She looked away.
“Tell me you believe me,” I demanded, knowing damn well she didn’t. She wouldn’t lie either. Not now. Not about this. If I could get her to speak, she’d tell me I was crazy. She might even say it wasn’t what she wanted. I longed for her to hand me every argument, just so I could dispute each one.
What she said, though, was the last thing I expected.
Her eyes bored into mine. “I don’t need you, Edge. I know you think I do, but I don’t. Earlier, when you came into the bedroom and I told you I was going to work…a few minutes before that, I woke up. Since the day I was arrested, I’d let myself escape into a trance. It allowed me to keep breathing, keep putting one foot in front of the other, without looking too far into the future.”
She laughed. “I even fantasized that you’d show up and get me out of jail. My fantasy did not involve you posting bail, though, it was more that you broke me out.”
I laughed too, loving the lines etched into her face when she smiled.
“My point is, you don’t have to save me, Edge. I’m capable of saving myself.”
Was that what I really wanted deep down? Was it just about saving her? I didn’t think it was, but it was significant enough of a thought to consider.
“I need you to not do this for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to be an active participant in every facet of my life. It’s the only way I can make it through this and keep the most important parts of myself intact.”
“Explain so I understand better.”
“I need to be the one who figures out who really killed Possum.”
I didn’t respond right away, because I didn’t know how. I couldn’t imagine a way to make that happen. Even I didn’t plan to find the killer myself. I didn’t expect it would take long either. In fact, if he’d been able to make contact with Smoke, Rile might already have a name.
“I want you to tell me what’s going on, Edge. Everything. I don’t want you to hold back a single detail.”
I rolled from her body and sat up, resting against the bed’s headboard. She sat up too and folded her legs, giving me a direct view of her glistening pussy.
“Sweetness,” I murmured, unable to tear my eyes away.
“Oh.” She unfolded her legs, pressed them together, and stretched them out in front of her. I wished I hadn’t spoken, but even if I hadn’t, she would’ve noticed I wasn’t looking where I should be. Even now, I couldn’t. Her pebbled nipples were calling out for my mouth to feast on them.
“Edge!”
I averted my eyes, but like beacons, her perfect tits recaptured my gaze.
“It isn’t any easier for me, you know.”
When I looked up, she was looking directly at my quickly hardening cock. “Maybe we should put some clothes on.” I reached for my boxer briefs and pulled them on. When I grabbed my shirt, she took it out of my hands and put it over her head.
Her cheeks pinkened. “I like looking at the rest of you.”
“Are you sure you can resist?” I couldn’t help but flex my muscles.
“I’ll let you know if it becomes too much for me.”
She crossed her legs again.
“You must wear knickers, sweetness. Otherwise, there is no way in the world I can look anywhere else.”
She smirked, rose from the bed, and was back a minute later. When she sat cross-legged again, I could see the ones she chose were pink. I wasn’t sure I’d fare much better with knickers. The idea of ripping them from her body with my teeth had my cock equally as hard as seeing her pussy had done. I grabbed the throw and tossed it over her lap. “I’m sorry, sweetness, but I can’t concentrate if your legs are open like that.”
She smirked again, which I adored. It was dawning on me that there was a lot I adored about this woman.
Suddenly, it was like a switch inside her had turned off. Instead of playful and flirty, she looked as though she was preparing for a kill.
“There are things I need to tell you, Edge.”
“I need you to tell me the truth, Rebel. All of it.”
“I will. I promise.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you remember when Hammer asked if I wanted to kill Possum?”
I did. In fact, it was something that lingered in the back of my mind. “Yes,” I answered.
“He asked me what my motive was, and I told him that Possum killed my mother.”
I nodded, almost afraid to speak. In fact, I found myself struggling to get enough air in my lungs.
“I also told you my mother was a meth addict.”
Again, I nodded.
“For the first five years of my life, my mother and I both lived with my grandparents. I don’t remember much from that time. We were on our own for a while, she and my grandparents were on the outs. I don’t know why, but I can guess. Anyway, when I was eleven, I took off and went back to my grandparents’ house.” Rebel took a deep breath. “She didn’t come after me. Part of me thought she would, I guess. In the end, it was for the best, even though that was hard for me to understand at the time.”
I tried to picture an eleven-year-old Rebel. I’d be willing to bet she was the quintessential tomboy.
“Between the time we originally moved out of my grandparents’ house until the time I took off and went back, my mom left me alone a lot. I learned to fend for myself. It was up to me to get myself up and to school, up to me to try to find something to eat.
“That’s when I met Blanca. She and I became best friends, and she began to notice that I never had anything to eat at lunch. She must’ve told Tee-Tee, because soon after that, Blanca started bringing two sandwiches instead of one, two bags of chips. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.”
I reached over and held her hand. She took it as if it were a lifeline.
