A Love for Romance

by Kahlen Aymes

  For all the planning and practicing she’d done, nothing prepared her for having Trey hunting her down.

  “You can’t outrun me.” His voice was closer, his steps louder.

  She made it to her bag but now she had no time to call Patricia. She needed to dig it out from its hiding place and go. “Yes!” She nearly yelled in relief.

  “Rachelle!” he shouted, only a few feet away.

  She took off. Running for her life, for her freedom.

  “Stop this shit!” he yelled, and it was the last thing she heard before she was thrown off balance and landed hard on a downed tree trunk. The ripple of pain through her recently healed ribs paralyzed her.

  “Now, where the fuck do you think you’re going?” He held onto her as he struggled to catch his breath.

  Slowly she rolled toward her bag. Rachelle knew if she could reach it that all of this wouldn’t be a wasted effort.

  “You’re not going anywhere.” He pulled her closer to him, but she was able to grab onto the strap, so the bag moved with them.

  “Please Trey, please,” she begged, her voice barely a whisper as she struggled to pull air into her lungs.

  “I don’t understand you. You want for nothing. I treat you like a queen.” His voiced went up to a terrifying octave.

  “I’m sorry. Please. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She tried to appease him as she searched blindly for the zipper of her bag.

  He let her go and stumbled back a couple of steps. “What did you give me? Fuck!” He bent over, clutching the sides of his head. Rachelle didn’t hesitate. She pulled the bag closer and opened the zipper. It didn’t take but a few seconds to find what she needed.

  She scrambled to her feet. “You need to let me go, Trey.” Her voice was surprisingly calm as she held up the Sig Sauer p238 pistol and aimed it at him.

  “Where the fuck did you get that?” he demanded.

  “What, this ole’ thing?” She felt suddenly empowered by the change in circumstance.

  “You won’t shoot me. Cut the shit and let’s get home. I’ll deal with you in the morning. Right now I need to fuckin’ sleep. Again, what the hell did you give me?”

  “Just a dose of your own medicine...literally. But I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m leaving, and you’re going to let me go.” She felt powerful. Her finger on the trigger. There was no fucking way she was going back with him. Freedom was too close. Rachelle took a deep breath, the pain manageable. God knew she had suffered worse at his hands, and if she caved now and went back with him, that would be it. He’d never let her out of his sight. She’d be agreeing to live the rest of her life as a prisoner.

  “Put the gun down and we’ll talk, okay?” His words were slow and measured.

  “Fuck. You.” She pushed back the hair that had fallen in her face. Slowly, without looking away from him, she bent down and picked up the bag and began to retreat.

  “You’re not going anywhere, Rachelle. Cut the shit. Put the gun down now and when we get home I’ll take mercy on you.” He lunged for her.

  His sudden advance frightened her and the gun went off. The bullet crashed into the dead tree truck on the ground and the boom of the bullet echoed through the woods.

  “You tried to shoot me?” He sounded both angry and shocked that she pulled the trigger, but that didn’t stop him.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Rachelle warned, as she took a few more backward steps away from him.

  “Enough!” he yelled and advanced.

  She was not going back. She pulled the trigger, and this time, she didn’t miss.

  “Aaargh! Fuuuucck!” Trey dropped, and Rachelle didn’t linger. She ran full speed, deeper into the forest. She needed to get to the road and to her friend who was waiting for her.

  Her adrenaline was pumping so fast that she felt sick, but she kept going. The forest, you’d think, would be a quiet place, but it wasn’t. Every sound she heard, she feared was Trey following her. It didn’t matter that she’d shot him. She learned long ago not to underestimate him when it came to keeping her.

  Her breathing was shallow but she kept going.

  She fell yet again and the gun went off.

  “Ahhh!” With shaking hands, she shoved the gun in her bag and zipped it up. Half the contents from her bag were probably scattered across the forest floor but that didn’t matter; she could replace whatever she lost. Anything important, Patricia had.

  She scrambled to her feet and nearly fell. “Grrr.” She bit the inside of her mouth from the pain radiating from her ankle. “Fuck.” She held onto the trunk of a tree to gain her balance and listened. The night was quiet, except her own labored breathing and the sound of cars passing by. “Thank God.” The relief she felt was like nothing she ever experienced before. The road was close and that meant this was almost over.

  Rachelle searched for something to help her walk. It took a moment in the dark to find something, but eventually she found a broken branch that worked.

  Within a few minutes, she was out of the forest and on the shoulder of the road and finally stopped to call Patricia.

  “Where are you?” She wanted to be away from this forest.

  “Are you okay? I thought I heard a gunshot.” Patricia sounded scared.

  “Yes, I’m okay.” She was breathing heavy but she was breathing. “Where are you?”

  “I see you. Cross the road. I’ll be right there.” Patricia hung up.

  Rachelle placed the phone back in her bag and slowly limped across the road.

  “Oh my God, Rachelle, are you okay?” Patricia bolted out of the car to help her.

  “I’m fine. I’m standing and I’m breathing. It’s all good.” But she was far from good.

  “Let’s get you in the car.” Patricia helped Rachelle to the passenger’s side door, waited until she was in the seat, and closed the door.

