by A. M. Brooks
My feet move on their own, before I can even process what this means or how this is going to go. I do know for sure, though, that Bentley’s hand on her waist is pushing my limits. The dark and ugly I keep locked down is threatening to push to the surface, and right now, it would like nothing more than to see red painted across our state football champion’s face. Not even the silent headshake Kai is giving me is enough to halt my movements.
He leans closer to her ear, so she can hear him over the music. My fists clench at my sides. She slips her hair behind her ear and smiles.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m not interested,” I hear her telling him, which does nothing to deter the determined look on his face. Bentley knows the rules. We know he and Cassidy hook up, but have never made things official, which makes it acceptable. His disregard for the rules and pursuit of Saylor does not.
“You’ll go out with me eventually, Waters,” he tells her, authoritative certainty thick in his voice.
I see red.
Something snaps in my brain like a rubber band.
The minute my hands connect with more force than intended, Bentley’s body is shoved to the side. His drink sloshes over his hand and his fists come up, ready to throw punches, before he realizes who knocked him in the first place, and that it wasn’t an accident.
“Are we really going to have another talk about the rules, Rhodes?” I bite out, using my other arm to shove Saylor behind me and away from his view. His head tilts to the side, silently defying the question. His refusal to fall in line only makes things worse. The darkness starts to creep out. This is what she does to me. The need to hit, destroy, decimate hisses and stirs under my skin. A thick fog clouds my mind. I advance, ready to go head to head, when a tug at the back of my shirt makes me pause.
“Ciaran.” My name out of her mouth is a warning, with a hint of fear attached to it. I glance back at her; my eyebrow raises when I find her dark gaze has been on me the whole time. Her concern is for me. Saylor’s hands clutch the fabric of my shirt until her knuckles turn white; all the while, she never stops staring at my face. I allow my body to take a step back until her arms are resting against me.
“Walk away while you still can,” I tell Rhodes, my gaze hardening. He’s getting tiring. Always ready to push the limits like he needs the world to acknowledge him one more time. Trying his best to recreate that survival high. But Bentley can be smart, too. With one more attempt to look over my shoulder at Saylor, he walks away with his group of jock buddies in tow.
Once he’s far enough away, the realization of what just happened comes back to smack me in the face. I can feel Silas and Kai hovering on the edge, while I fight to pull myself away from the raspberry scent at my back. Always fucking raspberries.
“Are you done now?” I ask, loud enough for her to hear me, my voice cold and void of all of the emotions I just shoved back in their bottle. Her grip on my shirt loosens, and I can feel them drop away from me.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You weren’t thinking is what you mean,” I fire back, turning to face her, letting my monster out again. She flinches when I let her see the disdain in my gaze. “You gotta think smarter Princess when you start making up excuses.”
“I’m not making excuses.” Her head shakes in denial.
“You just enjoy playing with people’s emotions then?” I bite out the question, enjoying the struggle of her chest while she fights to stay calm.
“No,” she answers, “that’s not it at all.”
“Are you a cock tease, Waters? Is that it?” I goad her, finding the right button when her chin tips up.
“Screw you, Ciaran.”
I laugh. Her words are tough and pack a punch, but there is only one of us walking away from this without leaving blood. “I get it,” I shake my head, “you just like playing with people’s emotions. You like seeing them dangle, putting everything out there, only so you can yank it back and set their world on fire? Because let’s face it…he’s at more of a risk than you are. I almost just rearranged his face for breaking the rules. Is that what you get off on?”
Her eyes shine and fill with clear liquid. That dark pink bottom lip slips into her mouth and is held in a vice grip by her teeth. The urge to deny what I’m saying is on her tongue.
“Like mother, like daughter, I guess.” I lean toward her until we’re face to face. “Must be a family trait. The not caring about who suffers because of you, huh?”
