“Not at all.”
I stood up, but she reached for my hand.
“Tash”—her tone had changed—“just be careful not to get heartbroken. No matter what you say about Jem, he’s never lacked attention from girls. It’s only the daring ones, mind you, because most of the girls in town are terrified of what would happen if their parents found them with Jem. Just keep a lock on your heart.”
“I will, Ever. Thanks.” I walked to the bedroom and shut the door. It had been my first moment alone since Jem had dropped me off. I closed my eyes and thought about his hands between my legs and how easily I’d submitted to his touch. And even more shocking, how easily he’d made me climax. My head was fuzzy with thoughts of Jem Wolfe, and it seemed that Everly’s last words of caution, to lock up my heart, had come too late.
I sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off my shoes. I smiled at the return address where Carly had written “Greetings from The Grog” above the address. I ripped the tape off the envelope and pulled out the paper. A handful of shredded purple paper, Aunt Carly’s usual stationery, came out with it, cascading to the floor like a lavender snow flurry. I hadn’t opened the letter yet, but I could see the heavy-handed, scribbled words through the paper. They weren’t from Aunt Carly. My heart rose into my throat, and I could barely swallow as I willed myself to open the letter. My hands shook as I stared in disbelief at the hastily scrawled threat. “Leave town or you will die.”
Just like earlier in the sawmill, it felt like I was sitting in the middle of a b-rated horror movie, only instead of shoveling popcorn and waiting for the next opportunity to snap shut my eyes, I was the silly girl on-screen being warned by the audience not to go into the dark room. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why my arrival in town had become such a threat to someone. None of it made sense. Just like it didn’t make sense that Alcott Wolfe could have been involved in my dad’s truck losing control on a treacherous curve of the highway.
Between the extremes of the day, nearly dying an awful death, the giddiness I was feeling over Jem, and now the death threat from someone who obviously knew where I was living, I was sure I wouldn’t sleep much tonight. I was just glad to know that I wouldn’t be walking to the bus stop in the anemic light of dawn. Since this threat had come to the house, I needed to tell Everly. She’d soon be regretting her generosity in taking me in.
I changed reluctantly. The lingering scent of pine that always seemed to follow Jem was still on my clothing. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to push the ugly note from my head and think about being safe in Jem’s strong arms. So far, he’d proven to be anything but dark and sinister. Other than the potential of a terrible heartbreak, I felt safe with him. I was sure I could trust him. I just hoped my complete and utter infatuation with him wasn’t blinding me from the truth.
As I slipped under the covers, I considered just packing up my stuff tomorrow and going back to Aunt Carly’s, a place where peace prevailed and death threats were non-existent. But now, more than ever, I needed to find out what had happened in that missing piece of my history.
Chapter 16
Tashlyn
I’d had one attempt on my life and another written death threat and the thing that had me trembling with nerves was knowing I was about to see Jem. Just seeing his tall silhouette sitting in the car out front sent a burst of charged energy through me.
I reached the door of the car that seemed to be held together with the dust that coated it. There was no door handle. I leaned down and smiled through the window, reminding him that there was no handle.
He had the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head, and the metal plugs in his ears glinted like dark pewter as he reached over and popped open the door from the inside. I slid into the passenger seat. A huge rip in the black vinyl had been repaired with silver duct tape. The dashboard was at an unnatural tilt. I pulled my feet out from under it in case it fell.
“Can’t say you didn’t arrive in style today.” Jem laughed as he pulled away from the curb.
“No, it’s definitely a style. Just not sure how you’d categorize it.”
He stopped at the first stop sign and reached over to pull my face toward his for a kiss. “Morning, Woodstock. Did you sleep well? Cause I didn’t.” He looked down at my lips, the lips he’d just kissed. “At the risk of sounding like a total fucking sap, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Tash.”
“I was thinking about you too.” I felt my cheeks warm just thinking about his hands between my legs.
He sat back and drove on. Most of the cars on the road were heading south toward the bigger cities or toward the mill. Several dogs were standing on the sidewalk in front of Gregor’s Market playing tug of war with a sandwich wrapper. Otherwise, with the shops still closed, the street was quiet.
I’d shoved the death threat into the pocket of my jeans. I planned to show Jem once we got to work. It wasn’t something I just wanted to shove in front of him while he was driving.
“Did Everly give you a hard time last night?” he asked.
“Surprisingly, no. But she’d gone to visit Finn, who told her that he’d have drowned if you hadn’t jumped in after him. That helped.”
“Everly has a thing for Finn?”
“Yes, but don’t tell him. He’ll figure it out soon enough. I hope he deserves someone like Everly.”
“A lot of people have a hard time looking past those scars. Finn’s not really like everyone else.” A terrible sound of grinding metal followed his third and finally successful attempt to get the car into fourth gear. “Guess you can see why I usually take my bike.”
We were rounding the last turn before descending on Phantom Curve. On the bus, I’d always made a point to sit on the left side, to avoid looking at the blackened ground below. But today, sitting on the right side in Jem’s small, slow moving car, it would be hard to ignore it.
Jem sensed my tension and didn’t say a word as we rounded the curve. Then, it hit me, like an unexpected bout of vertigo, the weird sensation of falling, as if I was tumbling head over heels down into the deep ravine. A shocked cry left my lips, and I grabbed Jem’s arm. I closed my eyes and had to consciously work to stop the dizziness in my head and the pounding in my ears. And all the while, I held Jem’s arm, as if it was keeping me from falling.
He waited a few seconds until I took a steadying breath and opened my eyes. A cold sweat covered my skin, and I felt sick to my stomach.
“Tash?” His deep voice floated through the cloud. “Are you all right?”
I nodded unconvincingly and pried my fingers off his arm. The car suddenly seemed exceptionally small. I rolled down the window and stuck my face out into the fresh air. The deadly curve, the macabre reminder, was behind us now, but my limbs tingled with numbness. “Jem, please, pull over. I need to get out of the car.” I couldn’t stop the flow of tears. As much as my mind was reconciling what had just happened with my memory, it was too hard to face the truth. It was part of the missing piece, and it terrified the hell out of me.
Jem pulled to a small patch of dirt. I shoved open the car door and hopped out before it had come to a complete stop.
Daylight was starting to pour through the treetops. I turned my face up to it, swallowing the fresh air, in hopes that it would clear my head. I felt Jem standing next to me, watching me.
The nausea slowly passed and my heart slowed. I pulled my coat shut against the morning chill.
“What the hell happened back there?” Jem asked.
I swallowed to relieve the dryness in my throat. “I was with him.” My voice was crinkly and quiet. “I was with my dad when he went over the ridge. I’d pushed it back in my memory, somewhere deep, so I couldn’t find it. But just now as we drove around the curve it came back to me. I was falling again. I was rolling around in the sleeping compartment of my dad’s truck.” I turned to him.