“Fast forward to me graduating from high school. My mom showed up, surprisingly. By then it was just me and my granddaddy. My grandma died not long after I moved in with them. Cancer.”
She blinked at tears that threatened to spill over her cheeks. The pain of losing her grandmother obviously sat very close to the surface of her emotions.
“My mom looked good. Better than I remembered her ever looking. Later, I learned that my grandfather had managed to get her into rehab.”
Rebel took a deep breath. “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
“You don’t have to do this, sweetness. I’m willing to listen, and I want to know more about your life, but I don’t want you to feel forced to tell me things you’re not ready to talk about.”
“I need to do this, Edge. It’s already eating away at me. If I don’t tell you the whole story, I think it might consume me.”
21
Rebel
I got up from the bed and grabbed the photo of my mom and me that had been taken right after my high school graduation.
“We had four, almost five, great years. Mom was clean, and I got to know her. Blanca died when we were both seventeen. It was the same age my mother was when she started using. I always found that significant somehow. My mom had long stretches where she was clean, like when she was pregnant with me.”
I looked into Edge’s eyes, wondering what he must be thinking about me. He was from England; I was the illegitimate daughter of a meth-head. And I hadn’t even gotten to the bad part of the story yet. Should I even continue?
I already knew the answer to my own question. I had to. Even if he wanted nothing to do with me after I told him, what I’d said about it eating me alive, I meant. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“The night you pulled Possum off of me…it was no accident that I was with him.”
That didn’t come out right, but it was accurate enough.
Edge looked into my eyes and squeezed my hand. “Tell me the rest of the story, Rebel.”
“I was waitressing at the Barton Creek Diner. So was my mom. She’d actually gotten me the job. We were living together in the apartment where I
lived before I was arrested.”
His gaze stayed steady on mine; it was unnerving.
“I came home from work one night. It was late, almost midnight. Mom had the night off. I parked in the same place I always did, where we found Susan the day you got me out of jail.”
He nodded but didn’t press me even once to hurry it up.
“As I walked up to the building, there was a man coming out. There was something about him, like I could feel the evil coming off of him in waves. There wasn’t much light, but as we passed each other, our eyes met. I’ll never forget his. They were almost all black, hardly any white around his pupils at all. I remember feeling sick to my stomach. I just knew something was wrong. I raced up the stairs and into our apartment.”
I let go of Edge’s hand and wrapped my arms around my waist, feeling just as sick as I did that night.
“Do you need to take a break?”
I shook my head. “Let me get this part out.”
“Go ahead.”
“I burst into the apartment and didn’t see my mom anywhere and then noticed the bathroom door was closed. I called out to her, and as soon as she answered, I knew she was high. The door was locked, and I pounded on it, yelling for her to open it.”
I covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t tell him the rest. I’d said it out loud only once in my life, and that had been too much for me.
“Did your mum overdose, Rebel?” he asked, perhaps sensing I couldn’t go on.
“Yes.” There was more to the story; what had happened between the time I pounded on the bathroom door and less than an hour later, when I found her. Most of it, I didn’t remember. “He gave her the drugs.”
Edge nodded again. “That is a logical assumption.”
I shook my head as a torrent of tears spilled onto my cheeks. “He admitted it. That night, in the parking lot. He laughed about it.”
Edge lay back on the bed, against the pillows, and pulled me into his arms. I rested my head against his beating heart, wishing I knew what he was thinking but, at the same time, dreading it.
“Let me see if I can piece the rest of this together.”
I couldn’t have spoken even if I wanted to. I was crying too hard.
“Possum showed up at the Long Branch. Did he recognize you?”
I shook my head.
“Your intention was to kill him, but it didn’t go as planned.”
I was stunned at how one simple sentence conveyed exactly what happened that night.
“I lured him out there. I had a gun, but I wasn’t strong enough to fight him once he realized what was about to happen. He knocked the gun away and tried to rape me instead.”
Edge’s eyes bored into mine. I so wanted to know what he was thinking. What he said next was not at all what I thought he would.
“Earlier, you said you wanted to know what was happening with finding Possum’s killer.”
“I do.”
He ran his fingers through my hair. “Some of what I have to tell you, might be difficult to hear.”
“I have to know, Edge.”
22
Edge
I scrubbed my face with my hand. This was a first for me. I would never have been tempted to talk about a job outside of the team, but as she’d said, this was her life. I was still reeling from her admission that she’d intended to kill Possum. I couldn’t let myself think about how close she’d come to death that night. Instead of just killing her, Possum had decided to rape her first. When I came along, I’d actually saved her life.
I took a deep breath. “As you know, Possum was connected to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.”
Rebel nodded.
“What you might not know is he had prior rape arrests. Evidently, he was in trouble with the Aryan Nation, the parent organization, because of it.”
I watched as Rebel processed what I was telling her.
“We believe that his arrest the night of your attempted rape, triggered a hit. You, Steel, and I played into the setup. I’d even go so far as to say that someone made sure Possum not only got out of jail two days later, but showed up at the Branch the night he did.”
