Every part of my body was shaking by the time I rounded the cars and spotted the glow of the bonfire. I hugged my arms close, but shudders racked my body.

Small clusters of kids hung out around the cars, laughing and having a good time. They were completely oblivious to me stumbling past them, didn’t know what’d happened on the highway.

“Ember!”

I turned at the sound of Hayden’s voice. He came out of the thick shadows surrounding the cornfield, the baseball hat sitting low on his forehead. I stared, unable to respond.

He grasped my arms. “Ember, where’ve you been? I saw you leave with Phoebe, but then she came back without you. Are you okay?”

“She left me in the woods.” My voice was hoarse, shaky. “I got lost.”

His grip tightened. “She did what?”

Suddenly, the whole incident with the car on the road wasn’t important anymore. I remembered what Phoebe had said before she disappeared. I pulled out of Hayden’s grasp. “Where is she? I need to talk to her.”

Hayden grabbed my arm again, stopping me. “What’s going on?”

“She said the car accident wasn’t an accident.” I wish I could read his expression. “I have to talk to her. Hayden, you don’t understand. I have to talk to her!”

He leaned in, the hat casting deep shadows across his cheeks and eyes. “No. We need to talk.”

Dread inched its way down my spine. “You know, don’t you?” My voice had dropped to a whisper. “Oh, God… you already know.”

Hayden studied me a moment, then his hand slid from my arm. Instead of letting me go, he threaded his fingers through mine. Even through the gloves, I could feel their warmth. “I don’t know how Phoebe knew or why she said it like that.”

I tried to pull my hand free, but his grip tightened. “Hayden…?”

Approaching footsteps and high-pitched laughter cut through the night. Without saying a word, Hayden pulled me toward the spot where we’d parked. “What are we doing?”

“We’re going where we can talk in private.”

I dug in my feet. “I want to talk now.”

Hayden stopped, his hand squeezed my gently. “I know this is important to you, but I don’t want to stand out here in the open and talk about it.” He lowered his voice. “We need to go somewhere private. Just trust me, Ember. You’re not going to want to be around people… after this.”

“All right,” I whispered, “but I don’t want to go back to the house.”

“Why? It’s the safest place to talk about this.”

I thought about the car. It had been too dark to tell, but it could’ve been one of the Porsches. “I don’t think so.”

Hayden made an exasperated sound. “Okay. There’s another place. We can go to the cabin.”