My gaze stays locked on hers, watching, while her mind goes over every word I just told her. I hope they cut. I hope it hurts like hell. Her face loses its natural pink coloring. She backs up from me, ready to flee, ready to run from her nightmare in the flesh. Those salty, liquid tears finally free fall from their holding place to paint wet streams of rejection on her face. She lets me have it. I see all of her pain, before her pride can’t take it anymore. Saylor whips around, purple strands almost smacking my face, and dodges past the remaining gawking bodies and up the stairs.
Once she’s out of my sight, the air rushes back to my lungs. I can breathe evenly again. My mind clears, the darkness retracts, and my adrenaline calms in my veins.
“What the hell, Ci!” Kai pushes at my side. I can hear the disappointment in his voice, without even having to look at him. “You better go fix that. I know you and Si got beef with her but for fucks sake that was uncalled for. In front of everybody, too.”
My head lifts up, his eyes are darting around the room, and, sure enough, the crowd didn’t get smaller when Bentley left, and now, everyone is attempting to not look like they didn’t just witness my conversation with Saylor. Fuck. I got emotional. In my need to hurt her, I drew attention. Sure, I beat people bloody every other week, and I’m not afraid to put anyone of them in their place, but this deal with Saylor is different. I actively engaged with her without mercy. I slipped up and mentioned her family even. Shrugging out of Kai’s grasp, I head toward the stairs.
There is no way I’m going after her, but the sudden pressure of everyone’s expectations weighs on me. My feet hit the first step before my eyes connect with Silas’. Unlike Kai, he didn’t crowd me right away. He held back. His expression is like stone. I didn’t expect him to look grateful, but I also didn’t anticipate to see disgust flashing at me. Looking away, I stalk up the stairs and make my way out of the house.
Saylor
Twisting what’s left of the crusty, brown leaf in my fingers, I hold it close to my head and throw my other hand up in a peace sign, silently counting down the seconds until the timer ends and the picture is taken. My eyes close, inhale, exhale, and it’s done. Picking my phone up off the hood of Matt’s Bronco, I examine my work. All that’s visible in the shot is the open area covered in snow, long purple hair, the leaf and my fingers. Not my eyes, not my body, not my face. It’s perfect. My fingers fly over the screen before I hit share.
Once the shot is posted, I scan over the twenty-five other ones I’ve collected. Just like this one, nothing except my hair and a hand gesture is visible. That was my deal with Reed. After I begged, pleaded and shed a few tears, he was willing to be my accomplice and help set up a secret Instagram account for me. Since Matt and his good ol’ Midwest Boys supervise all contacts, internet use, and apps that are downloaded, I knew I had to go to someone just as smart and savvy as them to help me. To his credit, Reed did turn me down countless times, before I finally wore him down. After that horrible confrontation with Ciaran at the party, I pretty much ugly cried all over Reed at the store. Poor dude had black mascara streaks on his shirt for days after that, and he caved.
I remember watching his fingers scramble over the screen. It was a process of finding a real person and duplicating her account to create a second Instagram account under that person’s name, then changing the settings, so it was hidden from her. The fact that Reed pulled it off makes me both amazed and fearful. I didn’t care, though. #MNGirl was up, running, and waiting for Oaklynn to find.
My heart falter
s a little when I realize again how much time has passed since Reed mailed that burner phone. As promised, I didn’t leave a number to call. I only programmed #MNGirl. He assures me, in as few words as possible, that it’s fine. I shouldn’t worry… but I do. If Matt finds out, or worse, if Ciaran finds out, I’m dead. They won’t understand. He’ll only see it as a breach of security and all his reasons for not wanting me here will be justifiable.
Heat sears my cheeks and tears threaten to spill just thinking about Ciaran. I barely survived the night he destroyed me in front of everybody. I’d like to think that after New York my skin was thick and words couldn’t hurt me. I was wrong. His words beat me down that night. It was brutal, and I left feeling shamed and humiliated. I can’t deny what my dad did. The whole world is aware, and the fallout wasn’t pretty. Having to hear it from Ciaran, for him to fold me in the same cloth as them, and to make assumptions about me, hurt more than anything I’d experienced yet.
