by Christa Wick
Now, having only her self-absorbed mother to look after her, the confident, fearless girl had vanished.
Wrapping an arm around Eden, I captured her chin then drew her face toward mine, intending nothing more than eye contact. She needed to see me to know I truly meant that I would protect her from my mother's anger. But she wouldn't meet my gaze, leaving me looking at her mouth -- her lush mouth, the one I had been fantasizing hard over ever since I helped put Michael in the ground.
A quiver infected her bottom lip and then I saw a quick flash of teeth as if she was going to say something. By the set of her jaw, I knew it was something intended to push me away.
Surprising both of us, I kissed her before she could speak. My fingers closed softly around her throat as the kiss deepened and then I instinctively squeezed. With all my other senses extinguished by the warring of my tongue against hers and the warmth of our bodies pressed together, I missed the taste of alcohol until I came up for air.
Chapter Four
Eden
"Whisky," Dare said, breaking the kiss.
In less than a minute, my emotions had swung from tense to euphoric to terrified. I wasn't afraid that Dare would hurt me, just that he would hate me. After the night's attack by my classmates, it was clear that the entire town either didn't care if I lived or died or actively hated me.
Everyone that had at least been civil to me while my dad was alive had walked out of my life -- as Dare had done -- or tried to hurt me.
Not your dad, your stepfather, Eden.
The memory of my mother's voice crept like smoke through my head. She had reminded me almost every other day after the explosion that Michael Burke wasn't my true father and that I should just move on with life. But if a true father was the same as a true mother like Helen, I would take a step-parent over a true parent every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
"You've been drinking," Dare repeated, his hands falling away from my body.
I pulled back a little to look at him. Had he really just been kissing me? My lips tingled as if he had. I could still feel where his hand had closed around my throat and a fire burned between my legs. My crush on Dare had started the day I met him and followed me through all my days and nights, possessing my dreams, fueling my fantasies and my fingers. Now, what I had wished years for -- just one small kiss from him -- was over.
Probably forever.
No, definitely forever. He would think I had willingly swallowed the alcohol, that I deserved what Tom had done and worse. He would think I was as big a slut as everyone said my mother was.
Like mother, like daughter.
My gut twisted with the night's events. I could have been raped in that car, murdered in the corn field, and no one would have cared. Not Dare, not even my mother. I thought for one fleeting moment of telling him exactly what had happened, but I'd had enough abuse for the night. I didn't think I would survive him opening his mouth and proving he was just like everyone else in Hagersburg.
Shooting off the park bench like a rocket, I stumbled then started walking. I wouldn't give Dare the chance to confirm he was like everyone else. I walked on, the ground as black as ink and lumpy from moles. I almost tripped half a dozen times before I reached the sidewalk, but I kept going, the absolute silence at my back pushing me forward.
I had expected at least a grunt of protest at my leaving, but Dare couldn't even give me that.
"Wait!" he called at last.
I didn't look over my shoulder or slow my step. I just kept walking. Tears filled my eyes. I wanted to scratch at them just like I had ripped at McPherson's face. My father was dead. I was on my own, not even my mother to care for me beyond what was legally required.
And her legal obligation would be over at the end of the year when I turned eighteen.
I had to keep walking, keep my head down, finish the last two weeks of high school and figure out what I would do when December rolled around and my mother likely kicked me out. At a minimum, I knew Helen would start charging me rent when I reached my next birthday.
"Damn it, Eden, I said stop."
A lift in the concrete tripped me up and I collided with the corner street pole, its light burned out. I had already walked for an hour before Dare showed up just a few minutes after I had stopped to rest. I had a couple miles more before I would be home. Exhaustion filled my limbs, urging me to stop for just a few seconds, just long enough for Dare to prove he was still the young man I had thought he was before Michael's death.
He'll only disappoint you.
Or you'll disappoint him.
I swiped at the tears leaking from my eyes. A second swipe erased the snot starting to seep from my nose.
