Every nerve ending buzzed, begging me not to send him what he needed to torch the site. To put an end to it just in case. I knew he wouldn’t look before I had a chance to explain, but the worry was still there in the back of my mind.

What if I told him and he saw me as Brandon had? A liar. A fake.

NightLocker: You know I won’t

NightLocker: You can trust me, Pixie

PixieBurn: I know

PixieBurn: Sorry for the cryptic

PixieBurn: Tonight.

NightLocker: I’ll be waiting

His words reassured me as I closed the chat box, but they weren’t enough to ease the guilt threatening to suffocate me. The email sat in my dock, glaring at me, begging for attention. Even after talking to Dean, I didn’t have a clue what to say.

Maybe tonight, after I told him everything, he’d help me figure it out. He had this calm about him that quieted my mind enough to think clearly.

Yes. Tonight. Dean would never think like Brandon. He was different. He was special.

And he loves you.

That truth helped give me the courage I needed to send him the darkest secret I’d ever kept, and the means to destroy it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Dean

A ding indicated Amber had uploaded the goods I’d need to help her with her contingency plan, but I didn’t dare check it. The temptation was there, but I resisted. She said we’d talk tonight and I believed her.

After five minutes I closed my laptop, ensuring she’d logged off and didn’t need me anymore.

What is she hiding?

I stretched my arms behind my head, rolling my neck. I’d already been coding for an hour before she popped up, but now my mind was working her riddle.

What could possibly be so bad she’d need to bring me in? And to torch the stuff.

Something itched the back of my mind—the wraith I’d been chasing. Ask Me Anything. The blog was under serious fire…enough that the person behind it might contemplate torching it…

No.

Amber couldn’t be behind it.

I’d asked her about it more than a month ago. She’d said…

My heart raced for a few beats, considering.

No. The person behind the blog knew stuff. More stuff than Amber did. Last night…that had been her first time, my first time. She couldn’t be behind it. This secret of hers had to be something else.

I sighed, wishing like hell the girls in my life weren’t dealing with such heavy issues, but surely Amber’s thing wasn’t as deep as Tessa’s.

Fuck me, if it is.

Hard enough dodging Tanner’s incessant requests for updates on my progress, now this?

Relax. I don’t even know what it is.