He looks between me and his 'date' for the night, shrugging his shoulders.
"Get out," he orders her, casually.
"What?" She looks confused, not sure if it's a joke, and she laughs. "You know I don't have a ride."
"Call your old man, then," he says, tossing her his cell phone. "He can pick you up on the way."
Maybe it's the way he's looking at her like she has no choice, or maybe it's because I'm trembling and looking like I'm barely able to refrain from punching her, but she starts dialing and goes out into the porch to finish the call. Kaiden and I stare at each other in silence before she finally returns.
"He can't get me," she says, and Kaiden is suddenly enraged, turning on her.
"I said get the fuck out. This isn't my fucking problem, you cunt," he snarls with a scowl, and I wonder if he picked her because he saw her laughing at me. If he was doing it to punish her, or me... I didn't even know. She seems shaken by his tone, though, and quickly makes for the door.
"You're fuckin' crazy, Kaiden!" she screams before slamming the door shut. Seconds later, we hear the sound of keys scraping metal. His bike? Or my car?
Either way, Kaiden doesn't budge.
He stares at me intensely, his breathing hard.
"What is it you want from me, Princess? Huh?"
I stare at him, confused bewildered.
"You come here, you fuck up my life, and you take over everything. You come into my home, my job, and my friends. And now you're the one that tells me who I sleep with?"
His voice is this measured calm, this dark, scary tone I've never heard him use before.
Honestly, it's terrifying, and he looks so intense I can barely breathe, let alone answer.
"I can't get you out of my head, and then you start taking over my life too," he growls, and it's like there's a heavy pit in my stomach. I don't want him to go on, I don't want him to keep talking, and I take a step back. But he follows.
The kitchen is small enough that it only takes a couple of steps before he has me pinned to the wall, one hand over my shoulder, glowering down at me.
At six and a half feet tall, he's built like a truck, and I feel so tiny.
"What do I have to do to get you out of here, huh?" he asks, tapping his temple. "I've fucked every broad that comes into that place, and not one of them can get you out. And now I have to see you every goddamned day of my life, prancing around like I'm the scum of the earth, and you're untouchable."
He pauses, but he doesn't stop. His words are slurred and dark, his breath washing over me.
"I got away from you, I got my life back, and then you come wandering back. Making me want you again, and all the while, you act like you're too fucking good for this world. But if you eat with the pigs, Princess, you can't be surprised when you get a bit dirty."
I can't believe what I'm hearing, and my heart is pounding so loud that maybe I'm hearing it all wrong.
Is he saying that he feels for me the same way I feel for him?
I stare up at him, and he leans closer, his mouth approaching mine. I can smell the whiskey on his breath, and I want, more than anything, to simply silence all my fears on his lips. To just succumb to what I want so fucking bad.
His green eyes caress my face, his tongue runs along his upper lip as he leans in further. He's only an inch away, and I want him. My stomach clenches with desire and I need him so fucking bad.
Instead, I run.
Chapter 5.
I don't know where I'm going. I just need to get away from him, from what he said.
From how it made me feel.
The road is so dark, I can barely see anything, even with my lights on. Not a soul around.
I'm completely and utterly alone, and the sensation is at once comforting yet so alienating.
Kaiden's words ring through my ears, the way he was staring at me so intently. With such longing.
'Making me want you again...'
I had to have misunderstood. It just couldn't be real. I didn't understand how it could be.
It's one thing for me to think about my step-brother like this, but for the feelings to be mutual? That's just me dreaming, wanting for something that can't ever, ever be.
I have to get out. Out of this town, out of this state, somewhere as far from him and the bar and Ryder as I can get.
I drive for what feels like such a long time but must have been only forty-five minutes.
The sky's turning that navy color, sunrise just an hour or two away, and my eyes are grainy. I can barely keep them open, all the adrenaline of the day taking its toll on me now.
I have no idea where I am, but when I see a sign for a motel coming up, it seems my prayers are about to be answered.
Pulling into a parking spot near the road and walking into the dimly lit lobby, I feel like a zombie, and the front desk clerk doesn't seem much better. Her face is sour and tight, but all I want is a bed for the night, to crash. To be alone and try to make sense of what's happening.
"One night, please," I say, struggling to smile.
"I'm sorry, we're full," she says in return, not even bothering to look.
"But the sign says vacancy?" I press, more angrily than I intend.
I can't believe my luck.
She shrugs. "We're full."
"You've gotta be shitting me!"
The glare she gives me says it all, and I'm too tired to fight, too tired to even cry. A tremble goes through me, and I suck in some breath before simply turning and making my way back to my car.
I can't go on. I crawl into the back seat, pull the itchy spare blanket over my shoulders, and just try to find some peace.
It reminds me of those dark days after losing our home, back when I still had too much pride to talk to Kaiden about it, and I shiver despite the warmth of the night. I just need some sleep, and then I can figure it all out tomorrow.
I wake up startled to a knocking on the window. At first I'm not entirely sure where I am. It comes back to me, slowly.
I slept in the car again.
For a second, I picture Kaiden coming to find me, an extra blanket and a warm coffee in hand, and I smile.
Until I see the early morning light spilling over the cop at my window, lights flashing on his car parked not far away.
