Page 85 of Sticks and Stones (Shadow Valley U)
“Don’t you dare shut me out.”
Another cry rips from me, and it pisses me off. I grip the sheets and squeeze my eyes shut. “I hate him. Why can’t he just fucking let me go?”
“He won’t touch you.”
“You don’t know him!” I shout. I meet Stone’s angry brow and steely jaw. “You have no fucking idea what he is capable of.”
“No, baby,” Stone growls. “You have no idea whatI’mcapable of. Especially when it comes to you.”
I listen to his words, but I don’t believe them. Hatred runs deeper than love, and it’s obvious that Stone no longer hates me. And if it wasn’t clear in my childhood, it is now. My father doesn’t have a loving bone in his fucking body.
I’m not safe, even with him in prison.
CHAPTER30
STONE
“What doyou know about a Mary-Lou Anderson?”
Evan flinches.
Flinches.
“What?” I demand, dropping into the seat across from him.
Wren is with Taylor, on her way to campus for one of her ungodly science classes.
My best friend frowns. “Look, man, I appreciate you wanting to do what’s best for Wren. Protect her and all that shit. But rooting around in her past isn’t going to endear her to you—”
“I know she’s the social worker,” I interrupt. “And she called Wren last night.”
Evan frowns. “Why?”
I reach across the table and close his textbook for him. “She was assaulted.”
“Holy—”
“It gets worse,” I interrupt. “She was assaulted in her office as someone was going through it. And when the cops showed up, they discovered one thing missing—Wren’s file.”
He blows out a breath. “Fucking hell.”
“We’ve got zero leads,” I hiss. “We’ve got nothing on the cameras. No more break-ins, or people lurking around Wren, or—”
“Stop.” He flattens his hands to the table. “You’re going to freak yourself out if you keep going like this.”
“I am freaked out.” Something I’d never fucking admit to Wren, but it’s true. There’s a chill lodged in my bones, and I can’t shake it no matter how many precautions I take. “So just tell me what I need to know about this social worker.”
Over the next hour, Evan fills me in on every interaction he’s had with the social worker, every story Wren’s told him over the years. And it slowly dawns on me—because I’m apparently a fucking idiot—that Evan has a whole-ass relationship with Wren that I’ve never wanted to know about.
I mean, obviously she lived in his house. He cares about her. But he alsoknowsher.
God, I hate the jealousy that twists my gut.
But the more he talks, the more I recognize that Wren’s social worker was a saving grace in her life. Swooping in whenever things with her dad got particularly sticky, figuring out her next safe haven. Which was almost always Evan’s family.
“What could’ve been in the file that her dad would want?”
He blinks at me.