“You want to talk?” Wes said.
He had arrived at the car about 30 minutes after I left. There was some sense in him enough to wait a decent amount of time before coming after me.
I stared out the window and ignored him. The buildings zoomed past and all I wanted to do was rip them out of my sight. But it was night and the world was disappearing anyway.
“What the hell was that Wes?” I replied.
He sighed and ran his hands through his hair from the corner of my vision.
“I was watching you and Holbrook and I decided you were having too much fun.”
“You were spying on me.”
He indicated left, moving out of the high way and into a side parking lot. Once he parked the car he turned to face me.
“Yes, I was,” he replied.
He wanted to talk? Fine, we’ll talk.
“Do you understand how dangerous that was? There isn’t supposed any links between us,” I said.
“Do you understand how dangerous it was setting up a meeting with both Ezra Fitz, Aria Montgomery and Gabriel Holbrook?” He retorted back. A frown slowly forming on his face his kept flicking to the rearview mirror.
I sighed and turned my head away, staring out of the window. “I didn’t plan-“
“No. You didn’t plan it,” He said, “But you let it happen. Do you even care about your goal anymore? Do you even remember holding a gun to Holbrook’s sister’s head because all I see you doing is staring at him and falling deeper and deeper into a hole that I can’t pull you out off.”
I stared out of the window. A pit of dread forming in my stomach.
“Can’t I just wish for a normal life?”
“You put a gun to his sisters head. What normal life can you get out of that? He can never love you Alice,” He said, with a sad note in his voice. “At least not the way I do.”
I turned to face him slowly, “Why do you always say you love me?”
He searched my eyes for a couple of minutes and then pulled the car back onto the road. His eyes hard turned rock hard. “We’re being followed.”
My eyes flicked briefly to the side view mirror to spot a black ute slowly creep itself back onto the highway. I guess it was then my eyes caught sight of who was driving it.
“Wesley. When did Holbrook leave the restaurant?”
He took his eyes off the road to look at me for a couple of moments. “Ten minutes after you. I made sure there was enough time between when you left and I left.”
The black ute moved out from behind us and into the lane next to it. Still a good distance behind.
My pocket started vibrating. I looked at Wesley whose eyes were now glued to the rear-view mirror and picked up the phone.
“Great timing,” I said sarcastically, putting the phone on loud speaker.
“Well thanks Alice, I do try my best,” Cece replied. “You have ten minutes until we literally start the OVERTHROW. Everything is set up. The A team is going down.”
I smacked my forehead. I can’t believe I forgot that Cece, Holden, Mona, Wes and I had planned the OVERTHROW assault tonight. I wasn’t a surprise, and neither was Cece, Mona and Wesley. But with us working together, tonight was the best night to stage who The B Team is. To overthrow the A Team and run this town ourselves.
“We’ve got a trailer,” Wes injectd, “I’m not sure how long it will take until we lose him.”
“Well get rid of them. All the computer programs have been set to 8:00 and there is no way we can back out of it now. Just. Get. Here. We’ll deal with whoever is trailing us later,” She replied.
“It’s Holbrook,” I said.
There was silence on the other side of the line.
“Alice, you are just going to have to orchestrate it from over the phone,” Mona said from the other side of the line.
I threw my hands up in the air in frustration but hid then again when I realised that Holbrook could spot them. “I can’t! It’s not possible to do it that way.”
The black ute was speeding up from the side lane.
“Alice, get down,” Wesley said.
I slid myself lower into the seat. Holbrook might not know that I’m in here. It’s best to keep it that way.
“Alice!” Cece yelled, “Just get rid of him! Think of something!”
I hung up on them in the next second. Wesley looked at me alarmed.
“His gaining in on us,” he said. “I don’t kno- what are you doing?”
My fingers were moving and it was the only thing I could think to do right now. That was, call him.
It rung a couple of seconds and then he picked it up. “Hello?”
I didn’t know what to say. A few seconds had passed.
“I know it’s you Alice,” he said.
Wesley was giving me the unhappiest expression in the world.
“ I’ll meet you,” I said. Was I even breathing?
He was quiet for a few minutes.
“I know” I said. “I know you want to talk.”
He replied, “And how do I know that you won’t just run away?”
Before I could even stop myself I said, “That’s not me, remember?”
Ouch. I could feel the burn sizzle from his side of the phone. The image of waking up and finding out that the boy you cared for had just left. Left neighbourhoods. Left forever.
An agonising silence followed. I could hear his slow breathing. “Fine. “
Wesley was staring at me, his brows furrowed. I pointed at the road and he just rolled his eyes.
“I’ll meet you at midnight at the clocktower, okay?” I said.
I could almost see him nodding. The way he always did when we used to talk to his mum on the phone like he thought she could see him.
“Tell your boyfriend he has a nice car,” he said and then the line went dead.
The black ute moved out from the side line and straight into a highway exit. In that second, Holbrook was gone.
And I was dreading seeing him again.