I snorted. “Doubtful. Football player”—I nodded toward the retreating car—“werewolf,” I whispered, jabbing his ribs.
“Yeah. Seems that simple,” he agreed. “Best-case scenario? I just helped you break up with a total prick and got a decent kiss out of the deal.”
“Hmm.” I considered a moment. The idea of breaking up with Derek didn’t bother me nearly as much as losing time with Pietr did. “Max,” I said, looking up at him, “I love the Russian heritage you guys are so willing to share, but I’m not so thrilled with the French.”
“What?” His brows lowered. “We’re not French.”
“Great. So the next time you feel the need to kiss me, keep your tongue out of my mouth.”
He roared with laughter and pulled me inside. “So where are your other friends?”
“Huh. I saw Sophia slip past, but—hey!”
Amy attacked me from behind, giving me a huge hug. “Happy, happy birthday!”
I grinned, hugging back and letting any last niggling doubts about inadvertently dumping Derek drain away.
“Great party, Max!” Amy congratulated.
Marvin hung back, watching their exchange.
“Anything for Jessie,” Max muttered, but his eyes were completely on Amy.
Amy dressed as …
“Little Red Riding Hood?” I gulped. Uh-oh.
“The same.” She laughed, doing a little spin so her hood fell back, her short cape ruffled and her brilliant red hair whipped loose. A low-cut blouse did double duty, exposing the thinnest hint of both cleavage and midriff.
Max gaped. “You even have”—he stuttered—“a—an amazingly well-packed basket of goodies.”
Ohhh … I looked. Thank God. Amy was actually carrying a basket. “I doubt your grandmother would let you out like that, Red,” I choked, grabbing her by the wrist and guiding her into another room.
Marvin followed, moping.
“And you, Marvin? You are?” I asked, glancing at the fake fur on his shoulders and the mask he held under one arm.
“The Big Bad Wolf,” he blustered.
I caught Max’s eyes and knew we both thought, Hardly.
Into the basement we headed, Max picking up girls as we went. The music blasted, throbbing against me as the heat of the dancing crowd rose to greet us. Amy shoved me onto the dance floor, Marvin lagging behind. I quickly got separated from them in the crowd and only briefly glimpsed Cat and Sophia.
Max was always visible, though, and that was how he liked it. He danced, he pawed, he gyrated, and flirted, and the girls fawned all over him. Indecent and entertaining at the same time.
As the music slowed and I moved to the edge of the crowd, I caught a glimpse of Amy across the room. Marvin was nowhere in sight; that was probably better because the way Amy watched Max run his hands up and down Stella Martin, it wouldn’t have mattered if Marvin had been right in front of her. He’d have been invisible.
Starting across the floor to tell Amy to put her eyes back in her head, I saw him. Marvin. Watching Amy. Watching Max.
Faster than I could find words to warn her, he caught her. The look of surprise—and fear—on Amy’s face made me scramble toward them. He was hauling her up the stairs. Away from the crowd. Alarm bells rang in my head.
Where was Pietr? Or Cat? With a growl, I pushed toward Max. “I need you!”
“Finally you admit it!” he called back, grinning.
“No, idiot! I need help. Now!” I raced him to the stairs.
His brow lowered, nostrils flaring; his concentration shifted. Could he smell her fear? He passed me on the climb, plowing ahead.
Upstairs kids were scattered around the hall, lounging on furniture and the next set of steps, swaying to the music drifting up from below. I glanced up the next staircase, but Max hooked my arm and pointed to the sitting room.
“There.”
The only closed door. Not nearly enough to make Max pause.
“What the hell—” Max cracked the door back on its hinges as he bounded in. I followed, close enough to feel waves of heat pour off him.
Marvin spun to face us, hand so tight on Amy’s arm his fingers were white as winter, his expression equally cold.
Amy found a spot on the floor to focus on.
“Are you okay, Amy?”
“I’m fine.”
Marvin shook her. “Don’t you look at him.”
“Get your hand off her,” Max warned, the volume belaying the ferocity behind the words.
