The stone in her gut got even heavier. Because maybe the police would tell her they’d found his vehicle down a ravine or in a gorge. Just because he wasn’t in the hospital didn’t mean he wasn’t hurt. It could be that he just hadn’t been spotted. The weather would turn his black car all but invisible if he’d gone off the road along the way.

Eyes gritty and bile in the back of her throat, she was staring at the ceiling when her phone beeped at four in the morning. Snatching it off the bed stand, she sobbed out a breath when she saw the message was from her dad.

It read: Sorry, baby girl. Got busy with my mates. All good here. Back when I’m back. Love ya.

Cheeks hot, her eyes afire, she dropped her phone onto the designer white-on-white duvet he’d bought her with his last gambling winnings. On the ceiling, shadows prowled in the light thrown by her phone screen before it went black. As it did so, something inside her snapped in two.

“No more,” she whispered. “No more.”

From now on, she wouldn’t worry over her father. She’d be zen. She’d go running. She’d learn a new language. She’d call Veni or Ísa to chat. Hell, she’d even call the Dragon and pretend she wanted to pick Jacqueline’s brain about an economics project for school.

No matter what it took, she’d create new habits to deal with her anxiety when her father vanished on her—until she had no anxiety at all.

“I. Am. Done.”

Tonight was the last time she would lie awake worrying over Clive.

1

KNIGHT IN GLITTER EYE SHADOW AND SHINING TITANIUM

Catie narrowed her eyes when she saw Danny stumble against the bar inside the thumping Dunedin club. If there was one thing she knew about her number one nemesis, it was that he was about as clean-cut as they came—especially when he was representing his team.

Oh, he knew how to party, but he kept it strictly to the off-season—and even then indulged only rarely. Danny was too committed to his sporting career to risk damaging either his body or his reputation. He certainly wasn’t one to get stumbling drunk in public. Which was why, though she and Danny had an avoid-ignore-or-irritate relationship most of the time, she got up off her chair and headed toward him.

She heard her friends calling after her, turned to say, “I’m checking something out.”

“Someone more like it!” Alina giggled, raising her glass.

The others—including Catie’s best friend, Veni—cheered Catie on.