Credence

She bursts out in a snort, bringing her head up and looking at me, incredulous.

My face flushes, and I’m not sure why I just told her that, but I don’t really care, either. I don’t like games, and I certainly won’t play hers.

“Seriously?” she asks, almost with an impressed look on her face. “Aren’t you kind of famous? I could go on Twitter and tell everyone what you’re telling me now.”

You could anyway. Whether it’s true or not.

Stunts like that won’t get her what she wants anyway. I’m not in her way.

“People do what they want.” I squeeze her hips, dancing. “So I don’t care. About anything. Your behavior is none of my business.”

Then, I flash my gaze over her shoulder and see him.

Kaleb.

He stands in the distance, beyond the crowd—alone—and leaning against a tree trunk. He stares at me as he raises a bottle of beer to his lips and takes a drink, and I swallow the lump in my throat.

And despite the knot coiling in my stomach every time he looks at me, my heart pumps hot blood through my body, filling me with the promise of anticipation.

The promise of something about to happen.

I can’t stop myself. “And in a few weeks,” I tell her, “I won’t even know what’s happ

ening online anyway, because I’ll be locked away on the peak for months and months...” I pause and then continue for added effect, “and months.”

With him, I don’t say out loud, but the words hang in the air.

I want it to sound like a threat, even if it’s an empty one. She doesn’t need to know Kaleb scares me or treats me worse than the animals he hunts. At least they’re of value to him.

Rising back up, I look her in the eye, knowing that from November through April, I’ll have the upper hand. If I wanted it. Do you really want to piss me off?

“I dare you,” she threatens.

“I’m not sure I’ll have to do anything.”

And I dart my eyes behind her, gesturing to Kaleb’s dark greens that hold us in a trance like there’s no one or nothing else at the party. She follows my gaze, seeing him watching us, and even though my threat is baseless, my last sentence isn’t.

He came after me once already, after all.

Suddenly, a hand grips my upper arm and yanks me, and I suck in a breath, looking up at my uncle.

“Everything with a dick is watching you two,” Jake growls, looking down at me.

Watching? Huh?

It takes a moment, but I start moving my eyes around the bonfire, seeing people looking at Cici and me, especially a few groups of guys on the outskirts of the circle grinning and whispering to each other.

I glare up at him, working my arm free. “Would you have stopped us if I were dancing with a guy?”

“If you had been dancing with a man like that in public, I would’ve taken you over my knee.”

He casts a quick look at Cici and then back down to me. “We’re going home.”

Taking my hand, he pulls me along, back toward the tent.

What the hell? I might care if I do something that reflects poorly on him, but I wasn’t doing anything wrong. So a few guys got their rocks off watching a couple of girls dancing. I honestly wasn’t even trying to dance well, so caught up in our conversation as I was.

He pushes through the crowd, and my wrist burns. I pull away, yanking free, and stomp past him toward the truck. Opening the back door, I climb in behind the driver’s seat and slam the door.