The night did end right there.
My text message went ignored.
So I went to sleep.
And I slept to make up all the hours I had missed while at Talon’s place.
The only reason I woke up was because my mother came into my bedroom to check on me.
I felt her fingers pressing into my neck and I groaned as I opened my eyes and lifted my head.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Are you alive?”
“I’m talking, aren’t I?”
“Winter, you’ve been asleep for almost twenty hours.”
“What?” I asked. I reached for my phone and looked. I gasped. “Oh, shit.”
There were calls, voicemails, text messages…
“Are you that tired or are you sick?” my mother asked. “Or is it something with the accident? And by the way your father called.”
I rolled to my side. “What? What is happening?”
My mother snapped her fingers. “Winter. Focus.”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I was tired. It’s been a long… everything. I was tired. So I slept. Okay?”
“Okay. Good.”
“Why did Dad call you?”
“Because he called you first and you didn’t answer,” my mother said. “Thanks for that. Nothing like hearing it from him.”
“What did he say?”
“He wanted to check on your memory.”
“Shit.”
“I told him things were the same.”
“You lied for me?”
“Just call me Mother of the Year,” she said with an eye roll. “He wanted to tell you he’s staying where he is for a while. Something happened and they need him. Some production issue. I don’t know. I honestly don’t listen when he talks. I don’t have to.”
“You really hate him?”
“No. I just don’t like him.”
“You used him.”
“So you want to talk about that again? Or should we talk about the three guys downstairs looking for you?”
I sat up in bed. “What did you just say?”
“Yeah,” my mother said. “Three guys. Noah. Easton. Xavier. The guys who sent you the dresses, right? The guys who tried to hurt you, right?”
“Tried?” I asked. “They… whatever. They’re downstairs?”
“They’re waiting. That’s why I woke you up. They’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I was sleeping…”
“What do you want me to do here?” my mother asked.
“Nothing.”
“I’ll go down there and cut them. One by one. The fancy one… I’ll cut his face. That rough looking one that smells like smoke… I’ll cut his hair. And then the quiet, strong one… I’m not sure…”
“Please stop,” I said. I sat up more in my bed. I stretched my neck. “I just need a second to think.”
“Maybe fix your hair and brush your teeth too?”
“What? Why?”
“True,” my mother said. “You want to scare them, right? The look you have right now will do that.”
“Thanks for that,” I said.
“What do I do here, Winter? Because I have some dueling voices in my head.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“The first loves this. It wants to see how this plays out. This is wild stuff. But at the same time, there’s another voice that reminds me you’re my daughter. I’m supposed to love you, care for you, protect you. Which is why I want to go down there and throw all three through a window.”
“You need a voice to remind you that you’re a mother?” I asked.
“Don’t say it like that,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. I shut my eyes. “Just go… I don’t know. Go be normal. Do whatever you were going to do. I’m fine. Believe me. This isn’t what I thought it was going to be.”
“No crazy revenge?”
“No,” I said. I opened my eyes. “Not at all.”
“Bummer,” my mother said. “I was actually going out. For the night. Meaning I won’t be back until tomorrow.”
“Okay. Why are you telling me that?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s that mother thing inside me wanting to care for you.”
“That’s not a good look on you.”
“No shit, Winter,” she said. “Do me a favor. Get these guys out of my house. And stay away from them. Find someone else. What happened to that Troc that was sneaking around?”
“He has a girlfriend.”
“Please, don’t be a side piece,” my mother said.
“Did you just say side piece?” I asked.
“I did,” my mother said. “Now get out of bed and figure something out. I’m leaving out the back. Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah,” I said.
My mother touched my hair for a second. It was really weird. Awkward.
She looked at her hand like she just put it into some toxic slime.
I waited for her to leave the room before I looked at my phone.
Texts from all three guys.
Texts from Gia.
Texts from Talon.
The calls from Dad.
I rubbed my forehead.
I texted Gia back and told her I was okay.
Then I sent a text to Xavier telling him I would be right down.
I walked to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.
I looked like something out of a horror movie. Some zombie looking woman.
That’s kind of what I was already.
I was supposed to die in that accident. I wasn’t ever supposed to wake up, remember and live.
In my first life I was a bitchy Bump.
And now this second version of my life, I tried to stand between Bump and Troc, thinking I could get revenge.
Maybe my mother was right all along.
Maybe I just need to go after the guys with a knife.
Chapter 10
The rest of the story
I walked down the steps just as the sun was starting to set.
That’s how messed up my days and sleep were.
Everything was backward and at that point, I just leaned into it.
Noah, Easton, and Xavier all stood in the kitchen.
Easton had a bottle of vodka from the liquor cabinet and was doing a job of it.