“Time to leave, baby,” Marvin ordered, shaking her again.
“No, Marvin,” I said, stepping forward, a hand on Max. My fingertips stung, nerves on fire from the contact. “If you need to leave my birthday party, go ahead. I’ll make sure she gets a ride home with me.” My tone sounded remarkably steady in my own ears considering the way my pulse raced.
“Let go of her,” Max said, coloring his tone so to the uninformed it sounded like a suggestion—not an order.
Marvin released Amy’s arm and she adjusted her sleeve to better hide the color it was becoming.
My heart sank, realizing it was a practiced move. I wasn’t the only one lying about things.
Between clenched teeth, Marvin said, “Let’s go, love.”
She fluttered a glance past Max and pasted her gaze to the floor once more. She stepped forward. Obediently.
Max turned his head away, the heat draining from him.
Marvin grinned. Victorious.
“I need you to stay, Amy,” I sputtered.
She glanced at Marvin, his jaw was so tight veins rose by his hairline. “Don’t make me choose,” she begged.
I reached out to hug her, but she flinched at the motion. Flinched from me. I ground my teeth and sidestepped to block her view of Marvin. “I need you to stay.”
Her eyes glistened, lower lip trembling.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Marvin snarled. “Don’t upset me.”
Amy shivered.
Max’s spine straightened, chin up. “Don’t threaten.”
“It makes Max angry,” I explained, holding Amy’s gaze reassuringly.
“And you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” Max stated. He crossed his arms and looked at Marvin. Down at Marvin.
“I’m not threatening,” Marvin backpedaled.
“I should go,” Amy said.
Max raised an eyebrow at her, his mouth a firm thin line. Without verbalizing, he plainly told her no.
“Unless you need help cleaning up,” she offered.
“Please!” I said.
Marvin shifted behind me.
Max shifted to shadow him.
“Fine!” Marvin puffed. “Call me tomorrow.” Exiting, he bumped purposefully into Max. Marvin rubbed his arm from the impact. Max hadn’t even noticed the attempted aggression. He was enthralled by Amy’s unusually quiet demeanor.
“Umm…” Stella Martin appeared in the doorway, lifting a feathered mask to peek into the room at us. “Max … don’t you wanna dance? Instead of standing there looking all … statuesque? We plan on shaking it”—she did an impressive pop-and-lock move to demonstrate—“like a Polaroid picture, if you’re lucky.” She winked, then grinned at him, her gaze traveling the length of his body.
Max smiled, some of his tension draining. “Quite an invitation.”
Another girl peered in. “Max…,” she cooed, batting her eyelashes. “Come dance.”
Max groaned.
I planted my hands on my hips and shot him a measured look. Things would be easier without him. “Looks like you lost your necklace,” I commented.
He snorted. “I prefer livelier accessories.” Stella and the other girl slunk in and draped their arms around him. “See what I mean?” He shrugged, wistful and seemingly helpless to battle the power of his own animal magnetism. Another anonymous girl danced in and grabbed his hand, leading him away with such a sway to her hips I wondered how she didn’t throw her back out. Max looked over his shoulder at us. Well, at Amy.
br />
The front door slammed and Max glanced toward the sound, his mouth curling in satisfaction.
Marvin was gone.
“Come on!” Stella yelled.
He glanced back at us, eyes lingering again on Amy.
“Go, you dirty dog,” I chuckled.
He closed the door between us, muffling the party’s noise.
Amy went limp, flopping onto the love seat. “What a player,” she said in disgust. But there was something else in her tone too. A wistfulness to match Max’s.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “So.”
“Marvin’s not always like this, you know,” Amy justified.
“Not always?”
“I knew you wouldn’t get it.”
“What’s to get? He hurt you, Amy. He was nasty. I’m glad he’s not always like that, but—” I blinked. “This isn’t the first time?”
The music outside the door cranked and a howl of appreciation rattled the house.
“Bets on who’s shaking their bon-bon now?” Amy asked, flicking a dust mote with her finger.
