The summer sun was setting as he sat in the captain’s chair, maneuvered out of the slip, and headed across the lake with Dakota on the banquette beside him. “Open up that wine, darlin’,” he said over the purr of the big engines, “and we’ll start this evening off the way it ought to have been.”
She got the cork out, poured him a glass and handed it to him, and sat back with her own, her back against the banquette, her pretty ankles crossed, and one arm behind her head. Her skin glowed amber in the fading light, as beautiful as that day on his deck, and she’d been right. This was the right choice.
He drove the boat out, leaving the lights of Wild Horse behind. The white prow sliced through the water, as graceful as a dolphin, and the rose tint of alpenglow was settling over the mountains ahead of them. And Blake didn’t try to talk. He just drove, looked at Dakota’s red toenails and bare legs, and wondered why he’d planned his night any other way.
He was almost sorry when they reached the quiet cove, cut the engine, and dropped the anchor while the last remnants of twilight glowed purple and indigo. Dakota might have felt the same, because she sighed and said, “That was good, and this wine’s better. I guess you’ve schooled me on what ‘the best you’ve got’ really means.”
He looked at her, lying there looking so lazy and peaceful, and had to smile. She said, “Yeah, I just got it. Don’t say it. It’ll be cheesy, and it’ll spoil the mood.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s go below and warm up that dinner. I’ll do my best not to be cheesy, we can drink some more wine, get ourselves relaxed and a little bit drunk, and you’ll be giving this ol’ boy a damn good Friday night all by yourself.”
She stayed quiet, though, when they were sitting at the dinette, sipping oak-aged Chardonnay as rich and buttery as the fish, with a tart lemon finish that was pure delight. They speared bites of grass-green asparagus and tiny, perfect white scallops, and finally, Dakota put a hand up, pushed her hair back, and turned to look at him.
Her face was at its most solemn again. Beautiful in a different way now, in the way the high mountains were beautiful, snow-capped and austere. “This is exactly the evening I’d ask for,” she said. “You’ve made me feel special. Thank you. But if you’re going to live here, you’re going to hear about me, if you haven’t already. And I want you to hear it from me.”
His heart picked up, and not in a good way. “All right. I’m listening.”
She looked across the cabin, though there wasn’t much to see, because it was full night outside the big windows. The boat rocked gently in a breath of evening breeze, the water slapped against the hull, and Dakota rubbed a hand down the stem of her wineglass and said, “I told you that my brother and I came to live with Russell when I was fifteen. Riley was seventeen. I was in foster care for a few months until we got it all sorted out, but I told you that, too. I came into the middle of sophomore year that way, and in a town as small as Wild Horse, the fact that you’re in foster care isn’t exactly a secret. I was… not so accepted, but that wasn’t new. We’d moved a lot, Riley and me, before we’d settled down with our grandmother. Before she took us for good.”
“What happened to her?” Blake asked. “Your mom?”
“She died.” Dakota took another sip of wine, ate another bite of fish. “And after a couple months, our mother took us to Russell’s and dropped us outside his door. Which sounds harsh, but trust me, she did us a favor. Being with her was never any kind of stability.”
“Is she still around?”
“Oh, from time to time. But I don’t have any money, so I’m not too interesting. Plus she doesn’t like women. And Russ won’t let her in the door.”
“Whoa,” Blake said. “She doesn’t like women? You’re not ‘women.’ You’re her daughter.”
“Yeah, well, not everybody’s cut out for motherhood. It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.”
“No. It doesn’t. In the scheme of things that matter, it doesn’t.”
Blake tried to imagine what your life would have been like if your mom abandoning you was the least of it, and failed. And Dakota went on, ”So anyway, I got out of foster care, eventually, and I could move back in with Russell. And with my brother.”
“Riley.”
“You remember. Yeah. Riley.” She took a breath. “Anyway, I was with him again, and I got to know Russ some, even though I was still being… careful, the way you are at first, when you’re new. But I made some friends at school, and things got better. I even went out, girls and boys. I turned sixteen, and I didn’t have good clothes, but I wasn’t too awkward, like some girls are when they’re teenagers. I had good skin, you know. Good teeth, good hair, good bones. A pretty good figure. I was doing all right, because for girls, looks help. And the captain of the football team had a locker right next to mine. Savage. Sawyer. Alphabetical.”