I walked to the counter, he put the cap on the bottle and slid it toward me.
“You need this,” he said.
“I do?” I asked.
“Trust me, you do,” he said.
I grabbed the bottle but didn’t take a drink.
I looked at Noah. Then at Xavier.
Then back to Noah.
“Do you feel good about beating up Talon?” I asked.
“Great,” Noah said.
“I’m not done with him yet,” Xavier said.
“You knew all along Gia was your sister?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“And you did nothing about it?”
“What would you like me to do, Winter?” Xavier asked. “I know all the family secrets. The darkness…” He smiled. “How do you think I ended up with my own shop? How do you think I ended up escaping the grasp that Noah and Easton face?”
I swallowed hard. “You used that secret against your parents.”
“That’s right,” Xavier said. “They know better than to fuck with me. Nobody fucks with me ever, Winter. Ever.”
“I hope you realize how hurt Gia has been,” I said. “How confused she’s been. It would mean a lot to her for you and her to find common ground.”
“She’s with a Troc,” Xavier said. “That won’t work for me.”
“It doesn’t even matter,” I said. “You have no idea what you’re-”
“If we’re going to talk about this, I’m leaving,” Noah said. “I don’t give a damn about anything or anyone except what’s right here. And it’s time we get to the bottom of the truth. Once and for
all.”
“You mean we keep talking about how Winter faked having amnesia?” Easton asked.
“It worked,” I said. “I got to you three. I got what I wanted.”
“You didn’t get a thing, Winter,” Noah said. “We brought you in. We knew what we were doing.”
“Out of fear. You didn’t want me to tell the truth. You knew you were screwed if I did.”
“Not true,” Easton said. “It was more of figuring out what you remembered so we knew how to move forward. It was your idea.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “It was my idea to have my vehicle tampered with? It was my idea to be on that road that night and…” I swallowed hard. I took a breath. “You have no idea what it was like. Driving away from your shop, Xavier. Speeding away. Afraid something was going to happen… and it did. The steering locked up. The brakes stopped working. It was like something took over Tank. You have no idea what it was like to realize that I was going to crash and get hurt. That I was probably going to die. So I climbed into the backseat just in time. That saved me. I saved myself. Remember that.”
“We remember,” Xavier said.
I felt the urge to cry.
Reliving the memory… the images in my mind… the reality…
I turned.
I took a deep breath.
Then I reached back and grabbed the vodka bottle and hurried toward the door.
I couldn’t let myself cry in front of the guys.
I walked to the railing and helped myself to a drink.
It was good.
It was needed.
In some messed up way, the vodka was my breakfast.
That’s how far my life had gone off the rails.
And in a way, I didn’t care one bit.
The guys came outside a few seconds later.
“This isn’t going away,” Noah said.
“I just needed a breath of air,” I said. I looked back. “And this is going away. I don’t want to end up fighting with you all. That was my original plan.”
“What was?” Easton asked. “I have to hear this.”
“We don’t have time to waste here,” Xavier said.
“Oh, I think we do,” Easton said.
“There’s not much to tell,” I said.
“I want to hear it,” Easton said with fire in his eyes.
I turned and took another sip of vodka. “You want to hear it?”
“Fuck, just tell him the story then,” Noah said. “So we can get back to business here.”
“Business?” I asked. “I have no business with you.”
“Yes, you do,” Xavier said.
I shook my head. “Fine. I wanted to figure out how far things really went with you three and me. So my plan was to find out your weaknesses and exploit them. Bring you to your knees. I was going to use Xavier’s father’s secret baby thing against him. And then Noah… your parents are psychos. They have such a hold on your life…”
“Not as much as you think,” Noah said. “Remember?”
“And Easton… it doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s all over now. I was going to corner you three and spill your secrets and what I would do with the secrets.”
“In exchange for what?” Xavier asked.
“To leave me alone,” I said. “You leave me alone. I leave you alone. Everyone goes their separate ways and we never talk about what happened or why it happened. That’s a pretty damn good deal if you ask me.”
“That’s what you came up with?” Noah asked.
“It is,” I said. “I’m the one who messed with your stuff. Your car, Noah? That was the night I met Talon. He helped me and I agreed to pay him to keep helping. Just to keep an eye on things and protect me…”
I had to bend the truth a little. If I told the guys it was Talon who blew up the car and got Noah arrested among other things, they would go find him again and hurt him even worse. Not that I really cared so much about Talon, I didn’t want Gia to get hurt.
“You blew up the car,” Easton said. “And you had help from that fucking Troc.”
“That was all me,” I said. “Don’t fuck with me, Easton. None of you fuck with me. You got your chance one time and that was it.”
“Wow,” Easton said. “Look at you.”
“You’re just a badass,” Noah said.
