Alphas Like Us (Like Us 3)

I glance at Farrow.

He looks like he wants to kiss me and kill me. “Don’t do that again.”

“Bodyguard orders?” I ask.

“Boyfriend rules since you love following them so much…” he trails off, checking the traffic through the rear windshield. “Shit.”

I see what he sees. “Ben,” I say, “switch to the left lane.” We’re in a middle lane, and a truck on the driver’s side is gaining speed.

Ben flicks on his blinker. His car sensors start beeping, alerting us about an approaching vehicle. “I can’t get over.”

He’s sixteen and just got his license in March. All I want is to take the fucking wheel.

Ben tries to accelerate again. “Moffy, you should read the text out loud.”

I hesitate.

Not sure if this is a good distraction from paparazzi or a bad one. But I end up looking down at the phone in my hand.

And I read, “Colin texted, heads up, dude, Easton Mulligan is getting pills from your cuz. Thought that shit stopped, but Easton’s been bragging about it. Even saw the bottle.”

I don’t know how I read that without a single inflection.

I don’t know how my heart is still beating.

My muscles burn, shoulders locked, and my impassive face carries nothing. Xander needs his meds, and he’s just giving them away so that he can make friends. Hurt claws at me, wanting to just grab him and hug him and tell him this isn’t right. Somewhere inside, I almost can’t fucking believe this. Somewhere inside, I think I’m screaming at the top of my lungs for this to reverse.

But that emotion is lost with a switch, too deep to reach.

The car is so quiet I can hear Ben’s heavy breath.

“I’ll talk to him,” I say. He can’t deal drugs. Or is it even considered dealing if he’s giving them away freely? Jesus.

“Be gentle, okay,” Ben breathes. “I can’t…I mean, Xander just…he lost his door again, right? He’s not in a good place.”

“Yeah,” I say, nothing in my voice.

Farrow studies me for a long beat, and then his tattooed fingers touch his earpiece again, his gum chewing slows down.

I pass the phone to Charlie since Ben is still concentrating on the road. “Just let me handle this,” I say and add to Winona. “Don’t tell the girl squad what’s happened.” Last thing I need is for the entire family to be in on this before I even talk to Xander.

“My babes won’t know,” Winona confirms, and by babes, she means my sister Kinney, then Audrey Cobalt and Vada Abbey. Her shoulders loosen, and she exhales in relief.

Ben gains speed but falters as the storm brews. He decelerates. “Thanks, Moffy—” A camera flashes at the driver’s window in pitch black night, jarring Ben.

He swerves right.

“Ben!” Winona yells.

“I can’t see!”

Charlie instantly grabs the wheel and straightens the car.

“Relax,” Farrow tells the teenagers, slightly turned as he watches security’s car behind us.

We’re wedged between a truck and an SUV, both windows rolled down. Cameras wrapped in plastic point at our car.

“I can’t see,” Ben mutters again. He grips the steering wheel harder.

Flashes blast in quick succession. Imagine a strobe light in your face on a freeway at seventy-five miles per hour in pouring down rain, and you just got your license three months ago.

“Slow down,” I suggest. “Just ride here. They’ll get bored and leave.”

Now Ben is pressing down on the gas. “I can try to pass one—”

We spin out the second he pushes eighty-five, no traction to the wheels on the wet road—my arm extends over Winona’s chest to protect my cousin, and I feel Farrow doing the exact same for her.

As the car revolves, there’s no time to glance left or right. No time to course correct or overthink or call out to Farrow.

There is just human life and love and pain.

My world blinks past me and the right side, my side, slams into the concrete median with a violent bang. My body wrenches forward against my seatbelt. A crack steals my breath away. Hot tears slip out of the corners of my eyes—I can’t breathe.

And then, the car flips.

6

FARROW KEENE

Everything is eerily motionless except for the ping ping ping of rain hitting the underside of the car. The smell of rain on metal overpowers my senses, and slowly, I gather my bearings.

I’m upside down.

We all are, but I’m the first to barrel through disorientation. My earpiece dangles on a cord down my chest, my radio cracked. Every airbag blew, every window shattered, and the greatest impact was on…no.

“Maximoff,” I call out, my voice hoarse.

His car door is crushed against the concrete median. Charlie’s door is also smashed but not as badly.

I cough a few times, my pulse spiking. I can’t see Maximoff that well. Winona’s hair cascades down and shields him from view.

He’s fine.

I try to pretend.

He’s fine.

Winona blinks a few times, then inhales a sharp breath. In shock.

“Winona, you’re okay. Just breathe,” I say, drawing her attention while I also feel for my seatbelt buckle. I know her sister Sulli better than I know her, but within the security team, the Meadows girls are known for being tough.

Wide-eyed, Winona nods slowly to me. A gash runs down the corner of her lips. She needs stitches.

“Does anything hurt?” I ask. “Your neck, back, legs?” I unbuckle myself and gradually lower to the bottom of the car. Really, the roof. My boots crunch the glass, and I try to open my door.

It’s jammed.

“No,” Winona answers in a short breath. “No, I think…I think I’m okay.”

I crouch and I look up at an upside-down Maximoff. He blinks like his world is still spinning. I sweep him rapidly. What I can see: a clavicle fracture, blood trickling from his nose, shallow breathing.

He’s not okay.

I need to lift up his shirt, but I hear my boyfriend in the back of my fucking head. Screaming at me to check on his cousins first.

“Maximoff? Talk to me,” I say, but he’s still coming to.

It takes the greatest amount of effort and force to tear away from him and focus and triage. I open my mouth to call his name again, but I stop myself. My heart is being shred to fucking pieces.

Winona’s eyes dart to the front. “Ben?” Fear pitches her voice.

He groans from the driver’s seat.

“Ben, Charlie, how do you feel?” I ask, moving closer. I examine both in a long glance.

Blood drips down a small laceration at Ben’s hairline. Tiny cuts prick his face from the glass shards.

“Huh…” he says groggily.

“Help my brother,” Charlie winces while he clutches his extremely fractured leg.

I’d like a backboard and a neck brace for Ben, but the longer we stay inside a demolished car, the more dangerous and potentially life-threatening.

Get them out.

“Ben,” I call while I shift back to my door. “What’s your birthday?” I peek beneath the deflated side airbag. The window is punched out and large enough that a body could crawl through.

Winona all of a sudden unbuckles herself, and I catch her shoulders so she won’t fall on her neck. She squats like me.

“Ben, what’s your birthday?” I repeat.

“Uh…” he groans. “Huh…?”

I start unbuttoning my black shirt. “Maximoff?” I call out, but my boyfriend is still disoriented. Unresponsive.

Come on, wolf scout.

I breathe hot breath through my nose and pass my shirt to Winona. “Put this against your lip.”

She presses the fabric to the corner of her mouth.

“Ben,” I call loudly, “what day is it?”

“Huh…?” he mumbles.

“REDFORD!”

I’ve never been happier to hear my middle name. I flip up the deflated side airbag. Rain soaks Oscar as he crouches, curly pieces of his hair stuck to his forehead.

He’s assessing me.

“I’m fine! Take Winona!” I call through the roaring storm. “Charlie has a fractured leg in the passenger seat! Ben may have a concussion!”

“Ambulance won’t be here for a while!” Oscar shouts back while I help Winona near the window. “Maybe thirty minutes! Most are in use because of the storm!”