Instead of the sound of feet behind me, I heard the low rumble of the truck's engine. Dare passed me at a crawl then pulled to a stop a dozen feet ahead. His door popped open then his muscular frame slid out, his feet hitting the sidewalk as I reached the rear bumper. I thought of veering back into the grass, doubting he would follow if it meant leaving his truck behind.
Before I could decide, he snagged my elbow.
"Get in the truck." His grip tightened as I started to pull away. "Please, Eden. I understand that you're pissed at me, but you're lucky as hell you haven't already been caught out past curfew."
Lucky?
I didn't feel lucky!
Silently, I ticked off a list of the things my pride and shame wouldn't let me reveal. Forced out of the house by my mother, assaulted by my classmates, prohibited from returning home until at least midnight even though my mother knew about the curfew. I had to beg my mother to even give me my wallet.
And then there was Principal Doyle, Mary O'Donnell's godmother. If I got caught breaking curfew, the woman would suspend me for at least a week and likely make me wait until summer school was over before I received my diploma. Which would mean no summer job and no chance to save for when Helen eventually started charging me rent or kicked me out entirely.
Yeah, I was lucky as hell -- not!
Dare tugged on my arm, his touch remaining light but my body feeling everything magnified a thousand times. I was fighting mad, ready to bawl my eyes out, ready to puke from the adrenaline rush.
Worse than that, I was ready to give up and join Michael, who was probably the only person in my life who had ever actually cared about me.
"Fine," I relented, my gaze on my shoes and my hair falling across my face. "Just don't talk to me."
Dare sighed, the sound heavy, but he said nothing as he walked me around to the passenger side of the truck, opened the door and waited until I was belted in before he closed it and went around to his side.
I studied him from the corner of one eye as he climbed behind the wheel, pulled the seatbelt across his broad chest and turned the key in the ignition. There was just enough light from the dashboard for me to see the way his lips and jaw slid around, like he was holding in a long string of accusations and recriminations.
Just as the night had soured in Anna's car once the vehicle was in motion, I expected that Dare would wait until he was driving before the foul words he had in store for me began spilling from his mouth.
Bracing for the inevitable, I started counting the blocks remaining until I would be home.
On foot, the trip would have covered just three miles. I realized two blocks after Dare should have made his first left turn that he didn't intend to follow the route I would have taken. An unexpected right turn two blocks later, and I figured out he was avoiding both the police substation and the fire department.
Like an idiot, I had planned on walking in front of both buildings despite curfew being in force. Even worse, I might have come to my senses before passing the locations, only to immediately lose all thought of self-preservation by taking one of the alleys so I wouldn't be seen.
Even that close to the cops, no one with a lick of sense would venture through the alleys after dark.
"Are you looping behind the hospital?" I asked, wondering how many mi
nutes I had to endure with the boy I had once thought I loved.
"Nope." The answer issued from between his clenched teeth. He swallowed, softening his tone before he explained. "Too much police and EMT around the hospital. Someone's bound to recognize you."
"Kearsley Boulevard, then?" Full of banks and professional offices, Kearsley would be dead at that time of night, the traffic lights flashing red in all directions.
Seeing the bob of his head, I calculated the extra distance and time the route would require. Ten minutes, maybe more. I hoped it would be less.
Passing the time, I tried to tidy up my appearance. I had on a light blue flannel shirt over a sleeveless t-shirt. McPherson had popped one of the buttons during his rough effort to wrestle me into submission. I tucked the outer shirt into the waistband of my pants to hide the lost button. I also pulled my hair back from my face and tied it into a loose pony tail before rubbing at my cheeks. Red hair, pale skin, I knew all the crying had likely made my skin blotchy. At least my mother didn't allow me to wear any makeup, so I didn't have to worry that all the tears had given me raccoon eyes.
Reaching an intersection, Dare stopped for the red light.
"What the hell is that on your face?"
His voice turned harsh all over again. He reached for me, his thumb whispering across my jaw. I winced in pain despite the gentle touch.
"Why didn't you tell me he hit you?" Dare jerked his hand back to the wheel, his gaze slitted and focused on the red light as his feet simultaneously pressed the brake and accelerator. "I am going to kill fucking McPherson."