“Tougher than we all thought,” Xavier said. “Makes sense why you came up with the plan.”
“You keep saying that,” I said. “What plan? My own? Of course I came up with my own plan. You three tried to kill me!”
“Wait a second,” Noah said. He put his hand out. “We tried to kill you?”
“You messed around with Tank,” I said. “I heard you three talking at Xavier’s shop. You were planning on hurting me. Then I leave and something happens to my vehicle? Come on…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Easton said. “You spied on us?”
“Of course I did,” I said. “I had to protect myself. Rightfully so. You were talking about me. You wanted me dead.”
“That was just talk, Winter,” Xavier said. “You were the one who fucked us over first. We knew what you were going to do with the money.”
“The money…? What money?” I asked.
“Wait,” Noah said. “We’re going in different directions here. You said you remembered everything, Winter.”
“I do.”
“Then do you remember this…?”
Noah moved toward me and touched my face with his hands.
He lowered his mouth toward mine and I pushed him away.
“I’m not doing that with you,” I said.
“But you and I were close, Winter.”
“No, we weren’t.”
“You actually were,” Easton said.
I looked at Easton. “What?”
“And we didn’t do anything to your SUV,” Xavier said. “Did we talk about it? Yeah. Only because we found out you were planning on taking the money for yourself.”
“What money?” I asked.
“The money mine and Easton’s fathers stole,” Noah said.
I stepped back.
I swallowed hard.
I shook my head. “No… what are you… no…”
“Fuck,” Easton said.
Noah started to laugh.
Xavier stepped toward me. “Looks like you did forget something when you got into that accident, huh?”
Everything started to spin so I hurried to the steps and sat down.
My stomach felt sick again so I inched my way down to the bottom step.
If I was going to throw up, it was going to be in the sand.
I took a few deep breaths and I didn’t throw up.
“Here, have a drink,” Easton said as he walked by me.
I grabbed the bottle and started to chug.
Noah and Xavier walked by me next.
The three stood in the sand and I stayed seated.
I looked up at them. “I don’t understand this. I remember…”
“What do you remember?” Noah asked.
“You guys were always assholes,” I said. “That’s your reputation. You hated me. For some reason.”
“You never thought to figure out why?” Easton asked.
“You hate everyone,” I said. “You wanted to kill me. You were talking about it.”
“Again, that was just anger,” Xavier said. “We had a plan in place.”
“Winter, you and I were going to take off together,” Noah said.
“We were a couple?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” he said. “But close.”
I looked at Xavier.
His jaw was rigid. His eyes moved away from mine.
Nothing made sense to me. At all.
I couldn’t remember a thing about Noah… or anything about money…
“How close?” I asked.
“You want details?” Noah asked. “What is this? I thought we were moving forward.”
“We are,” I said. “That was the
point of this. We stay away from each other.”
“Why would we want to do that?” Easton asked.
He grinned and I couldn’t tell what the grin meant.
I felt a little lightheaded as I stared at the guys.
They were serious. Intense. There was no messing around with them.
“This isn’t real,” I whispered.
“It’s as real as real can get,” Xavier said. “And you don’t remember.”
“I do remember,” I said. “I remember everything. That’s the whole point of this. It’s me attacking you. Not the other way.”
“We’re not attacking anyone,” Noah said. “We talked about this for a while. It was your idea, Winter. You wanted to do this. You knew they were messing around with money. And you wanted to take it and run. Because of your father…”
“My father?” I asked. “What do you know about him?”
All three looked at each other.
I worked my way back up the deck steps, the bottle of vodka clutched tight in my right hand.
They’re lying to me, right? They’re just trying to get me excited. They’re messing with me.
“I’m out of here,” Noah said. “She’s going to keep playing this game.”
“I’m not…” I started to say but drifted off.
Noah walked away.
Easton looked intensely at me. “Nothing, Winter?”
I shook my head. “You’re not telling the truth. This was my night to take you down. To keep you away from me.”
“We were in it together,” Easton said. “I guess you got what you wished for. You’re missing some pieces of the story.”
Easton backed away, shaking his head.
That left Xavier standing there alone.
“Please, don’t go,” I said. “I’m confused and scared. I want to trust you guys. Whatever happened, it can be done now.”
“Try remembering some more,” Xavier said. “If you’re actually telling the truth or not.”
“Xavier… wait…”
I put my foot on the first step down as he turned away.
“I’m not lying this time,” I called out. “You are. You think you can hurt me again. You can’t. I know the truth.”
Xavier stopped walking and looked back. “You really don’t. Trust me, Winter, you really don’t.”
When Xavier vanished like the other two, I stood there and counted my breaths.
Alone.
Devious Love (Bay Falls High NEXT Book 3) Page 9