by Katie May
But maybe, just maybe, I could make livable.
“The movers are bringing in the furniture,” he continued. “I was thinking
in a couple of hours we could go out to dinner. Check out the town.”
He shrugged helplessly and something akin to guilt tore through my
chest. My parents tried so hard to be the best that they could be. Moving
across the country, getting a new job...they honestly believed that it was the
best course of action for their family. I couldn’t fault them on that, even
though they ruined my life in the process. I knew I was being a brat; I knew
that I was making this whole situation harder than it needed to be. I vowed to
myself, right then and there, that I would not shed another tear for the place I
had left.
No, I only had to wait a year before I could go back. Once I turned
eighteen, there would be no stopping me. Jaron and I have already talked
about colleges on the east coast. Fiona would want to come too. It would be
the three of us, my boyfriend and my best friend, against the world. As it
should be.
I smiled wistfully at the fantasy, and my dad, mistaking my smile as
acceptance of his proposal, blew out a sigh of relief.
“I’ll let your sister and brother know.” He paused, fingers clenched
around the doorframe. “We love you Camila. You know that, right?”
I smiled at my father warmly.
“Of course I know that. I love you too.”
And I did. My siblings may annoy the shit out of me and my dads may be
a bit too protective, but they were my family. They were the people I could
count on when I thought about succumbing to the darkness. They were my
light.
Dropping my boxes onto the floor, I froze suddenly. The hairs on the
back of my neck stood on end as if bolts of electricity were coursing through
my skin. My hands turned clammy by my sides.
I knew it was irrational to believe that someone was watching me, yet that
pesky feeling wouldn’t go away. It was almost as if I was standing on an
elevated platform, stage lights glaring down at me. I was aware that there was
an audience, but individual faces remained indistinct.
Glancing over my shoulder, I stared out the window. There didn’t appear
to be anyone in our yard, and I scoffed at how ridiculous I was behaving.
Colt’s conspiracy theories were finally getting to my head.
Still, the feeling that someone was watching me did not diminish. If
anything, it grew.
“Nothing sounds good here,” Colt said, glaring at the menu as if his eyes
could physically penetrate through it. I rolled my eyes once again at my
brother’s dramatics.
“Do you have to complain about everything?” I asked.
“Do you have to be such a bitch?” he fired back, earning himself a glare
from both of my dads. Dad hated when we swore, especially with what he
considered as unnecessary colorful language. I have learned to get quite
creative with my use of swear words. It was so fudging annoying. See? Even
my mental thoughts were beginning to turn on me.
We had found this restaurant downtown. We had to park at a meter, a
couple of blocks away, because there were no open parking spaces closer to
the restaurant itself. Despite the numerous cars, we were able to be seated
right away, underneath a bear head. Yup. You heard me right. A good old
bear head (because I really wanted Yogi to stare down at me while I was
eating). The restaurant was, admittedly, cute, with a couple dozen wooden
tables in the center of the room and a long bar opposite the door. The
decorations adorning the walls varied from animal heads to dated newspaper
clippings. There didn’t seem to be a set theme to the diminutive diner, but the
overall feel of the restaurant was homey. Comfy.
Our family had only garnered a few stares as we walked by. My dads
were holding hands, and us children were trailing behind them.
Karissa, with her rich ebony skin and darker hair.
Colt, with his mane of blond hair and freckled face.
And finally, me. Dark hair and tanned skin thanks to my Latino heritage.
For the most part, the town had been friendly. The hostess had asked my
parents how long they have been together, the waitress discussed how
beautiful us children were, and a couple patrons at the bar commented that
they had never seen us before.
“We don’t get a lot of tourists here,” one of them stated.
“We know everybody in this town,” said another. I snorted at his small-
town logic.
They seemed thrilled to discover that Papa was joining the police force
and Dad got a job teaching at the college a few towns over.
“I’m a deputy,” one of the younger men said, extending a hand. “The
name’s Rick.”
It wasn’t bad. Not at all. One of my biggest fears was the bigotry of a
small town. We would be judged, shamed, cast aside. It had happened once
before. Instead, nobody batted an eye at my parents’ marriage and their
choice to adopt multiracial children. My respect for the town grew
significantly.
Our food arrived, and I practically salivated at the crispy chicken wrap on
my plate. I liked food. A lot. Could you blame me? Chocolate and fried
chicken and everything in-between.
Fiona would often get on my case about my eating habits.
“Seriously?” she would say, lip curling in disgust. “Do you want to get
fat?”
Sometimes, when I was feeling particularly vulnerable, I would listen to
her. Other times, I would tell her to piss off.
“How’s the cheeseburger?” Papa asked Colt. My brother was picking
apart his dinner. Bread on one side of his plate, patty on the other. His nose
was scrunched up as if the food was emitting a particularly pungent smell.
“I’m not hungry,” Colt mumbled. The poor sandwich had been brutalized
by my brother’s repetitive knife slashing.
“Why did you order it if you weren’t going to eat it?” I snapped. He did
this shit every day. I had long since stopped asking what went through that
crazy head of his. “Is it because you’re afraid the government is going to
poison you? Is that it? You don’t trust the meat?”
“When you die, and I live, then we can talk.”
“So are beers and chips the only food items not contaminated by the
government?”
Colt merely glared at me.
After a few more bites of my wrap, I poked Papa on the shoulder.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said, waiting for him to slide out of the
vinyl booth. Karissa, who was sitting on a chair at the end of the table, smiled
innocently up at me.
“Do you have to go poop or pee?”
My sister was a real classy bitch.
“Don’t be gross,” I said, ruffling her hair.
“I’m honestly curious!”
