She jumped, then looked up. “Dane?”
“Later.” I started propelling her out of the room, but she looked over her shoulder. “Lena!”
I didn’t stop moving. “Beck and Noah will get her out.”
It felt like it took forever to get to the doors but it was probably less than a minute. Then we were spilling into the hall along with everyone else trying to get out of the dark, cramped room.
It was dark in the hall too. The whole building was down.
Jesus. I was no fan of the Hearthstone project but the town really did need some upgrades if a yanked cord on an ancient machine in one of the meeting rooms could take down the building's power.
Everyone else was heading for the doors, anxious to get outside. I hesitated, then guided Avery in the opposite direction, deeper into the building, my hand still on her arm.
“Stop!” She tried to pull away but I barely noticed, I was on a mission to get her away from the thundering crowd, at least until things calmed down. We were halfway down the hall when she finally yanked her arm free. “Stop it! Where are we going?”
I’d turned off my flashlight when I reached her in the meeting room, but there was just enough light spilling in from the streetlamps on the other side of the exit doors that I could make out the flash of her dark eyes, the perfect bow of her mouth.
“We’ll find another way out,” I said. “It’s too dangerous with so many people trying to get out the same way.”
I grabbed on to her arm and started moving again.
“I can walk without your giant paw cutting off my circulation,” she grumbled.
“I’m sure you can. You know your way around in here?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Then stop complaining and trust me.”
We wound our way past several offices — the town clerk, the planning commissioner, the mayor’s office — until we came to the two small courtrooms that acted as a backdrop to the minor infractions that usually occurred in Blackwell Hollow: dogs off-lead, unpaid parking tickets, the occasional display of graffiti.
“This way.”
I put the odds at fifty-fifty that the door to the first courtroom was locked, but the knob turned easily, and a few seconds later I was pushing Avery inside.
“Sugar!” Avery panted. “That was crazy.”
“What were you doing there anyway?” I asked, leaning against the closed door.
She lifted her chin. “I was just…” She stopped abruptly and narrowed her eyes. “What wereyoudoing there? You, Beck, and Noah?”
“I asked you first.”
“I asked you second,” she said.
“I don’t answer to you.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t answer to you either.”
I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. I’d never met someone who could be both so immature and so alluring at the same time. I mean, she refused to swear, she snuck around like a troublesome teenager, and I was starting to get the feeling she might be a bit of a brat.
Not my usual type.
But still I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“We were following you.”
Her eyes widened. “You werefollowingme?”