out.” She smirked.
Kristen summoned her love of Dune to stop herself from pulling his sister’s dry “before” hair out of her scalp.
The crunch of wheels on gravel sounded from the distance.
“Look, the guards,” Jax gasped, pointing his skull-ringed index figure at a black SUV.
Kristen’s heart started rattling around in her chest, but she took a deep, calming breath, flipped her watch to the LCD side, and set the timer. If she gave the cops four minutes to pass, they’d still have nine minutes to get the job done and six more for travel.
“Shhh. We’re fine,” Kristen whisper-hissed. According to the plan, it was totally doable.
They sat in total silence with nothing but the distant
whoosh
of passing cars and the sound of their heartbeats to keep them entertained.
“Let’s go,” Kristen said once the guards had passed. She lifted her heavy pack with a grunt. Without a word, Dune took it and strapped it to his back, like it was made of weightless fairy dust. Free of weight and full of love, Kristen led the way toward the club’s PRIVATE PROPERTY sign with the swift sprint of a seasoned soccer captain.
They all managed to scale the fence without a problem, except Ripple, who was faux-struggling, obviously hoping Jax would help her. But there was no time for games.
“Skye scales the fence into GAS all the time. It’s totally alpha,” Kristen whispered after landing on the other side. And before she knew it, Ripple was by her side.
As she led the way to the shed, the bottoms of Kristen’s feet throbbed from stepping on the chain link in her flats. But she didn’t care.
Love was supposed to hurt.
Kristen’s WC skeleton key (thank you, Einstein!) unlocked the shed door and earned her a round of supportive back pats from the boys. If happiness were bricks and stones, she’d have been the Great Wall of China.
The giant silver water tank was in the middle of the shed, humming and bubbling just like the WC had said it would be. But no one had warned her about the skunk smell, which for some reason she found embarrassing, even though she had nothing to do with it.
The gleaming sprinkler valves jetted out of the tank as if begging to be turned—begging to be used in a way they had never been used before. Begging to see what they were truly made of. And Kristen winked at them, as though they were old friends who, after all these years, still had everything in common.
“Okay, everyone grab a dial and I’ll—”
“You gotta get outta here!” a girl panted behind them.
Everyone turned to find Skye standing in the doorway, the full moon illuminating her pewter metallic bikini as if moonlight came free with purchase. A tangle of jewel-toned gauze scarves were tied around her long neck, drawing attention to her bone-deep tan and white blond curls. Her abs were more chiseled than Ashlee Simpson’s nose. She looked annoyingly airbrushed.
Kristen’s insides were jumping up and down shouting,
Whyyyy meeeeee?
But her thick skin kept the others from hearing it.
“Huh?” Jax stared at her shiny B-cups, looking slightly dazed.
“I was about to go for my midnight swim when I heard the guards on their walkie-talkies. You guys were spotted on the security cameras. They’re on their way!”
“What cameras?” Kristen challenged. The blueprints never showed any. . . .
Ripple nervously chewed the gloss off her lower lip as she discreetly slid her cell phone into the front pocket of her denim Roxy minidress.
“Do you want to obsess over cameras, or do you want me to get you out of here?”
“How awesome are you?” Dune asked Skye, dropping Kristen’s backpack in a corner.
“We can talk about
me
later,” Skye said in a totally self-obsessed serious way. “Follow me.”
The guys seemed more than happy to run behind Skye—after all, it was a free invitation to watch her dancer’s butt in a metallic bikini for fifty yards without being called out on it. Kristen, however, chose to speed-walk
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