  “What happened? Did I hear a gunshot?” Patricia asked as she placed the car in drive and took off.

  “He woke up. I—I...” Rachelle didn’t know what to say.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

  “Could you put the heat on please?” Rachelle asked. Her entire body was shaking.

  Patricia quickly obliged.

  “Thank you.” Rachelle stared out the window. She replayed everything that happened in her head over and over. She’d shot him. A million questions popped up in her head. What would happen now? Was he alive? Should she tell Patricia she shot Trey?

  They drove in silence for a few minutes but Rachelle couldn’t relax. After being chased and running for her life, the quiet, empty road made her gut twist—this was too easy. She kept looking in the side-view mirror for any sight of Trey or the police. The thought of being chased by him unnerved her.

  “Is he after you?” Patricia broke the silence.

  “I have no idea.”

  Trey rolled over, placing his hand over his shoulder. The sting from the bullet hurt like a motherfucker, but it was the blood loss that was getting to him the most.

  He needed something to pack the wound. Trey struggled with one arm to pull his shirt free from his pants, ripping the buttons off, and using all the strength he had to drag it from his body. He pressed his shirt into the wound. “Fuckin’ bitch!” he screamed. It took several minutes to get the bleeding to slow. Once it was somewhat controlled, he dug in his slacks for his phone. Trey went to his favorites and pressed the icon to make the call.

  It rang a few times before it connected.

  “What trouble have you gotten yourself in this time?”

  “Fuck you. I need you to come over. I’m in the woods behind my house,” he hissed. “Bring a flashlight and wear boots,” he bit out through the pain.

  “Tell me you haven’t buried her in the woods? I can’t cover that shit up.”

  “The bitch shot me!” he yelled.

  “No way.”

  The laughter on the other end pissed him off worse than getting sh
ot. When he got Rachelle back, she’d wish that he had died tonight.

  “I’m glad you find this amusing, Sheriff. Just get here.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Learn what happens to Rachelle in the next installment of Breaking Free: The Chase. Releasing summer of 2017.

  About the Author

  Debra Presley is a USA Today Bestselling author and native New Yorker who made her escape to the suburbs. She often returns to her hometown to visit her favorite deli for a bagel with butter, because there’s no better bagel than a New York bagel. When not in search of bagels, Debra spends her time running Book Enthusiast Promotions, an online promotions company that helps indie authors spread the word about their books. She’s also the owner of The Book Enthusiast blog.

  She started writing lyrics in her wall-to-wall NKOTB bedroom at the tender age of thirteen while dreaming of the day she’d become Mrs. Jordan Knight. That dream never came to fruition, but she has continued to write.

  Connect with Debra Presley

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  To read other titles by Debra Presley and to learn about upcoming releases, please visit her website.

  Always Too Late

  by Micalea Smeltzer

  Mathias Wade may be the lead singer of Willow Creek, but he didn’t start out that way.

  Once upon a time, he was simply a boy that loved a girl, but their story ended in tragedy.

  This is the beginning.

  Remy

  “You’re kind of weird.”

  The guy watched me with shrewd silvery-gray eyes beneath heavy dark brows. My words were rude, but he seriously was weird.

  “Are you going to help me or not?” I pointed to our biology work laid out on our double table.

  Why did Mrs. Ferris put me with this guy?

  Mathias Wade and I didn’t exactly have the best track record. In fact, he was probably staring because I burned him with one of my cigarettes yesterday.

  “You know those will kill you, right?”

  I looked up to see the good-looking guy from my biology class standing in front of me. His messy dark brown hair fell into his eyes, and he gave me that blinding smile that had most girls spreading their legs for him.

  “Do I look like a care?” I puffed out some smoke right in his face.

  He didn’t cough or flinch away.

  “Give me one,” he said.

  I raised a brow. “They’ll kill you, you know?” I mimicked his voice.

  He smiled slowly and straightened. “Something’s going to kill me one day.” He shrugged. Something dark flashed in his unique gray eyes. “I might as well do the killing. I’m already screwed.”

  I handed him a cigarette and lit the tip.

  “Enjoy, because you’re not getting anymore freebies from me.”

  His lips twitched with the threat of a smile before he settled with a brooding stare and leaned against the brick exterior wall of the school.

  “How’d you find me out here?” I asked.

  He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “I followed you,” he admitted, not ashamed.

  I stared at him. “Why?”

  “Why do you think?” His eyes were serious and his mouth was a straight line. I found myself staring at his lips. They were slightly plump and pouty, but not in a girly way. They tempered the sharp cut of his jaw, and I wondered if they were as soft as they looked.

  I shook my head free of those thoughts, focusing on what he had said.

  “I’m not sucking your dick,” I sneered. “That’s a vicious rumor Jake started because he’s an asshole.”

  His eyes glinted dangerously and my stomach stirred with something I’d never felt before. Not lust, I’d felt that plenty. It was something else that made no sense.

  “That’s not what I wanted, but now that you mention it...” He reached for his zipper. “Ow!” He yelped when the tip of my cigarette burned the skin between his thumb and forefinger. “I was only joking. Fuck.”

