Kissed by Claw and Fang novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Impound

Juniper walks to the impound yard with $41, proves the tow order was forged by a trustee, and finds her cut healed and her eyes ringed in gold.

The impound yard was three miles away, and I walked it in the dark.

I knew where it was because the campus sign at the lot entrance listed it in tiny print.

My boots were wet by the first mile.

I kept my right hand tucked inside my coat, with Rhys's bandana still wrapped around it, and tried to do the math.

Forty-one dollars.

Tow fees in this county were nearly two hundred, and my car had been gone since evening.

I did the math twice anyway.

The yard was a chain-link pen under floodlights, with a trailer office in the middle.

A man in a green hoodie sat behind scratched glass, eating chips out of the bag.

"Gray Honda," I said. "Tagged from Wintermere lot C."

He clicked through a screen without looking up.

"One eighty-five," he said. "Cash or card."

"I'd like to see the paperwork first."

He sighed and slid a pink carbon copy under the glass.

I read it slowly.

It said my car had been abandoned in lot C for seventy-two hours in violation of campus policy.

It said it was removed at the written request of a member of the Board of Trustees.

The signature at the bottom was a long, looping scrawl that said Sutton.

Below it was a printed time: 9:40 p.m.

My stomach turned over.

"What time did the truck bring my car in?" I asked.

"Don't know," the man said, shoveling chips. "Why?"

"Because it's on your screen," I said, "and I can read it upside down."

He glanced at the monitor and went still.

The log line said the Honda had come through the gate at 8:15 p.m.

"The order isn't signed until 9:40," I said. "You took my car an hour and a half before anyone told you to."

"Lady, that's just how the system stamps it."

"Then your system says you towed it with no authorization," I said. "And it says someone signed after, to cover it."

He put the chips down.

"I walked here from Wintermere," I said. "I get off a dish line at two."

"That car was never abandoned," I said. "I sleep in it, and I moved it in and out of lot C every day this week."

The man looked at me for a long moment.

Then he looked at the pink paper and the Sutton signature, and his face did something tired and nervous.

"Trustees," he muttered. "They're all the same."

"My friend at the Dean's office is going to see this tomorrow," I said, which was not true.

"Hang on," he said.

He got up, went into the back, and came out with a key on a green plastic tag.

"No fee," he said. "Don't call anybody. I could lose my license."

"Thank you," I said.

I meant it more than he knew.

Outside, I was halfway across the gravel to the Honda when headlights swung across the fence.

A green pickup came to a stop with its engine still running.

Rhys got out so quickly that the door was still swinging.

"Pengelly," he said. "I looked all over for you. Larissa said you'd gone out."

"Larissa has a big mouth," I said.

"She really does," Rhys said, and smiled, and then looked at the key in my hand. "You got it?"

"I got it."

"Free?"

"Free."

He stared at me, and then laughed out loud, a short, delighted bark that echoed off the fence.

"I'll drive you back," he said. "I'll take the truck, you take the Honda, we'll caravan."

"I'm fine."

"It's three in the morning."

"I've been up past three for years," I said.

There was a sound at the gate, soft as a sleeve brushing a wall.

Lucian Ashgrave stood just inside the fence, in the one patch of dark between two floodlights.

I had not heard a car.

I had not heard footsteps.

"The road is icy," he said. "Follow me. I'll pull ahead."

"I'm not following anyone," I said. "I drove in snow before either of you were in a school."

"Technically I was already in school," Rhys said.

Lucian said nothing.

He looked at Rhys with such pure flat dislike that it was almost funny.

Rhys looked back, still smiling, but his hands had curled into loose fists.

"Boys," I said. "Go home."

I climbed into the Honda, pulled the door shut, and turned the key.

The engine caught on the third try.

I rolled down the window two inches.

"Thank you for the bandana," I said to Rhys. "And for coming."

"Anytime," he said, and he sounded like he meant it all the way down.

"Goodnight, Mr. Ashgrave," I said.

Lucian inclined his head.

I drove out onto the road, and neither of them followed.

At the first stop sign, I peeled the red bandana off my palm to rewrap it.

The cut was gone.

There was no scab, no seam, and no scar.

The skin was smooth and a little pink.

I stared at it.

Then I flipped the sun visor down and looked in the little mirror.

My eyes were gray, as they had always been.

Around the edge of each pupil, thin and bright as a coin, was a ring of gold.

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