“Ah.” He was gripping his own wineglass pretty tightly. He relaxed his hold and took a sip.
“Yeah. He was dating Ingrid already, of course. You heard that. They were both seniors. She was a cheerleader, very pretty. Both of them were blonde. You know the type. You were the type.”
“I was never that type.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t be. Sorry. Wrong comparison. You’ve got a sister yourself.”
“A sister, and a mother, and a dad, none of whom let me get away with too much entitlement, believe it or not. ‘For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.’ Ask me how I know. My mom’s a minister. But not everybody gets that message at home, and some guys are just plain assholes. Like Sawyer. Who had a girlfriend, but also had that locker next to yours.”
“Yes. And when she wasn’t around, Steve used to flirt with me. Called me ‘Indian maiden,’ and even though that’s bad, it still felt flattering. That he noticed me, a sophomore like I was, even though I wore glasses and hadn’t started school with the rest of them, and I wasn’t even Russell’s daughter. And one day, you see, he had a fight with Ingrid, and they broke up. Everybody knew about it. It was big school news. So when he asked me to go to a party with him on Saturday night, I said yes. I thought he wanted to be my boyfriend. I told myself he’d broken up because he liked me. I told myself stupid things. I was romantic. I was looking for true love to ride into my life, or maybe I was just looking for excitement. I was dumb, but then, girls can be dumb.”
She’d been more than dumb. She’d been downright delusional, changing clothes over and over on that April night before she’d settled on the shortest skirt she dared, a little sweater that buttoned up the front, and the only shoes she owned with a decent heel. She’d put on extra lipstick and blow-dried her hair, then bent over and run through it with her hands before flipping back up, so it looked tousled and sexy. And then she’d sat on the bed and waited until she heard the sound of the car horn.
She put the hood of her jacket up, then, and called to Russell, “Bye. I’m going to Monica’s.” Riley had already gone out. Dakota had made sure of that, because he’d have seen right through the hood, and he’d have noticed that she wasn’t wearing her glasses. Russell, on the other hand, didn’t even know about things like, “Be home by eleven.” Not like her grandma, who’d always done curfews and bedtimes.
She headed out to the curb and hopped into Steve’s brand-new black Chevy Silverado. “Hi,” she said, trying not to sound breathless. Trying to sound cool.
“Well, hey, good-looking,” he said. “Totally awesome without the glasses.”
She smiled and twirled her hair around her finger and tried to pretend she did this all the time. Dated the coolest guy in school, even though she was only a sophomore.
He headed out of town and onto the lake road, and she asked, “So where’s this party?”
“Conner Fitzpatrick’s house,” he said, and Dakota gave a little sigh. Conner was on the football team, too. The second most popular guy in school.
The party was loud, and crowded, and dark, and exciting, and Conne
r’s parents were nowhere to be seen. Music blared from speakers set into the walls of the lake house’s downstairs game room, and somebody had rigged a disco ball. She danced with Steve, and she drank punch and danced with him some more. She couldn’t see too well, but that only made it more glamorous. People said, “Hey, Dakota,” to her like she was one of the cool girls, and she said “Hey” back and thought that on Monday, she’d be walking the halls and they’d be saying it again.
She danced until she got hot and it got late, and when Steve filled her punch glass for the fourth time, she didn’t drink it. Instead, she poured it into a plant near the window when he wasn’t looking. She could feel herself getting fuzzy, and she knew Russ would notice, but she didn’t want to be uncool and turn down the drink, either.
“I should get home,” she finally yelled at Steve over the music.
“Aw, come on,” he said. “We’re just getting started.”
“No, I really should. My stepfather…”
When they left, they had Rowan Williams with them. “Giving him a ride home,” Steve said. So Dakota sat in the middle, so close to Steve, and got a little breathless. Maybe he’d kiss her goodnight. Should she let him? She wanted to. She’d been kissed before, a couple times, but he was so much more adult than the boys she’d gone out with. So much more exciting and confident.