“Take off your shirt.”
“What?” She looked at me, startled.
“You heard me. Take it off.”
Her cheeks flamed.
“I know you, Amy. A few months ago you would have torn it off on a dare and done power poses. What happened since then?”
“Nothing important.”
“If it involves you, it’s important. Take off your shirt. Prove what I’m thinking is wrong,” I challenged.
Silent, she stood. Heartbreak shone in her suddenly streaming eyes.
“Amy—”
She undid the clasp of her red hood and cape combo, letting it fall to the floor. She turned her back to me, bent over, and tugged the shirt up over her head, her long auburn hair slapping down across her shoulders as she straightened.
“Oh, shit.”
All across her soft skin, tucked beneath the back and occasionally obscured by the narrow straps of her lacy bra, were over a dozen different bruises. Each the size of Marvin’s palm or fist, all in differing shades of brown, purple, green, and yellow—a rainbow of rage marring her beautiful back in a chronology of cruelty.
I was so stunned I didn’t hear the door open.
“Son of a—”
“Max!” I shouted as Amy reached for her shirt.
But he was gone.
“I have to—” Stop him. Crap, crap, crap!
“Go. Go—” Amy wriggled into her shirt.
“You stay here—” I demanded, dashing out the door. The name always on my mind leaped to my lips first. “Pietr! Pietr!” I shrieked over the music, hands on the staircase’s banister as I bellowed.
He leaped from the second floor, caught the banister, and landed in a crouch at my feet, eyes glowing in the party’s dim light. His nostrils flared, checking the air. “Are you okay?”
Nodding, I caught my breath and raced through the words. “Your brother’s gonna kill Marvin if—”
He blinked. Nodded. “I’ll stop him,” he promised, out the door so fast its lacy curtains flapped in his wake.
“God, I hope so,” I whispered before turning back to the sitting room for Amy.
It was empty.
Dammit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Scouring the party, there was no trace of Amy. Finally I figured out where my cell phone had gotten to and selected her name. “Pick-up-pick-up-pick-up,” I chanted, sitting on the Rusakovas’ back porch and wondering if Marvin had gotten himself killed, if Max was going to be locked up, and why Pietr couldn’t stand to be near me. Yep. Normal concerns.
“What?”
“Amy! Where are you?”
“A cab.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I need some time to think.”
“Have the cab bring you back. You can think here. Or over at my place. Dad won’t mind.”
“No, Jessie. I ruined your party. I think I’ve done enough damage for one night.”
“Are you going home?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll wait here for you until midnight. Then I’ll head home. You can get me—catch up to me—either place.”
Silence.
“Amy, I’m worried about you.”
Her voice crackled, and I checked my signal strength. Fine. “I— I’ll be okay,” she assured me. And she hung up.
The party wound down and broke up without Max and the girls playing around on the dance floor. When he and Pietr finally got back I didn’t ask either one of them why they avoided me and went to wash up first. I quickly updated them and returned to the back porch to sit, dangling my legs off the edge.
Max joined me, his hair damp, stubble shading his jaw under the yellow light of the single bulb. “Eezvehneetyeh, Jessie.”
I frowned up at him. “Sorry for what? Wanting to beat the pulp out of somebody abusing my best friend? I’m fighting the same instinct. Here.” I patted my lap, and he rested his head on my leg. “You’re a real dog sometimes, but you’re also amazingly loyal.” I toyed with the dark curls shadowing his face. “You’ve got great protective instincts. The makings of a hero.”
Closing his eyes, he protested. “I’m far from a hero.”
“Well, you, Cat, Alexi, and Pietr are some of the very best people I know.”
“People.” He snickered, the noise bitter. “You’d probably be one of the only ones to qualify us as that after knowing what you do.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” Pietr said from the door. “She’s not coming here tonight.”
Max raised his head, stretched up into Hunter’s play pose and, eyes glinting, slid forward so his breath heated my entire face. Then he licked my cheek.
“Oh, geez!” I hissed, wiping my face clean as he rolled over and jumped up, grinning.