“That’s a demented thing to be curious about,” Dad pointed out. Karissa
huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Bodily fluids interest me. Is there something wrong with that?”
Papa’s face had turned green.
Dad patted the back of Papa’s hand sympathetically. If there was one
th
ing that could make the monster man squeamish, it was talk of pee and
periods and all that fun stuff.
A useful weapon in my arsenal, if I do say so myself.
I made my way to the bathroom quickly, did my business, and washed my
hands. Frowning, I considered myself in the restaurant’s dirty mirror.
I was short for my age, almost embarrassingly so. It made my petite
frame seem almost childish. My hair was an onyx black, hanging down my
back in light waves. I wasn’t model-thin like the other girls. A slab of fat
made my belly protrude over the waistband of my jeans. Not skinny. Not
completely fat.
Not beautiful.
Not ugly.
Average.
I frowned at the face reflected back at me, hating every flaw on my brown
skin and every tangle in my long hair. Why couldn’t I have looked like
Fiona? White and blond and skinny?
Beautiful.
Why couldn’t I be beautiful?
I pushed aside the self-doubt and quickly dried my hands. My psychiatrist
told me that I couldn’t allow my thoughts to sink back into such dark
territory. There wasn’t a switch that I could just flip off, though. It took
considerable effort to smother some of the darker thoughts and find my way
back into the light. It was like tumbling through a riptide, my depression. I
would sink beneath wave after wave of endless darkness, desperate to find a
pocket of fresh air. Once I found it, mercifully, I would be pulled back under
yet again. The water would carry me further and further away from the shore,
away from the light. I needed to stay above water.
I needed to stay in the light.
I decided to think about school instead as I headed back to the table. I
would be going to a new school. Was I nervous? Excited? What would Jaron
think if-
My thoughts were interrupted as my body collided with a wall. At least, I
thought it was a wall. My anger quickly transformed into horror when I met
the amused smirk of a handsome man.
His hair was dark, a few shades lighter than my own, and he had lightly
tanned skin. Unlike mine, his skin color seemed to be a product of sunlight,
not genetics. He wore a black jacket, tight over his muscles, and a white shirt
that accentuated his chiseled chest.
“You made her speechless Ty,” a feminine voice said with a chuckle. A
chorus of laughs greeted her statement.
I tore my gaze away from Tall, Dark, and Sexy and faced the table that
the voice had come from. There were about six of them - two girls and four
guys. They all wore similar, black jackets with skulls on the back and had
numerous piercings adorning their skin. It was the girl with the lilac hair that
had spoken.
“I’m sorry,” I sputtered.
“Oh look,” the man I bumped into drawled lazily. “It speaks.”
The group broke into another round of laughter.
Feeling tears spring to my eyes, accompanied by the irresistible urge to
run away as fast and as far as I could, I shouldered the stranger out of my
way. Ty, I think the girl said his name was.
“She’s so cute!” the second girl said. “Look at her waddle.”
Ty, coming to stand beside me, mimicked the way I walked, hips swaying
side to side in exaggerated movements. My face burned red. I had dealt with
bullies when I was younger, but they had stopped after I befriended Fiona.
The girl had a way of innately demanding respect and fear from anyone dumb
enough to stare directly at her. Once I began dating Jaron? Nobody would
dare even speak my name badly behind my back, let alone to my face. It was
the type of power that both terrified and enthralled me. I felt as if I had the
world at my fingertips. Were those feelings healthy? Normal? Sane? I
wouldn’t be able to tell you. All I knew for certain was that I wished Fiona
was with me now. She would know exactly what to say, what witty retort to
come back with. I was inadequate compared to her; I couldn’t face my
monsters alone.
“It looks as if she’s going to cry!” Lilac girl squealed. “Aw. Poor baby.”
Ty stopped moving almost immediately and turned towards me.
“We were just teasing you.”
“How dare you?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off with a flick of my wrist.
“How dare you stand there and tease me? Does that make you feel manly,
teasing a girl half your size? Does it make your flaccid dick suddenly hard?”
Hissing, I took a step closer to him until we were nose to nose. “You are an
asshole. I don’t even know you, yet I can tell that. Grow up. Or take Viagra
to fix that little problem of yours.”
“Wait!” he called.
Ignoring him, I made my way back through the dining room and to my
family. They were currently in a heated debate about the effectiveness of
stools in the bathroom. Apparently, Colt believed that by elevating your feet
when you were pooping, it would make said poop come out easier.
My brother was a strange man.
Papa’s eyes zeroed in on my face immediately. He had always been the
most perceptive of my family members.
“You okay?” he asked, eyes scanning the room as if looking for any
potential danger. I bit my lip, debating whether or not I should tell him about
the rude teenagers. I decided quickly against it.
I would probably never see them again after today. People were dicks,
especially kids. Besides, I didn’t want my fathers to know that their words
and teasing had affected me. They would ship me off to the nearest hospital if
I so much as described the darkness I could feel brewing inside of me. The
dark, inky tendrils that threatened to consume me whole.
I kept my mouth shut and enjoyed the rest of my meal.
Document Outline
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Copyright
1. Z
2. Z
3. Z
4. Killian
5. Devlin
6. Z
7. Z
8. Z
9. Z
10. Lupe
11. Z
12. Z
13. Jax
14. Dair
15. Z
16. Z
17. Bash
18. Z
19. Z
20. Z
21. Jax
22. Z
23. Devlin
24. Z
25. Z
26. Lupe
27. Devlin
28. Dair
29. Z
30. Ryland
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other books by Katie May:
The Darkness We Crave
Gangs and Ghosts
Present Day