“They set it up so I’d be the one to take the fall for his murder?”
“That’s right.”
“If you find Possum’s real killer, what does that mean for me?”
“First, it means you’re exonerated. The second part is more difficult.”
“Second part?”
“According to the sheriff, Possum had a following, and they’re not happy about his death. Since they believe the hit came down either from the leadership of the ABT or from the Nation, there’s talk of them breaking off.”
Rebel turned her head so I could see her face. She was ghostly pale. “They blame me.”
I nodded. “It was inevitable, in my opinion. Possum was a serial rapist.”
“But it was me that got him arrested.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Fuck.” Rebel sat up first and then stood. “Finding Possum’s killer isn’t my biggest problem, is it?”
“Given we have someone on the inside of the Aryan Nation, we may soon have that answer. What our team is referring to as the second objective, may not be.”
“What is it?”
“Neither ABT nor AN is going to be happy when they learn of this break-off group. Our hope is to identify them and let their own organization handle it from there.”
“Kill them?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
She sat back down on the bed. “You said your hope is to identify who the break-off group is.”
“That’s right.”
“How? I mean, how would you go about doing that?”
“A team will go undercover.”
“Into the ABT?”
“That’s right.” Why was she asking? Something told me I wasn’t going to want to know.
“Who are they?”
A question I never would’ve considered answering if asked by any other “civilian.”
“Two of our best. Me and Casper.”
“You?”
I nodded.
“Why can’t this Casper go in alone?”
“We’ll go in as a couple.” When she raised her brows, I added, “Casper is a woman.”
“I want to do it.”
“Do what?”
“I want to be the person who goes in with you.”
There were two reasons that wouldn’t work. First, she had absolutely no training. More importantly, the ABT knew who she was.
“They’ll know who you are the minute you walk in the door.”
“Right.” She slowly closed her eyes and then reopened them. “I want to meet her.”
Her statement confused me. “Casper?”
Rebel nodded.
“Now or after it’s over?”
“Now.”
“Not possible.”
“Then, I’ll do it my way.” Rebel stood and walked out of the room, leaving me in stunned silence. What in the bloody hell did that mean?
23
Rebel
I expected Edge to join me in the kitchen where I was pacing, but after several minutes, he still hadn’t come out of the bedroom. Finally, when he did, it looked as though he was ending a call.
His eyes pierced mine as he stalked toward me. “I don’t understand why you want to meet Casper, but I’m willing to make a deal with you.”
“What?”
“You want to meet her? You can under one condition.”
“Like I said, what?”
“You tell me the truth about what went on today. Not just me, the rest of the team too.”
“Okay.”
“The truth, Rebel. All of it.”
“I just said okay.”
Edge walked outside and sat in a chair on the patio, I was unsure whether I should follow. Eventually, I did. “Are you angry?”
“Oh, yeah. Bloody mad as hell.”
“Then, why do it
?”
“I told you before. I want to be a part of your life.”
“You could’ve said no.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t. This is me showing you that when I say I want to be part of your life, I mean it.”
“You hardly know me.”
For the first time since I came outside, he looked at me. “Is that really the way you feel? That we hardly know each other?”
I shrugged. “It hasn’t even been a week, Edge.”
“That’s irrelevant.” When I rolled my eyes, he glared at me. “Don’t do that.”
“Roll my eyes?”
“Make light of what I’m saying to you just because you’re insecure.” He looked back out into the darkness, and I turned to leave. Before I crossed over the threshold, Edge spoke again.
“Go ahead, Rebel. Go inside. Be angry with me. When you’re over it, I’ll still be here.”
“You don’t know me as well as you think.”
“Don’t I?” He stood and walked inside; I followed.
“If you knew me like you think you do, you’d understand why I have to do this.”
He shook his head. “And if you stopped thinking only of yourself for a moment, you’d see that it’s because I do know you that I agreed to something I am fundamentally opposed to.”
When he walked into the room with all the computer monitors and closed the door, I went into the bedroom and grabbed my denim jacket. There was something about wearing my own damn clothes that made me feel like…myself.
Fuck him for saying I was insecure. He had no clue what my life had been like. My mother chose meth over me, and my grandmother died less than a year after I moved in with her and my grandfather, who did the best he could, but he didn’t know dick about raising a girl like me. He sure as hell didn’t know anything about discipline. The worst thing he ever said to me was that he was disappointed in me. In a way, that worked.
Edge and I were different. While I didn’t know much, other than that he was from England, the way he spoke and carried himself made it evident he was in a different class. I guessed his parents were rich. It was probably the reason he didn’t care about money. The only time someone cared about money was when they didn’t have it. I’d admitted he was out of my league. Just because I was smart enough to realize it, didn’t mean I was insecure. Did it?
Edged (The Invincibles Book 2) Page 11