“Come on.” He put a hand out to me. “I’ll take you home.”
Pietr just stood in the shadows, watching.
* * *
The next morning I threw hay to the horses and called Max before even considering breakfast. “I need a ride.”
He didn’t ask questions. I didn’t volunteer answers.
We wound up at Park Place, a rough little trailer park on the edge of Junction.
“Stay,” I commanded.
He nodded, turned on the radio, and played with his necklace while I got out. But I felt his eyes follow me as I walked to the yellow and tan trailer and knocked on the dented metal door.
Amy’s father came to the door, eyes bloodshot, breath stinking of stale alcohol. His factory had closed its doors and shipped operations off to some third-world country that supposedly needed the work more than we did. Glancing at the empty beer cans and teetering stacks of old pizza boxes behind him as he stood wobbly-legged in the doorway I couldn’t imagine a third-world country being any worse than that trailer.
“Amy!” he bellowed. He looked surprised when she didn’t reply. “Did she stay out with that guy she’s seeing?”
My stomach dropped, and I clutched the bent metal banister. “I don’t know. Do you know where he lives?”
“Up toward the Hill. Pretty good family—some money. Makes a big difference, money,” he grumbled.
“Really? I thought money didn’t matter. Not like love.”
Max was behind me, latching his arm around my waist and tugging gently. His words brushed by my ear, “I know where they are.”
Amy’s father swayed, squinting at Max. “Who’s he?”
“Just some guy,” Max muttered.
“No. Probably the hero du jour.” I stalked back to the convertible, Max trailing me.
“Hero’s a big word.”
“You’re a big guy. You can grow into it.”
He started the car. “So that’s her dad.”
“Yeah. They’ve got issues, right?”
“I’m not judging,” he said with a grimace. “Remember? Werewolf.”
“Good point. So how do you know where he l
ives?”
“I was almost there last night, before Pietr caught me.”
“The nose knows,” I said.
“Yeah.” Max punched the accelerator and peeled out, the convertible’s tires squealing and slinging gravel. “How can anyone think it’s okay to…”
“… hit a girl?”
“Hit anyone.”
I avoided mentioning his willingness to rearrange Marvin’s face. “I don’t know, Max. I really don’t know.”
Even in brooding silence, time evaporated with Max driving.
“You really like her, don’t you? Isn’t your interest in her a little … sudden?”
His brow lowered.
“Max…” I paused.
“Jessie.” He blew out a breath so hot the car’s windshield fogged a moment. He pawed it clear with the back of his hand and just shook his head. “You don’t know everthing, okay? You can’t. You’re not … omniscient.” He blinked, and I closed my gaping mouth. She’s hot,” he justified, but the words weren’t as flippant as usual. “Here.”
Topiary figures flanked a herringbone brick driveway just off a cul-de-sac. Max pulled in and rolled his window down to take a whiff. “This is it.” Ahead was a huge white house with a broad porch and fat white pillars. It looked like some misbegotten southern mansion had been reassembled in Junction to lord over the commoners.
“Nice looking, huh?” I asked.
“Looks like heaven. Wouldn’t know there’s a devil inside.”
I nodded. “You stay here, quiet and out of sight. I don’t want him thinking you two are messing around.”
“Yeah. And, Jessie, if you need me—”
“I’ll yell.”
I didn’t expect Marvin to live in such a huge house. And not on the Hill. Not direct neighbors, he still shared a neighborhood—a realm—with Sarah. And Macie, Jenny, and Derek. The Hill was the neighborhood in Junction, with houses that peered down on the rest of the town, raised above the rabble.
For a girl like Amy … No. The thought rephrased in my head. For a girl coming out of a situation like Amy’s, being on the Hill was huge. I had to remember that. “If you walk a mile in another’s shoes—” Mom said. Man, to have that sort of perspective without the pain that came with it …
With a swing of my hand the door’s big brass knocker announced my presence boldly with a harsh thump. I took a deep breath but was unprepared when the door swung open.