Two weeks have passed, and we continue to exist around each other. I don’t see him when he’s home because I try to be gone or asleep when he is there. It’s a stroke of luck we don’t work the same shifts either. When I am at the shop, I’m in the office with Kai. Ciaran and Silas are runners and are usually chasing down vehicles, getting rid of vehicles or helping with extractions in this state. He hasn’t approached me. I’m not even sure if I want him to. Words can’t heal what happened at that party. There is something wrong with me to crave his attention while he lives to wreck my life.
Matt doesn’t know, or if he does, he hasn’t said anything to me, which just goes to show how far of a reach the guys have on the students at school. They’re gods, wardens, and their word is law. If I didn’t understand before, my eyes are wide fucking open now. The last thing I want to do is let Matt down. He took me in when he didn’t have to. He saved us from that house, so we could survive. I fear the storm brewing inside me, though. Most days, I’m steady, barely rocking, but some days, I want to hide under the covers and give myself over to the waves of grief and pain. I can’t outrun the monsters in my sleep, and I pay the price during the day.
“Please find me, Oak,” I whisper to the universe again. Wrapping my arms around myself, I walk back to the Bronco and slip into the driver’s seat. I left it running to keep it warm. We’re nearing the end of January, and the temps continue to dip lower. Winter constantly tells me it’s not the temps that are bad, but the wind that makes it worse. It’s freezing. The air, the wind, all of it.
When I pull into an empty parking spot at the repair shop, I sigh in relief that neither Silas nor Ciaran are here. Jogging quickly across the lot, I slip in the doors and race up to the office I’ve slowly started to claim as my own. After some convincing, Matt finally caved and let me get a Keurig in the space and color-coded folders for my desk. Once he saw my system, he complained less about it. As long as I unplugged the Keurig after my shift, he didn’t care. I make myself a small cup, before sitting at my desk. One more look at my phone indicates no new notifications. Blowing out my breath, I toss the phone into my drawer and promise myself I won’t look again until after my shift. Before I can open my files, the adjoining door to my office opens. Kai steps into the room, his eyes searching me out, biting his lip.
“Hey,” he says, approaching carefully, like I may attack him. He’s around six foot two, and while he may be leaner than Ciaran or Silas, Kai is still muscled. His forest green long sleeve shirt molds to his torso. His black hair is longer on the top and often falls into his eyes. Eyes that are a few shades darker than mine and tip up slightly at the corners. His eyebrows are as dark as his head, and they create intimidating slashes across the lightness of his skin. Winter has mentioned that Kai’s grandparents are from the Guangdong province in China. He’s beautiful and very flirty.
My eyebrows raise in question when he approaches. Kai never actively seeks me out. “Me?” I ask, suddenly unsure.
“Yeah,” he answers, walking to my desk. His hand reaches back to scratch his head. He looks like he’s in pain. “You know what I do, right? For Rogue?”
I nod, my heart rate increasing, wondering where this is going. “Security and IT stuff.”
“IT stuff,” he scoffs offensively. Kai walks over to the window that looks down into the shop. My stomach plummets, terrified that Ciaran or Silas may be down there, before he strides back over to my desk. “Come with me.”
“In there?” I question, pointing to his office. I’ve been told by Matt, under no circumstances, can I go in there. He may trust me around his small set up at home, but I do not have the clearance for whatever is behind that door.
“You scared?” He smirks, tilting his head to the side.
Hook, line and sinker, he lured me right in. I stand from my chair and follow him. “Matt will kill you,” I warn.
“They’re all out on runs tonight,” he assures me, before placing his palm on the scanner.
