“Bats.” He looks at me quick and goes back to driving. “Please believe me. They might be pissed—they’re definitely going to be pissed—but they’ll help us. Tomorrow we’ll call your aunt and your sister and figure everything out from there.”

“I can’t go back with my parents,” he says, his eyes shining in the dashboard lights. He’s slowed to twenty miles per hour, and if I can just keep talking to him, maybe I can get him to stop.

“You won’t have to. I won’t let that happen.” He looks at me again, probably surprised by how intensely I said that. “Look, my mom will know what to do. Maybe she and Vera can even talk to your parents for you.”

“They’re mortal enemies,” he deadpans, like this night hasn’t been dramatic enough.

“Fine.” I try to laugh, but it comes out more like a huff. “Then they’ll call your aunt, and she can talk to your parents. Maybe you can even stay with her until you finish school?”

“You’re here, though.” He says it like it’s the most important thing. And I thought it was too, I did, but this feels so much bigger than anything I’ve ever had to deal with. Somehow, I don’t think grand theft auto with a boyfriend in crisis is what Mrs. Garavuso meant when she said I needed to live a little.

I tip my head toward him. “Michigan is a lot closer to Connecticut than Washington is.”

The car slows to ten miles per hour, and then five, and then stops. “Why are you like this?”

“Like what?”

“Why are you so nice to me?” His voice sounds small and kind of far away, like his body’s here but his head is not. “I cause you so much trouble.”

“Not really,” I say, acutely aware of the fact that we’re now completely stopped in the middle of a dark road. “I mean, tonight sucks.” I lace my fingers with his. “Which is why, right now, I need you to turn the car around. Please. You don’t have to trust them, but please, trust me.”

He stares out the windshield, out to where our headlights meet the darkness. The fingers of his other hand tap on the steering wheel. “I do.”

He takes a deep breath, driving across the lane and then shifting into reverse to do a three-point turn. For the first time tonight, I think things will be okay. Forty miles an hour toward home is a lot better than twenty miles per hour in the opposite direction, no matter what the outcome.

And that—that’s the exact moment when everything goes to hell.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Ridley