Hideaway (Devil's Night 2)

“Who the hell are you?” I asked.

But he just ignored me, turning his head to her and whispering, “Pull your hood up.”

She followed directions, quickly covering herself and keeping her chin down. Two guys flanked Shaved-Head, as Michael and Will did me, all of us walls.

“Leave,” the one in the middle ordered me.

“Yeah, no way.” I tilted my head, trying to make eye contact with the girl behind them. “Are you okay? Who are these guys?”

They could be her brothers, but they damn well didn’t look anything like her.

She stole a few glances up, and then I noticed it. A small smile pulling at her lips and an amused look crossing her features, her shyness all of a sudden disappearing. “They’re far more of a handful than you are, Horsemen.”

Her new pals broke out in a laugh, looking smug.

I lifted my chin.

“Let’s go,” Shaved-Head told her.

They all glared at us as they walked past, and the young woman followed, brushing my arm as she slipped by. I inhaled her faint scent. The energy in the air was suddenly so thick you could take hold of it. There was something familiar about her.

She handed her books to the tall one with blond hair and a silver chain around his neck, while the other one hooked her bike over his shoulder as he straddled his motorcycle.

She climbed on behind Shaved-Head, and I narrowed my eyes, watching her circle her arms around him.

I stepped forward as their bikes all roared to life.

She looked back over her shoulder one more time, and I finally saw her eyes. A beautiful green with touches of gold. “Thought you had some people you wanted to scare tonight,” she said.

What?

She turned away but not quick enough to hide the smirk on her face, and off they went, all three sport bikes whirring down the road as they sped away.

What the hell did she say? How did…?

I clenched my jaw, realization hitting.

The night is young. Maybe you’ll find someone else to scare tonight.

The girl from the confessional today. Fuck, that was her.

I watched her and those pricks disappear from sight, everything I’d told her today playing in my head again. How did she know who I was? And why had I never seen her before?

She was playing with me.

How confident and bold-as-fucking-brass she got when they arrived. She thought those guys—whoever the hell they were—could put us in our place. We were playing at being bad and they were the real thing. Is that what she thought?

“Do you know her?” Michael asked next to me.

I focused down the road, not sure how to answer that.

“If you want her, she’s yours,” Michael said.

I kept my smile to myself. Michael talked about women the same way he talked about cheeseburgers. It really was as easy as that.

“Want her?” Will cut in. “What the hell would he want with her when we have top-shelf chicks in our cars right now? Didn’t you see how she was dressed? No make-up, guys’ clothes... She’s a feminist.”

I closed my eyes, laughing to myself. Jesus. “I thought you liked the hard-to-get ones?” I joked, looking over at him.