Read Abandon The Night for Free Online

Strangers, Ian Marck could also quite possibly be one of Zoë’s “other times.” The big Slavic-looking blonde and Raul, his father, had kidnapped Jade to fulfill a bounty for one of the Strangers, so he was already on the Resistance’s shit list—and when Quent learned that Zoë was acquainted with Ian, that had just bumped him up a few notches.
    “My friend, huh?” she repeated. The expression on her face gave him nothing, of course. She was just as practiced as he was at hiding his thoughts. That was probably how he’d managed to live eighteen years with Parris Fielding without being killed.
    So, he pressed, “Wasn’t he the guy you went to talk to at the festival last week?” After she’d been making eyes at Quent from across the room. Very promising eyes, full of blatant invitation.
    “You mean while you had your hands all over that blond chick’s ass?” Zoë returned coolly. “You looked pretty busy, plastered against her on the dance floor. Wonder how she felt about you eye-fucking someone else over her shoulder, genius.”
    “It was you I was looking for,” Quent said before he could think.
Fuck. Knobhead.
Then, to try to salvage the moment, he gave her a burning smile. “I figured you’d be hot to retrieve your arrow again.”
    Zoë looked at him and for a moment, he couldn’t read her expression. Then she smiled in a way that set his blood to boiling and surging, and reached down between them…to where he was already tightening and lifting in response. “Damn straight.”
    And the next thing he knew, the low light blotted out as she moved toward him, pushing him back onto the bed, her slender, calloused hands very busy.
    When he woke, she was gone.
    And so was the arrow.
    “I want to go back to Redlow,” Quent said, looking around at his companions: Wyatt, Elliott, Jade, Fence, Lou, Simon, and Sage—the usual suspects. The only person missing from their cartel was Theo Waxnicki, who’d declined to join them because he was in the throes of a computer project…and most likely because he didn’t particularly like to see Simon and Sage together. “Remington Truth might be gone, but she left in a hurry. We might be able to find something helpful she left behind.”
    Half-filled cups of coffee and tea littered the table, along with empty breakfast plates. The group sat in Lou’s favorite quiet corner of one of Envy’s communal restaurants—which was more like a cafeteria with one or two entrees each meal—that served most of the population. Since most of the living spaces or homes taken over by Envyites were simply hotel rooms, none of them had access to full kitchens. So through community service and coordinated scheduling, meals were provided in the restaurants to any resident of the city who regularly contributed to the community.
    Despite the fact that Quent’s body felt loose and sated from a very busy night, something ugly and heavy had settled in the pit of his belly along with the omelet he’d just eaten. He didn’t know what it was, and he had no intention of spending time trying to sort it out. There were other things to attend to.
    Like finding Remington Truth, and, more importantly, Fielding.
    Maybe after he hacked the crystal from his father’s body Quent would feel normal again. Although what the fuck
normal
would be for him now was a mystery.
    He’d been raised with limitless resources and the ability to fall back on anything from his name to his billions of inheritance. Now he was simply Quent. No skills, no resources, nothing to offer this stark, simple world where money and celebrity status meant nothing.
    Wyatt was nodding in agreement with Quent’s conclusion. He set his coffee cup down with a little clink. “I’m with you. I need something to do besides sit around here. We can take Dantès back with us. Maybe he’ll lead us to her.”
    Dantès was Remington Truth’s ferocious-looking dog, who had become attached to Wyatt when he figured out how to release