince words, got straight to the point. “It’s been months since the kidnapping, and you still don’t seem like yourself.” Stony-faced, he watched Violet as she toyed with her straw, swirling it through the thick ice cream. When she didn’t answer, he tried again. “I thought that, maybe, getting rid of that imprint thing might make things better for you.”
She glanced up, shrugging noncommittally. “I don’t really know yet,” she told him truthfully. “It wasn’t just that,” she admitted, but it wasn’t an easy subject for her. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it’s gone. I hated being reminded of what I’d done—”
“Of what you had to do,” he interrupted, his jaw tight and his voice filled with emotion. “No one blames you for that. You did what you had to do, V. If you hadn’t, you’d be dead.”
“Right. I had to,” she agreed, sounding less than convinced. “But it was still hard to be reminded all the time.” She took a breath. “Getting rid of the imprint doesn’t change the fact that when I close my eyes . . .” And she did then, she closed her eyes. “. . . he’s still there.”
She felt his fingers cover hers, and her eyes flew open once more. “V . . . I . . . I’m so sorry. . . .”
Like before, when he’d caught her watching him and Chelsea in the quad, she saw longing in his expression, and she recoiled inwardly, her stomach tightening. She didn’t want him to look at her like that.
“I know,” she said, pulling her hand away.
They sat there in silence—the kind of uncomfortable silence Violet hadn’t experienced in a long time. She didn’t want to push him away, but she couldn’t encourage him either.
She thought of what he’d said last night, right before hanging up, I think it changes everything, and she wondered if there might be just the tiniest grain of truth in those words. She couldn’t help feeling some gratitude, and even a sense of obligation for what he’d done. But was that all she felt?
She shook her head. Of course that was all, she reprimanded herself. She was just confused. This was a lot to process.
Besides, she had other things to tell him, other things she wanted to talk about than her imprint. She leaned forward on her elbows. “What do you know about Dr. Lee?” she finally blurted out. “What has Sara said about him?”
Rafe stared back at her, confused. “Dr. Lee? What’s he got to do with this?” He frowned, but he answered anyway, hesitantly, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was walking into. “I know that he’s a psychiatrist. And that he works for whoever runs the Center. I think Sara trusts him, she’s never really said she doesn’t.” He paused. “Come to think of it, she’s never really said much at all about him. Why are you asking? What do you know about him?” And then his lips tightened as a thought occurred to him. “Has he done something to you? Has he . . . has he acted inappropriately with you?”
Rafe’s meaning was crystal clear. He wanted to know if Dr. Lee had made some sort of unwanted advance on her. The idea was almost laughable, partly because it was hard to imagine the rigid Dr. Lee doing anything “inappropriate,” at least of the sexual nature. He seemed like the sort of guy who went home to his stark, spotless apartment and hung his perfectly starched black suit in a row of identical perfectly starched black suits, all on hangers that were equidistant from the next.
Truthfully, she had no idea who the real Dr. Lee was. Not even after reading her grandmother’s journals.
“God, Rafe, are you kidding? No. At least not the way you mean.”
Rafe relaxed, if only a little. “What, then? Why are you asking?”
She remembered the way Dr. Lee had warned Violet about telling anyone about their “arrangement.” And she remembered her grandmother’s handwriting, scrawled on the pages of her diary: Muriel is dead. And I know why. She tried to quit the Circle.
Was this the same as quitting, revealing a secret she’d been cautioned to keep? Could the consequences be just as deadly?
But she knew she couldn’t remain silent forever. She didn’t want to. “Remember when I told you I didn’t want to be on the team anymore, that I was quitting?”
Rafe’s eyes fell away guiltily as he cleared his throat, and Violet could practically read his thoughts. He still blamed himself. He still believed she’d been leaving because of him. “I remember.”
She was the one who reached over then, her fingers hovering near his—not quite touching, but almost. He watched them. “It wasn’t your fault,” she told him in a voice that was infinitely quieter than it had been before. “It wasn’t about you. It was me. I felt like I needed some distance, from you and from the team. That’s when I told Sara I was quitting.” She paused, waiting for him to look up again. When he did, at last, she continued, “But I didn’t change my mind about that, Rafe. I wasn’t the one who decided to stay. It was Dr. Lee. He told me I couldn’t quit. He said there were others . . . those higher up than him in the organization who wouldn’t allow me to just leave.” She whispered now, her words barely a breath as she voiced them aloud for the very first time. “He threatened my family.”
