His sharp words stilled my struggles, and I raised my head to look back the direction we'd come. Blue-eyes and the new guy—pretty Gray-eyes—were neck deep in a brutal fistfight with three leather jacket–wearing thugs. Fists flew, blood sprayed, and one of the leather-jacketed assholes pulled a knife from somewhere before Green-eyes abruptly changed directions, cutting them off from view.
"Get on," he ordered, dropping me back to my feet beside a motorcycle. It was a sleek beast, and my stomach flipped with excitement. He swung his leg over, then gave me a look that clearly said to hurry the hell up.
I hesitated a second, but when the other two guys came sprinting toward us, I made a snap decision. They'd kept me safe so far, so... fuck it.
My ass hit the seat behind Green-eyes a split second before he revved the engine, and I instinctively wrapped my arms around his waist. Moments later we peeled out of the amusement park and onto the road with the other guys on their own darkly gleaming motorcycles beside us.
I only had a few moments to enjoy the ride, though, before Blue-eyes pulled off the road, indicating we all do the same. He stopped his bike with just his feet on the ground, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and read a message.
Neither of the other guys spoke, just waited patiently while he read the message, then scowled at me.
"What?" I demanded, feeling edgy at being stared at.
His eyes narrowed, and he looked up the road in the direction we'd been heading, clearly thinking.
After a moment, Green-eyes must have felt the awkwardness, too. "What do you want to do?" he asked his friend, who swung his attention back to me again.
"Get off," he ordered me. "Wait here; someone will be along to drive you home in a minute."
Anger and indignation flared up in me. "Fuck you," I spat at him. "I'm not a two-year-old. I can sort myself out if you've got better shit to do."
He glared back at me like I was indeed a petulant child. "We do. Now get off the bike; your ride will be here in"—he checked his phone again—"one minute. Let's go."
Furious, I slid off the back of the bike and tugged my minidress back down to cover at least some of my vagina. "I don't need your ride, I can sort one out myself. Thanks for fucking nothing."
Blue-eyes rolled his... uh... blue eyes and revved his bike. "Make smart choices, Madison Kate Danvers." With that, he took off. Back in the direction we'd come. Back toward West Shadow Grove.
"I don't like this," Green-eyes said to Gray-eyes.
The handsome brunet just shrugged, but his frown said he agreed. "He said someone's picking her up; I believe him. Come on, bro; shit must be going down."
Green-eyes just grunted, then gave me a regretful look. "Sorry princess. Get home safe, okay?"
I scowled and said nothing, folding my arms over my chest as the two of them followed their dickish friend.
"Fuck their ride," I muttered to myself once they were gone. "I'm perfectly capable of Ubering home."
Ugh. Except Bree had my phone in her bag.
My panic over how to get home was short-lived, though, as right on cue my "ride" turned up. With lights and sirens and everything.
"Hey, I guess you're my ride home?" I asked the police officer who stepped out of the cruiser. I hadn’t known what to expect when Blue-eyes said he had it taken care of, but this wasn't it.
The officer's partner exited the vehicle, too, and both approached me with a confusing degree of caution.
"Miss, did you just come from the Laughing Clown Amusement Park?" the first officer asked, and I frowned.
"Uh, yeah? I thought..." I trailed off. Saying that I thought they'd been sent to get me by a nameless, beautiful man who'd saved me from a ruthless gang member sounded... stupid.
"Miss, we're going to need you to come with us," the officer stated, and I nodded. "But first, we just need to check your pockets, okay?"
Confused, I nodded. I'd never dealt with police before, not like this, so I had no idea if this was standard procedure. I was at least eighty percent sure they weren’t allowed to search me without probable cause, but I was in too much shock to protest.
I raised my arms, allowing the second officer to check my pockets. Or… the pockets of Green-eye's hoodie, seeing as my mini-dress couldn’t hide a tic-tac it was so tight. His hands lingered longer than they should have, and the wolfish gleam in the first officer's eyes made me all kinds of uneasy.
"Miss, what is this?" the second officer, the handsy one, asked. He held up a single key on a labeled keyring.
I shook my head. "I have no idea. Sorry, it's not my hoodie."
Both officers eyed me with suspicion, and the one holding the key shined his torch on the keyring, then grunted a cold laugh.
"Well, would you look at that," he murmured, handing it to his colleague with a smile. "Seems we’ve found how they all accessed the park tonight. A Laughing Clown Amusement Park master key."
Blood drained from my face, and dread pooled in my belly. "That's not mine," I quickly told them. "Like I said, this isn't my hoodie."
The first officer smiled a smug grin. "Sure it's not. Don't suppose you have a name before we arrest you?"
I gaped at him. "Arrest—What? No, that's not my key; I didn't do anything!" I was panicking now, but the cops looked unimpressed.
"Miss, just tell us your name," the second one suggested, sounding bored even while he unhooked handcuffs from his belt and clipped them over my wrists.
Shock turned me numb. "M-Madison Kate," I said in a hoarse voice. "Madison Kate Danvers."
One cop froze while the other smiled a weird, creepy kind of smile. I had to assume it was because of the power my surname held. Little did I expect the next thing they told me.
"That would be hard," the first cop said, "seeing as Madison Kate Danvers was just murdered inside The Laughing Clown tonight."
3
Eleven months later…
The luggage carousel chugged and creaked as it rotated in front of me, and I rubbed my tired eyes with a weary hand. I'd been standing there for ages, so my suitcase was probably going to be the last one off. Fantastic.
I reached my arms over my head and stretched, the kinks in my spine protesting. It had been a long flight back to Shadow Grove, and in economy class no less. I shouldn't have been surprised at the low cost ticket—considering my father had all but disowned me a year earlier—but when I'd found my assigned seat crammed between two large, sweaty, old women, I'd had to swallow a lump of bitterness.
It'd been eight months since I'd left the only home I'd ever known. Eleven months since I'd been charged with a slew of offenses and sentenced for crimes I'd never committed.
Anger curled in my belly, and my lips tightened. Fury had been my constant companion over the time I'd spent living with a distant aunt in a converted Cambodian monastery.
Not that I regretted the time I'd had with her or the work we'd done together for the orphanages there. My father had decided it was better for his public image if I suffered the consequences of my accused actions and had refused to pay my bail. The one grace he’d granted me was that he’d paid off enough officials that my trial was held swiftly and I didn’t have to rot in prison for years on end. So, after three months in holding at the Shadow Grove county jail while my trial was conducted, it had actually been a welcome relief to be sent halfway across the world and away from the train wreck that was my life.