What Sinners Love (Sinners of Hawthorne University 3)

“We were up all night looking,” he murmurs when he pulls away. “We didn’t give up on you, we just didn’t know where to—”

I shut him up with another kiss, silencing the guilt I can hear in his voice. The fear.

I don’t blame any of them for what happened. And down in that bunker, I wasn’t waiting for them to rescue me or find me, even though I sure as hell knew they’d be trying to. But the place Reagan took me to was entirely underground. There’s almost no chance they would’ve found it, no matter how hard they looked.

Declan and I finally step apart, our kiss lingering for a moment longer even as our bodies separate. Max manages to hold back her tears until I reach for her, a violent sob wracking her body as I pull her into a hug.

“I didn’t know, Sophie,” she cries. “I thought we had lost you… and it was all my fault…”

My eyes sting, and I stop fighting the emotions churning in my chest. I let the hot tears drip onto my cheek, mingling with the blood and dirt there, the mascara still smudged under my eyes from yesterday. I can’t say anything around the knot in my throat. I just hug the shit out of her.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” I whisper hoarsely as we break apart. “Fuck, I hate that you got dragged into this.”

She shakes her head, dismissing that. “I’d be in it no matter what. You’re my friend, and what you go up against, I go up against.” She scowls, a hard edge to her tone. “I just hate that I got used as fucking bait.”

I can tell that none of them have slept all night. I don’t think my time unconscious after my fight with Reagan counts as rest, and even if it did, I’ve gone through every reserve of strength I had built up. But as much as I want to fall into bed, I know there are other things that have to be dealt with first.

Questions burn in all of their eyes, rage joining it as they look over the state of my body.

“Let’s get inside.” I lick my lips. “I’ll tell you what happened.”

We all move quickly toward the house, and Declan wraps an arm around my waist as he leads me through the large front door.

We head toward the living room, and Gray disappears for a moment, returning with a bottle of whiskey. I don’t care what time of day it is, that

’s exactly what I fucking need.

He doesn’t even bother with a glass, just hands me the bottle. Our fingers brush as I take it from him, and the current of awareness that travels between us makes goose bumps rise on my skin.

I can feel the tension in him as if it’s pulsing outward from his body. I can sense anger and stress in everyone else too, but it’s different with him. Deeper. He’s taking it harder than the rest, letting it eat him up from the inside out.

My arms itch to wrap around him, to hold on to him until I can convince us both that it’s going to be okay. But there still isn’t time to stop, to give in to emotions. So I just swallow back the lump that’s rising in my throat with the liquor, letting it burn all the way down to my stomach.

“It was Reagan who kidnapped Max,” I say as the whiskey settles inside me, warming my blood.

“Are you fucking serious?” Elias spins around, looking at me. He doesn’t believe me, not because he doesn’t trust me, but because it’s that insane. “Caitlin’s bitch? The one who barely ever talks?”

I nod, sitting down on the couch. I realize too late that I’m a little messy to be sitting on Declan’s super fancy and expensive couch. He must notice my expression, because he shakes his head.

“Don’t worry about it, Soph,” he says. “My parents don’t ever use this living room. Plus, they’re not home right now.”

Thank fuck. I’ve gotten the sense they wouldn’t really approve of me under normal circumstances, and if they met me looking like this, I’m positive they’d hate me. It wouldn’t matter to them that nothing about my fucked up, dirty appearance is my fault. They’d just see something that doesn’t fit into their perfect, manicured life.

They can’t even accept the fact that their son loves to create music—and is fucking good at it—because it doesn’t match their vision of who he should be.

Shaking my head, I refocus. I’ve got bigger problems than whether one of my sort-of-boyfriend’s parents would like me. Alan is out there somewhere, wanting to kill me, and Reagan is out there wanting to help him.

Over several more minutes and a few more sips of whiskey, I manage to get the story out—how I woke up in the bunker, how Alan showed up and wanted to kill me. Max starts crying again, exhausted and traumatized by the events of last night even more than I am.

“That’s not the worst of it,” I say slowly, looking at each of them, the tension in their bodies, the glares on their faces. They’ve been mostly silent the entire time, listening to me. “I’ve been there before. The bunker.”

Declan’s eyes widen, and Gray clenches his hands into fists. Elias leans forward. “What do you mean? When?”

I explain the rest of it, even though it’s hard, even though the memories are still shaky. I tell them about how I was held there when I was a little girl, about how Alan was my captor for some unknown reason. I explain how I managed to escape this morning—and that I only found the way out because I had already escaped once before.

“Fucking bastard,” Gray growls, pushing himself up off the couch. He’s pissed as shit, looking like he’s ready to go beat the shit out of Alan. “I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him.”

I lunge for him before he can storm out the door and do something stupid, before Elias and Declan can follow him and join him in barging into Alan’s house. When I grab his arm, his whole body goes still. He looks down at me with a wild look in his eyes, barely contained wrath vibrating through him.