  He waved his hand through the air.

  “That’s not something to joke about.” I squared my shoulders. “And for the record, I’m not against blowjobs, I just don’t want to be forced to give one.”

  He stared at me like I was the most mysterious creature he’d ever seen.

  “I don’t want to have sex with you...well, I’d like to,” he admitted sheepishly, “but that’s not why I followed you out here.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No.” He stared at me intensely. “I’ve been watching you, and I’ve realized that you’re a lot like me.”

  “I am?” I looked at him like he was crazy.

  He nodded and leaned close to me. “You’re not like the other girls here, who piss their pants if they see a fucking spider. You’re wild. You don’t care what people think of you. You’re the bad girl they scoff at, but all secretly want to be.”

  “And you are?” I asked, lighting a new cigarette.

  “I’m the fucked-up bad boy everyone wants to save,” his voice lowered, “but you wouldn’t try to save me, would you, Remy? Because you’re just like me.”

  My breath stuttered and he grinned at having made me react.

  “I don’t understand what you want.” I stood tall and my voice never quavered.

  “You.”

  He started to walk away, but promptly turned back around. He dug something out of his back pocket and I realized it was a pack of cigarettes. He handed me one of the slender white sticks and grinned. “No freebies, right?”

  Mathias was a confusing guy. He was hot, probably the hottest guy in our school—well, him and his identical twin brother, Maddox. But he didn’t like people. He kept to himself and only hung out with his twin and his friend, Ezra, who was also their foster brother. I’d also noticed them hanging out with an older student, Josh; I thought his name was.

  I poked Mathias sharply with my pencil. “What the fuck was that for?” he snapped, waving his hand through the air.

  I mock pouted. “Aw, did I hurt the baby? Quit fucking staring at me and help me with this.” I pointed to the worksheet we were supposed to be filling out together on DNA.

  “Go out with me.”

  A girl in our class squeaked behind me. Her name was Josie and it was a known fact she had a crush on Mathias.

  I stared at him, blinking. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.” He didn’t smile, giving me no indication that he was joking.

  “You’re serious?” I stared at him dumbfounded.

  I mean, there were crazier things than me going out with Mathias Wade. In fact, we were really kind of suited for each other. I was a bitch and he was an asshole—so clearly, we were a match made in heaven.

  He nodded.

  “You just told me yesterday that you wanted to have sex with me and now you’re asking me out?”

  He shrugged. “Seemed logical.”

  “I...” I couldn’t find any reason to say no. “Um...okay.”

  He smiled, and I was struck by how something so simple could completely transform his face. His smile disappeared almost as quickly as it came, though, and I found myself missing it. I wanted to find a way to bring it back—I guess I’d have my chance to try on our date.

  I smiled to myself, wondering where on earth Mathias Wade was going to take me on our date.

  I was getting ready to go on a date with Mathias Wade.

  What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck.

  I must’ve been living in an alternate universe.

  Mathias was a guy of few words, so he’d given me no hints about what we’d be doing. So I chose to wear jeans and a loose black sweater. It was early fall, school had barely started, and the weather hadn’t quite gotten cold yet. On my feet, I wore a pair of black combat boots. I applied my makeup and brushed my straight hair.

  I bounded down the stairs and poked my head in the kitchen. “Mom? I’m heading out for a while.”

  She looked up from the pot she was cooking—smell
ed like marinara for spaghetti. “It’s a school night.”

  “I won’t be late,” I promised.

  Her lips pressed into a thin line. My parents didn’t like me going out, and if she saw Mathias; she’d definitely make me stay home. His whole attitude screamed trouble. I thought maybe that’s why I was drawn to him.

  “Okay,” she sighed reluctantly and went back to stirring.

  Mathias was supposed to pick me up in five minutes. I didn’t think he had a car...we were only sophomores, and since the year had just started; most of us weren’t old enough to drive yet.

  I sat on the front steps and waited for him.

  A couple of minutes later I saw him walking up the street.

  I stood. dusted off my pants, and went to meet him. “Where do you live?” I asked him. “Did you walk all the way over here?”

  He shrugged. “Not too far.”

  That wasn’t much of an answer but you never really got one with him.

  “So, where are we going?” I asked.

  “You don’t mind to walk, right?” he asked. “Shoulda’ thought about that,” he mumbled to himself.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Cool.” He started walking, expecting me to follow.

  I rolled my eyes. Asshole.

  Thank God I wore boots and not heels like some girls, or this would suck. As it was, I didn’t really mind. Besides, I’d be a hypocrite if I bitched too much. My neighborhood is in an older part of town, within walking distance to a bunch of old shops and restaurants. I spent a lot of time there, walking around after school to get coffee and hang out.

  “Do you like pizza?” Mathias asked, breaking the silence.

  “Who doesn’t love pizza?” I countered.

  He shrugged. “I thought you might be like some of those idiot girls who don’t eat carbs or whatever.”

  “I love pizza.”

  His smile flashed again and I made a metal tally of it. That’s twice Mathias Wade had smiled because of me.

  We walked side by side on the street, and he didn’t try to hold my hand.