They didn’t turn back toward Wild Horse, but instead drove on the lake road some more. Steve had the radio on loud again, but Dakota was getting sleepy despite the noise, and despite throwing away her last cup of punch. She couldn’t see anyway, so she closed her eyes and let herself drift on the throbbing waves of sound until the pickup slowed and the sound under the tires changed to the crunch of gravel. She sat up and blinked, but she couldn’t see anything, just the hypnotic white headlights picking up the rough road.
“We almost there?” she asked. “R-rowan’s?” She was so sleepy.
“Yeah,” Steve said, and something in his voice cut through the fog in her head. “Right here.” He pulled off the road and killed the engine, but left the radio going. “Going to have another drink. After-party.”
“I need to get home,” Dakota said. Something was flickering in her chest, rising to her head, buzzing between her ears. Alarm.
“Just a little drink,” Steve said. Rowan laughed from her other side, and she suddenly realized that she was hemmed in between them. Steve pulled a bottle out from under the seat, unscrewed the top, and held it to her lips. “Ladies first.”
She shoved the bottle away. “No, I really have to go.” The alarm was shrieking as loudly as the music now. “Please take me home.”
“You want a little drink,” Steve said. Before she could react, he gripped her hair at the nape of her neck, pulled her head back, and tipped the bottle up. She pressed her lips together as hard as she could, and the acrid liquid splashed over her chin and ran down her sweater, soaking it.
Steve didn’t seem to realize that she hadn’t drunk. “That’s it,” he said. “Bottoms up.” He took a long swig himself, then handed the bottle across Dakota to Rowan, his arm brushing across her breasts when he did. She jumped, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he grabbed her by the breast and said, “They’re little, but they’re tight. Huh, Rowan? You think the rest of her’s that tight? Or do you think somebody’s already popped the little girl’s cherry? I still bet we could show her something new.”
“Don’t,” Dakota said, her voice coming out too high and too scared. “Let me go. Now.”
“Give me a kiss, Indian maiden,” Steve said. He was over her, his hands gripping her shoulders, his tongue in her mouth, choking her. The smell of whiskey was in her nostrils, and one hand was on her thigh now, then diving under her skirt.
She tried to twist out of his grip, but she couldn’t. He was groping, finding the edge of her panties, shoving his fingers under them, inside her. It was rough, and it hurt, and she wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. Her head was being yanked the other way. Toward Rowan, who had her by the hair now, and had his tongue halfway down her throat. He was shoving her sweater up, too, pulling at her bra, freeing her breast, squeezing it hard. She was trying to kick, but she couldn’t, because Steve was halfway over her, his fingers thrusting. Hurting.
The panic was coming in waves, trying to drown her. She was going backwards, somehow. Being pushed. “Back you go,” Steve said. “Indians ride in the back.”
Rowan giggled, a high-pitched, excited sound, and what felt like eight hands were shoving her. Her torso was in midair, her legs kicking. Kicking hard. Her foot connected with something solid, she heard a gasped curse, and she kicked some more. She kicked so hard, she went over backwards, her shoulders landing on the edge of the seat.
Back seat. She had no sooner registered it than she was scrambling up, grabbing for the rear door, tumbling out of the car, hitting the ground, and running.
She heard the shouts behind her, but she didn’t look back. She ran blindly into the darkness that was the woods, expecting the hands to grab her at any moment. Expecting to be pulled back into the truck.
Run. She heard them calling, shouting, swearing, and she was still running, stumbling. Her hands out in front of her, scraped on knuckles and palms by the rough bark. She stumbled on a tree root, hit her knee hard on a rock, and got up again, limping into the darkness, the shriek of music from the truck still too close. She ran uphill, away from the sound. Away from the cries and the crashing of heavy bodies through trees. She ran, already feeling the hands pulling at her hair, dragging her. Faster, she thought. Go. And ran some more.
When she heard the truck’s motor start again, the music fading, she thought it must be a trick. She stopped moving and dropped to the ground, hugging her knees, trying to quiet her sobbing breaths. If one of them was driving and the other one was still here, listening… If she came out, he’d get her. And he wouldn’t let her go.
