“I don’t know. I mean, someone was definitely in the house, and the whole thing with her and Dad knowing Luc. I just think . . . I think there’s more.” It was hard to explain without spilling all the secrets, and I wanted to tell them, but instinct told me that they were something I seriously needed to keep to myself. “Anyway, Luc didn’t come over last night, but—”
Someone shushed us.
Zoe lifted her head, pinning a dark look onto some unfortunate soul somewhere behind me. “But what?”
I curled my fingers around the edge of my book. “I think Luc knows something about Mom and my dad.” And about me, whispered a weird voice in the back of my head. Shivering, I ignored it. “He pretty much insinuated that he did and that he would tell me.”
Well, I guessed that was what he meant in his very obnoxiously mysterious way of his.
I thought Zoe looked surprised, but her expression smoothed out so quickly, it had to be my imagination. “What could he possibly know?”
“I don’t know.” I looked between the girls. “But I’m going to find out.”
* * *
I ran into James as I walked to my car after school. “What are you up to?” he asked. “I’m starving, so I thought I’d do you a sweet favor and let you accompany me on my excursion to find the juiciest and thickest hamburger this fine town has to offer.”
I laughed as I pulled out my sunglasses, I slid them on. “I’d love to, but I have something I have to do. Maybe tomorrow? Or Saturday? I heard Coop canceled his party.”
“I heard the same. He’s doing it next weekend instead. Guess he wasn’t . . . in the mood after what happened.”
Dead and missing classmates kind of dampened the whole party vibe.
“I also heard you have plans today after school,” he said as we stopped by my car. “You’re going to that club.”
Dammit. “Which one of them blabbed?”
He folded his arms. “I’ll never tell.”
I’d told both of them I’d been planning to go to the club, and now I was regretting it. “If you knew what I was doing, then why did you ask me to do something?”
“Thought I could possibly woo you with hamburgers instead.” He stepped aside as I moved toward the driver’s-side door. “Do you think it’s smart to go back there?”
No. I didn’t think it was smart at all.
“I mean, you know I don’t have anything against the Luxen, but there were a ton there unregistered. Then there’s what happened to Colleen, and Amanda is still missing. . . .” He cleared his throat. “And that Grayson dude freaked me out.”
If he thought Grayson was freaky, which he really was, it’s a good thing he hadn’t met Luc.
“And when that blue-haired dude took me home, I thought you were being kidnapped or something.”
My lips pursed. Luc had tried to kidnap me, which made the fact that I was going back to the club willingly seem even more idiotic. “Aw, are you worried about little old me?” I teased, punching him lightly on the arm. “I’ll be fine.”
“Uh-huh. Fine. I’ll go eat juicy grilled hamburgers all by myself.” James started to turn and then stopped. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” I opened up the car door.
He seemed to consider what he was about to say. “Are you, like . . . getting involved with someone there?”
“What?” I tossed my bag onto the front seat and then turned back around to face him. “Like, am I interested in someone? Luc?”
James nodded.
I laughed, but it sounded weird to my own ears. “You haven’t had a chance to meet him, but if you did, you would know how ridiculous that question is.”
That was partly true. How could I be into Luc? I wasn’t, but . . . I was. And while I should be worried about going to that club, I wasn’t, and I couldn’t even explain why. It made no sense, especially when I’d promised my mom I wouldn’t go back there, made Heidi swore she wouldn’t, and I hadn’t even wanted to go there in the first place. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was this weird sense of—of what? Safety? Familiarity?
There was a good chance I was losing my mind.
He raised a brow. “He’s a . . . He’s a Luxen, right?” When I nodded, he looked away and then refocused on me. “Just be careful, Evie. Colleen was at that club when she went missing, and now Amanda is gone? It feels like, I don’t know, they are the beginning of something.”Walking up to the red doors of Foretoken, I felt like I was seconds away from stealing something pricey at a ritzy department store. Like I was about to shove a car payment’s worth of perfume under my shirt.