Rafe’s scowl was intense as he sorted through what she’d just revealed to him, and Violet waited for him to say something. She thought he seemed closer to her now, but she’d never noticed him move. It felt as if he’d stretched all the way across the tabletop, until he was somehow sharing her very breath.
He wasn’t, though. He was right where he’d always been. Sitting in the booth across from her, his eyes sliding over her face as he absorbed the accusations she was making.
She waited for him to say she was crazy, that she’d lost her mind. That the imprint she had listened to on a daily basis had finally—completely—driven her mad.
But that wasn’t what he said at all. He just nodded, a brief and decisive gesture. “If this is true . . . if what you’re saying is true, we need to find out what he’s up to.”
Blinking, Violet shifted in the booth. “There’s more,” she explained, reaching into her pocket and sliding the picture across the table. “That’s him,” she told Rafe as she tapped the picture of a younger Dr. Lee—James Lee. “And that,” she said, moving her finger over less than an inch, “is my grandmother.”
He looked up at her, and then back at the picture in front of him.
She nodded. “They knew each other, Rafe. They were on a different team, sorta like ours. They called themselves the Circle of Seven.”
He took a breath, his shoulders tense as he hunched forward, studying the picture. “Your grandmother’s not the only one,” he said at last, and then his finger touched the image too, landing on a girl, probably the youngest in the entire group. She had dark, shoulder-length hair. “That . . .” he said, his voice a whisper, “is my mom.”
Dumbfounded by his words, Violet sat there. She let them sink in, waiting until her brain had sorted them through, making them find a place in the puzzle that was growing more complicated with each passing minute. “Was she”—she lifted her eyes to his—“like you?”
“No. I mean . . . I didn’t think so, but I guess I don’t really know. She never said anything. Sara never said anything.” And then his lips tightened. “I’m sure Sara doesn’t know anything about this.” Violet wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her . . . or himself now. “She’d never have kept a secret like this, not from me.”
“No,” Violet agreed. “You’re right, I don’t think she would.” Her eyes widened as she reached for him again, this time clutching him like a lifeline. And he was, in a way. He was the only thing standing between Dr. Lee and her family’s safety. “Rafe, he told me not to tell anyone. Ever.” Her voice wavered. “I’m afraid of him, of what he’ll do if he finds out you know.”
Unflinchingly, Rafe nodded, making her a vow. “He won’t find out. I won’t tell anyone. Not even Sara.”
Violet’s grip
on him eased. She reached out and pulled her milk shake closer and took her first taste of the creamy concoction, letting the peanut butter ice cream melt over her tongue as she thought about what she’d just done and about what Rafe had revealed. The shake was cold and sweet, but did little to calm her churning stomach. “So how will we find out what he’s up to . . . if we can’t talk to Sara about him?” she asked at last.
Rafe leaned back now, looking more like himself again, like he belonged in a place like this, his leather jacket making him look like he was one of the props. He could definitely give James Dean a run for his money. “I don’t know exactly,” he said, lifting his own straw to his lips as he rested his arm over the back of the bench seat and studied her. “But give me some time and I’ll come up with a plan that’ll blow old Dr. Lee outta the water.”
Violet smiled, wishing she felt half as cocky as Rafe did—or at least half as cocky as he appeared. “So basically you have no idea.”
He lifted his chin and grinned at her. “Exactly.”
Since they were already in trouble for ditching school, Violet suggested they might as well go back to her house after finishing their shakes so she could show Rafe her grandmother’s journals.
He’d been at her house a few times before, but having him at her house then wasn’t the same as having him in her bedroom now.
She’d been in his bedroom once. And like that time, when she’d seen the place where he slept, and where he spent most of his downtime, it felt too personal. Sharing this part of herself made her feel exposed.
Rafe’s eyes moved over her patchwork quilt, which suddenly seemed more girly now that she was looking at it from his point of view. He surveyed her oversized corkboard, the one plastered with ticket stubs, birthday cards, ribbons she’d collected from spelling bees and sack races, photo booth strips—all depicting her, Chelsea, Claire, and Jules crammed into the tight space and vying for the camera’s attention—along with other mementos she’d accumulated over the years.
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