Caged (Caged series Book 1)

by Destiny Hawkins

  I laughed, “Only a little.” I looked into her beautiful blue eyes and thought back to what I was saying to her before. From the look on her face, I could tell that she was thinking about it too. I held my stomach and smiled.

  “What is it?” She asked.

  “Nothing, I don’t feel butterflies for once...” I looked down then back at her. “You said that this would be over soon.”

  “I did,” She nodded.

  “I’m glad you were right. Now I can just focus more on...” I looked into her eyes again, “I can focus more on you. Us, maybe?” The look in her eyes gave me her answer before she did. “Ah, guess not,” I sighed.

  “No- I want to. I love you too, Rose.”

  “But?” I tried to act like I wasn’t hurt, but I was.

  “But, I’m leaving.”

  The expression on my face dropped and I went blank. “To where?”

  “Away. With my grandparents. After they heard that I was shot, they decided that they wanted to take me away for a while.”

  “What’s a while?”

  “....I don’t know.”

  “And to where?”

  “They’re moving to Europe.”

  I sighed, “Europe. Of all places,” I shook my head, “Now I have to figure out how I’m going to fly out there and visit you every week.”

  Lorena laughed, then got quiet again, “I decided to move with them. I think that it would be good...to get away.”

  I looked down at my hands. “Are you trying to get away from me?”

  Lorena rested her hand on mine, “No, not at all. I love you.” Her blue eyes began to tear up, “But, so much has happened here. I just need to get away for a while, get my life together, and then I’m coming back,” Lorena took my face into her hands. “I’ll come back for you, and we can start where we left off.”

  I rested my forehead on hers. “This sucks,” I laughed.

  Lorena looked back up at me, then leaned in and kissed me. Once my lips touched hers, the butterflies came rushing back. Her lips were just so soft and sweet that I couldn’t help but get excited. Not to mention that this was my very first kiss… ever.

  I pulled away and looked into Lorena’s eyes. “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this.”

  Lorena laughed and kissed me again. I ran my fingers through her hair and took in all the love that I could get from her now, because I had no idea when I would be feeling it from her again.

  I pulled away again. “You sure I can’t just follow you out to Europe?”

  * * *

  Lorena stayed in Ohio until she fully recovered. Her grandparents wanted to give us plenty of time to say goodbye to each other before she shipped off. I guess her grams could see what our relationship really was, and didn’t want to just up and steal her away.

  Although I was sad that she was going to leave, I was still happy that we could finally live our lives the way that we wanted to, and, I mean, it’s not like she would be gone forever. Eventually, she would come back, after she got her life together and sorted herself out. Then we would pick up where we left off, which would be kissing, because all we’ve been doing for the last few weeks was making out. I tried to go further, but I only seemed to make it to the French kissing stage. Oh, and let’s not forget our first date. Her grandmother gave me enough money to take her out to dinner and a movie, then we went back to her place and made out some more. Who needs sex!? I got off on kissing all damn day.

  Well, after Lorena left, I got back to my life. I would have to get used to living without her, but it wasn’t so hard with Cameron and Abigale around to keep me company.

  They both ended up graduating before me, and we all celebrated. Abigale stayed in Ohio and went to community college, and Cameron went off to Miami for school. He occasionally sent us pictures of him and his new friends, then he would come back on breaks to visit.

  I repeated my senior year and rejoined the wrestling team as captain. I ended up getting scholarships from schools across the nation for wrestling, and studied criminal justice.

  Every now and then Lorena would call, or send a text, but we mostly wrote each other letters about our lives and how things were going. Eventually, we stopped, and rarely hearing from her turned into not hearing from her at all. It didn’t bother me though, because I knew that she was just as busy as I was and that soon she would come back home. As far as I knew, she was some big time artist out in Paris, and when I looked her up she was the owner of a popular art gallery out there. Her most popular piece of artwork was a red and orange rose surrounded by all the colors of the rainbow blended together. She named it Fille de mes rêves. Girl of my dreams.

  * * *

  2 years later

  “Stop! You fucker!” I sprinted after a young boy in his teens that just blasted into light speed after I flashed my badge. The boy thought that he could easily get away from me, but after two years of being on the force, there was no way he was going to get away from me. “I said stop!”

  He made a right and hopped someone’s fence, but I was right behind him. After a while, you get good at jumping fences too. I followed him through someone’s yard and back into the street, where Abigale hit the runner with the car.

  The boy landed on the hood and rolled off, then hit the ground with a loud groan.

  Abigale looked out the window. “Are you okay up there- is he okay?” Abigale asked. She got out of the car and pulled off her cuffs.

  “Abs!” I looked from the boy then back to her. “You can’t just hit suspects with the car!”

  “Ugh, he’s okay. Anything broken?” When he didn’t answer she turned back to me, “See? He’s fine.”

  I sighed, “Let’s bring him in for questioning,” I cuffed the boy and read him his rights, then I put him in the car and we drove back to the station.

  When we brought him inside, Lieutenant Shy looked him up and down. “What the hell happened to him?”

  I looked over at Abigale who just shrugged. “He ran...”

  “This our guy for questioning?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “Okay, well go put him away, and both of you meet me in my office.” She walked to her office and closed the door.

  I frowned over at Abigale, who just shrugged again. “What?”

  We both went to lock him up, and then headed to Lieutenant Shy’s office.

  Abigale sat down first. “So, what’s up, Stephanie?”

  Miss Shy looked over at the suited man standing in the corner of the room silently. “Guys, this is Agent Luis. He’s with the FBI.”

  I frowned, “Okay?”

  Detective Luis handed me a file. “We’ll be needing the two of you to work with me. Mostly you, Detective Klein.”

  “Why me? What about Abigale?”

  “Abigale isn’t familiar with these kinds of investigations.”

  “What kind of investigations?” Abigale asked.

  “Clandestine fights,” Stephanie said. “They’re becoming more common again, because of some big shot holding them in the states.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Roberto Bellerose,” Agent Luis answered.

  I squinted, “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “It’s because he’s French. He moved from France to the States, and brought his business with him.”

  “Okay, so what do you want me to do about it? This sounds a little out of my league. I just became a detective...”

  “We want you to go undercover,” Stephanie said. “We haven’t been able to prove that he’s the one holding the fights, but we believe that he is selling children to owners for the fights. A lot of children. We need you to find out where he’s holding them.”

  I took a deep breath, “I don’t know...”

  “There’s another thing. We got all this information from his wife, but she was too afraid to tell us anymore. Apparently she married him without really knowing who he was.”

  “Okay?” I was confu
sed on why she was telling me this.

  “Open up that file,” Stephanie said.

  I opened it up, and the first picture I saw was Roberto Bellerose, but the second one made my heart stop...

  “That’s his wife,” Agent Luis said.

  I stared at the woman in the picture for a few seconds. She looked to be about twenty five years old, had long blond curls, and bright blue eyes...

  ”Lorena...”

  To be continued..

  DEAR READERS...

  Thank you so much for reading Caged! If you liked what you read, then please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Also, if you are interested in reading the sequel just click the book below. To learn more about the author and her most recent works visit authordhawkins.com .

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  About the Author

  Destiny Hawkins lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and is majoring in Psychology at Kent State University with a minor in Creative Writing. When she isn’t studying she enjoys cooking, running, listening to music, and reading—plus, of course, writing! Her favorite genres to read and work in are fantasy, LGBT, and young adult. She’s been a writer since she was nine years old, but Caged is her very first novel with more to come!