It must have been ten minutes, but it felt like an hour before the silence nearly convinced her they were gone. She walked cautiously in the direction from which the music had come, ready to bolt at any noise, a new fear making her heart pound even harder.
She didn’t know where she was, and it was the middle of the night. Her glasses were at home, and her purse was in Steve’s truck.
She found the road eventually, once she made herself think. Downhill. I ran uphill to get away. So she went downhill, her arms in front of her, bouncing off the trees, stumbling and swerving, until she found the road. After that, she followed it, shivering in the cold, her footing difficult over the gravel. When she made it to the pavement, she followed that. She didn’t know where she was, except that it had to be a lake road. She just had to keep going around the lake, and she’d get home. Sometime. Eventually.
Every time she heard a car, she dove off the road, into the trees, and waited, trembling, until it had passed. They knew she was out here. They knew she was helpless. They would come back, and they would get her.
In the end, she had to take off her shoes, because her feet blistered in her heels to the point where she couldn’t walk. Her bare feet were bruised on rocks, sliced on rough edges. They hurt so much, and she was crying now, her shoulders hunched against the cold. And still she walked, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. She walked because she was scared to stop.
And all she could think was, Don’t let them tell. Don’t let them tell.
She told Blake as little as possible, but it was enough. What she’d said was true. He’d hear it from her, or he’d hear it from somebody else. This was Wild Horse. And she didn’t have to look at him to see the rigidity in his posture, the fury in his eyes.
“It must have taken me hours to walk home,” she said. “When I got there, it was after three. I sneaked in the back door, and all I could think to do was get in the shower. I turned the water as hot as I could stand it and tried to wash it all away. I scrubbed and scrubbed. But what I really remember is how much my feet hurt. I cried because my feet hurt. I could
n’t stand to cry for anything else. I couldn’t stand to think.”
“And something else happened,” Blake said.
Even now, the memory of the next few days—of that whole first week—made her tense and sick. “I told Russell and Riley that I didn’t feel good, and I stayed under the covers all day on Sunday. On Monday, I didn’t go to school. I couldn’t stand to.”
“You didn’t tell anybody,” Blake said. “You didn’t go to the police.”
“I didn’t even think of it. I just wanted it to go away. I wanted it not to be true. I was so ashamed. I felt so dirty. I felt like I was the one who’d done something wrong. And what would the police have done? You know what. He-said, she-said. I was nobody, and Steve’s family is a big deal, and I’d been drinking, and everybody would say that I’d wanted it. I’d have been dragged through the mud for nothing, and Russell would have known. That was the worst. I couldn’t stand for Russell to know. I thought he’d kick me out. I was already only there because of Riley. And if he knew…”
She forced herself to stop, then went on more calmly. “Anyway. On Monday afternoon, after school, Russ got a call. Riley’d been suspended. He’d beaten Steve up. He’d broken his nose, split his lip, among other things. He beat him good.”
“What about the other guy?”
“The other guy? Oh, Rowan. Surely you can guess. Evan took care of him. He and Riley jumped them in the parking lot, right beside that truck of Steve’s. And after Riley punched Steve out…” She smiled. That memory was a good one. “He kicked a dent into the door of Steve’s brand-new truck. They were suspended for a week for fighting. All four of them, actually, because none of them said why they’d been doing it. How could Rowan and Steve say why Riley did it? And there was no way Riley was going to. But all the kids knew. They said… Steve and Rowan told everybody. They said I’d had sex with both of them, and that they’d done everything to me. They… described it. I heard.” Even now, the memory could make her burn. The shame, and the humiliation. “Riley heard, too, and he and Evan took care of it the best they could, but that didn’t stop everybody from talking. It didn’t make the next couple years much fun, either. That reputation… well, you saw. It never really goes away. Whenever anybody asked me out… well, usually, there was one reason. They didn’t want to take me to the movies or go for a walk. They wanted to take me to a ‘party.’ So I didn’t go out.”
Silver-Tongued Devil (Portland Devils Book 1) Page 21