Free Savage Things (Chaos & Ruin Book 2) by Callie Hart Page B

heavy sliding door back into place behind us and locking it shut, and then I make my way into the living room, where I find Sloane sitting on the couch with her hands knotted together, her face as white as a sheet.  
    “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I growl. “What happened to waiting at home, getting some sleep?” I spin on Michael, ready to punch the traitor in the head. “And you? What the fuck were you thinking, letting her come here?”
    Michael arches an eyebrow at me, sighing. “You know your girlfriend better than anyone else, man. If you think there was any element of ‘allowing’ her to do something here, then you’re giving me far too much credit.”
    “You should have picked her the fuck up and forced her to go home,” I snarl.
    “I threatened it. Then Sloane helpfully pointed out what you’d do to me if I laid hands on her, and I decided to leave her to her own devices.”
    I have nothing to say to that. Fair enough, I would have torn him limb from limb if Sloane had been manhandled in any way. Still, though. Fucking unbelievable that he’d just let her waltz in and make herself comfortable on the couch, knowing what’s about to happen to this kid.  
    “You can’t be mad at Michael,” Sloane says. Her voice is cool, filled with ice water. She’s pissed at me—I can see it in her eyes. I don’t need to hear her say the words, but still she says them anyway. “You should never have kept me in the dark on this. I should have known about Lowell from the start.”
    “It could have been nothing,” I growl. “What would have been the point in worrying you?”  
    She glares at me with the intensity of a thousand suns. Not another word comes out of her mouth, but I can tell this matter is far from resolved.  
    “I can come back later if you like?” Mason says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. Smart ass.  
    I give him a look that makes the small smile slide right off his face. “Just sit the fuck down.”
    He obeys, sitting down opposite Sloane. He gives her a barely visible nod of the head. “So you guys know each other. I guess this explains why you were so frosty when I came back into the room earlier,” he says. “I had no idea. I’m really sorry, Dr. Romera.”
    Sloane clears her throat. She looks around the room, before she finally lets her gaze rest on the kid. “I had no idea you were training with Zeth, either. Tell us about Lowell. Why are you helping her? And what does she want to know?”  
    She’s asked the burning question we’ve been trying to figure out ever since I laid eyes on Lowell again. Sloane has also asked another question I probably wouldn’t have bothered with: what were Mason’s motives for helping her? See, this is the difference between a person like Sloane, a normal person, and a person like me. She cares about the why . She gives a shit about the reasoning behind someone’s actions. I don’t care about that. I only care about Mason’s betrayal, right alongside the consequences of that betrayal.  
    Mason rubs the back of his neck, shaking his head. “She knew about Millie. She said she was going to have her taken away if I didn’t help her. She wanted me to find out if Zeth ever went up into the mountains. One specific place. They found a body buried up there. Some dog walker’s Lab was going nuts, digging in the dirt. A nearby river flooded in all the rain we had a couple of weeks ago, and a body was unearthed. When forensics did their thing, they found a partial print that belonged to Zeth. That’s all I know.”
    My stomach muscles clench tight, as if I’ve just been sucker punched hard to the gut. What the fuck is he talking about? A body buried by a river in the mountains? A partial print? Of course, I know exactly what the fuck he’s talking about, but I don’t want to admit it to myself. This can’t be happening. Just fucking can’t . Less than a few months ago, we buried a body up there in the mountains, but we