"Fuck," I curse to myself, bolting up. My legs are cramped, and I have a kink in my neck, but I roll down the window.
"Is there something wrong, officer?" I ask before I see the desk clerk standing not far away, a smug look on her rancid little face.
"I'm going to need you to step outside the vehicle, miss."
"Kaiden... I know you're probably mad at me, but if you get this, I really need your help. I'm at a police station in Ramona, and if you don't pick me up, if someone doesn't pick me up, I'm going to be transferred somewhere else. I don't really know where. They impounded my car..."
I try not to sob as I'm leaving him the message, but I've never been in trouble before. Never even been sent to the principal's office. But now I'm in jail, being threatened with some half-baked vagrancy charge. I'd tried to explain over and over that the motel was full and I just needed to sleep, that it wasn't safe for me to drive, but they just kept telling me to tell it to the judge.
I hang up the phone and get escorted back to my cell. It's a gross grey-green color, not really like what I've seen on TV. I guess because it's just lockup and not jail-jail. I go to the table and sit at one of the chairs, listening to the sound of the person in the bed retching something awful.
And all I can do is push my palms to my eyes and sob.
"Please, Kaiden," I whimper under my breath. "Please come."
"Who's Kaiden?"
I startle, wiping my eyes of their tears and try to look... what? Hard? I'm an eighteen-year-old girl that looks more like a high school cheerleader, not a thug.
I look into the face of a woman double my age at least, who's leaning on her knee in the dark corner of the top bunk. I hadn't realized that there were three of us in here.
"My brother," I say too quickly, opening up too fast. I've seen the TV shows, I know these people aren't on my side. But I'm so scared, and I want so badly for someone to tell me it'll be okay, and she looks like she's been here before.
"I'm sorry for, uh, waking you," I say as I wipe the rest of my eyes.
"Don't worry about it, kid. Missy-moo beneath me here is what's keeping me up. Ever since they got rid of the drunk tank, this place has gone downhill." She gives me a wry sort of smile, half-cunning, half-genuineness. She reminds me of one of the customers at the bar. Someone that time and life hasn't been kind to.
But I guess we're both in lockup, so maybe life hasn't been kind to either of us.
"Oh, yeah," I reply, as if I know, but she must be able to see me better than I can see her.
"Your hands are shaking. First time here?"
I look down at my hands before pressing my palms to the table. "Yeah," I murmur, honesty spilling from my lips once more.
She hops down from the bed, away from the puddle beneath our roommate's face, and joins me at the table.
"What're you in for?"
"Vagrancy," I reply with a sneer, another sob striking my chest. "I just... I ran away, and the motel was full, so I was just sleeping in my car in the parking lot. I didn't know there was anything wrong with it!"
Her mouth goes into a line, the remnants of her lip liner still visible. Watery blue eyes and light colored lashes peer at me. "That's a tough break, kid."
"Why, what are you here for?"
She shrugs as if it's nothing. "Solicitation." She pauses, then continues without needing to, "Prostitution, I mean."
I look away. "Oh." My nose crinkles before I force my eyes back to hers. "Is this... is it your first time for that?"
She shakes her head and looks, for a second, so sad.
"Third time's a charm, right sweetheart?" she says, and my heart breaks for her. I don't know the charges or the sentence she's facing, but I can't imagine it's going to be lenient.
"I'm sorry," I murmur gently.
She shakes her head and gives me a flimsy smile. "It happens. But when you're desperate, you take risks you wouldn't otherwise," she says as she raises her chin towards me. "So what has you on the run?"
"My brother..."
"The same one that you're begging to come get you?"
I laugh, the sound pathetic and soft. "Yup."
Her face is instantly hard, and she leans in, talking more quietly. "Has he hurt you? Laid hands on you?"
I shake my head, feeling a little sick to my stomach that anyone could ever think that about Kaiden. Despite all his hardness, despite all the things he's done over the years, he's never hurt me. Not like that.
I don't even know why it bothers me so much that this stranger would think that, but it does. I feel the instant need to defend him.
"No, no. He's... I mean, he's my step-brother, and I've been living with him for a few weeks, and we just don't... we don't get along that great."
"Your step-brother?" The woman looked at me with a raised brow before she simply shrugged her shoulders. "Well, family's complicated, ya? Why don't you get along?"
I sit back in my chair, and I'll be honest... I'm totally and utterly stumped as to what to tell her. I mean, I know why we don't get along, now more than ever. I know we've been pushing one another away, that we've been trying to deny this... feeling hanging between us. That we'd been needing to put time and distance and space between us, and it hasn't worked.
So how do I tell that to a woman? To a stranger? I just don't know, and I lick my lips. She's just a random person. Maybe... maybe it wouldn't be so bad just to tell her. It's not like I'm ever going to see her again, not once I get released.
"I... we want to be something to one another that we just... can't be." The words feel funny on my tongue, but it's like this sense of relief washed over me. All my anger and rage at Kaiden, all these emotions, they simply started to calm as the weight of the words lingered in the air.
"I see," she says, tapping her fingers on the table. I don't know if it's a nervous habit or if she's just lost in thought-her expression is unreadable. "What do you two wanna be then, huh?"