The door clicks open. Kai walks through and stands to the side to let me enter. Taking a deep breath, I step over the threshold and into a scene from every movie with a NASA or Matrix set up. The farthest wall is a giant screen, similar to the one in Matt’s basement, that is lit up. Thousands of red, green, and yellow lights flicker all over it. Small screens and monitors are surrounding it, scrolling news and footage from aerial views from all over the world. Kai sits at a desk with three monitors running numbers. Another has social media open on it and another is flashing red.
“This is what I want to show you.” He motions to the flashing frame.
A number scrolls across it with an envelope that is waiting to be opened. “What is it?”
“I intercepted a message from this number earlier. It only flagged it because of the content,” Kai explains, never taking his eyes off mine. Blood pumps in my veins so fast and hard, it’s almost painful.
“What was it?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“Saylor, question mark, question mark,” Kai answers, his Adam’s apple bobs visibly while talking. “The number is untraceable. California area code. The reply was to a comment on a duplicate social media account for an Annika Dowing in New Hampshire. It’s registered under a different email, even with an encrypted domain. Hashtag M-N Girl.”
My stomach drops. I have to look away, too scared for Kai to see my face.
“Is it your dad?” Kai asks, cranking his head, so that our eyes meet, bringing my gaze back to his.
I shake my head. “It’s Oaklynn.”
Kai blows his breath out while his fingers drum against the desk. “Who helped you?”
“I did it myself,” I answer. If Kai reports it to Matt, there is a good chance I’ll have to leave. I can’t let that happen to Reed.
Kai nods, as if he isn’t sure what to believe at this moment. “Why?”
“Are you going to tell Ciaran?” I ask hesitantly.
Kai raises his brow. “Shouldn’t you be worried about Matt?”
I shrug. “He’s the lesser of two evils.”
Kai laughs. “Oh, you have no idea, Gossip Girl. Matt may seem like an old dog, but his bite is a hell of a lot bigger than Ciaran’s. Matt built this empire. He didn’t do it by being a push over for teenage girls.”
I can feel a band closing around my neck, cutting off the air to my lungs. The light dims, and words become nonsensical. “I did everything I could to not give away who I am or where I’m at, Kai.”
My gaze swings to his, he’s watching me intently. “I would not purposely put myself or any of the other hidden kids here in danger. I wouldn’t do that to Matt. Not after… not after that. He saved me.”
“You need to give me a very good reason why I shouldn’t say anything, Ariel. I’ll give it to you that this was high level secure. I just have your name flagged everywhere and probably read through thousands of messages a day, or else this would have slipped by. Once I flagged it, I had to encrypt it again and cover my tracks. It was a freaking headache,” Kai rants, and I let him.
&nb
sp; “I’m sorry,” I offer. “I am, Kai. I just, I need my best friend. That night was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I didn’t get to process it. I lock it down, and it makes me sick and scared. That man…his face haunts me. What they did to my mom…I can’t erase her screams from my memory. They’re there every day. I can’t sleep. I’m trying really hard to move on, stay under the radar and blend in when all I want to do is stand in the middle of the room and scream until someone looks. Oaklynn would look. She’d never leave. You guys, Ciaran, Silas, and you…that’s what she is to me. She’s my other half, and I’m so lost and scared. I just wanted a piece of my old life back. I know it was stupid.” My voice cracks and breaks. I wasn’t even aware I was crying until the tears hit the backs of my hands that are resting on the chair. I never wanted to break down like this in front of any of them.
Time passes slowly, and Kai gives me my moment to let it out and unbottle that fear. It’s therapeutic and calming. Not something I expected from Kai, even though I should have. His whole demeanor is relaxed. The entire time I sob, he stays silent, clicking away on his keyboard. I don’t know where we go from here. Staying quiet seems to be the best option at this point.
“I replied back, yes. I secured a line to this phone. You can’t use it without me opening it. The phone won’t let it. I won’t say anything right now. That’s on you. If for some reason you use this recklessly, I will shut it down fast.” Kai’s voice is calm and precise while he talks to me. The harsh lines around his mouth have disappeared.
“Why are you doing this?” I question, not believing he actually did something nice for me.