"It wasn't him." Words started pouring out of me despite my earlier resolve to keep silent. I clapped my hands across my mouth in an effort to stop, but I was bordering on hysterical and the gesture only muffled what I was saying. "Tom wasn't even in the car when I got in. It was just Anna and Molly. Then he called and Anna said who was with her. He had her pick him up. Then he started passing the flask around, I didn't want any--"
My nails dug at my cheeks in the struggle to stop talking but I couldn't. I had been holding back so much since Michael died. Eventually, it had to spill out an it was.
"He forced the alcohol down my throat and it was Molly who hit me when I tried to kick out Anna's window. They wouldn't let me out." I sucked in a huge lungful of air, my chest feeling like it would explode. I was crying again, the tears hot, their salt stinging at one of the crescents I had just gouged in my skin. "If you hit him again, your mom and everyone will hate me even more. Please, don't do it. I promise I won't go near anyone from school ever again!"
Fuck, why was I apologizing as if the night's events were my fault?
The light turned green as I finished pleading with Dare. He gunned the engine, shot through the intersection and drove hard for a few minutes before pulling into an empty parking lot. Twisting in his seat, he grabbed my face with both hands.
"No one who counts for anything hates you." He released his hold on me, clenched his fingers for a few seconds then recaptured my face with a gentle cupping.
"They do," I protested. "They hate me because they hate my mom. Your mother hates her most of all."
I tried to push his hands away, but he kept holding me, his fingers sliding toward the back of my skull and lacing together. He pulled me to him, his mouth dangerously close to mine. All the parts of me that had been flushed and tingling on the park bench during his kiss started to heat again. My nipples poked at my shirt and a spot deep between my thighs started to ache. I leaned into him, my hands seeking purchase on his thick arms.
"I'll fix all of this," he promised. "I'll talk to my mother--"
I managed a frantic shake of my head despite his hard grip. "Please, no. You can't see how she is. She...please, just let it go."
I bit at my lip. I wouldn't call Mary O'Donnell any of the words Molly had thrown at me in the car no matter how much of a bitch "Bloody Mary" was. Dare loved his mother and the woman loved him back with an undeniable ferocity. I wished I had with Helen even half of what Dare had with his mother.
I would never try to take that away from him. I wasn't worth it -- at least that's what everyone seemed to think, even my own mother. So it had to be true.
Right?
"Baby..." He leaned in, his forehead touching mine. His shoulders sagged, his grip on the back of my skull growing looser then falling away.
We rested like that for a few seconds, the fleeting memory of our first and only kiss making my lips burn. I wanted another kiss from him and then another. I wanted his hand moving down my throat as it had on the bench, then lower still, reaching for the spot I had tried to shield from McPherson. I licked my lips, moistening them for him.
Jerking away, Dare put the truck in drive.
"I'll talk to my dad," he said as we left the parking lot. "I know he's just trying to help you after Mike died, but it's giving my mom ideas. She'll lay off if he's not always popping over to your house to fix things. I'll tell him he needs to take care of everything on my mom's list at home and if something goes wrong at your place, I'll come over."
Reaching across the center console, he found my arm and lightly squeezed.
"I should have been the one coming over to begin with."
Listening to Dare, I slouched in the truck's seat. He was talking like his dad was visiting my house a lot and for my benefit. I didn't think that was true. I had hardly seen Frank O'Donnell since Mike died. And nothing at home needed fixed. It wasn't uncommon for firefighters to spend at least seventy-two hours straight living at the station. So Mike had kept our home in great condition. If everything was maintained in advance, there was very little chance repairs would be needed when he was on duty for days at a time.
So what the hell was Dare talking about?
"Okay?" he asked as we came up on another intersection with a red light.
"Sure," I answered numbly, not knowing whether I should tell him that his dad hadn't been hanging around our home. Dare seemed to want to protect me and I wanted that, too. My chest squeezed around my heart with the thought of seeing more of him. But what he thought about Frank coming over was wrong.
It was only a matter of time before he found out. He would feel betrayed. He would look for someone to blame.
My lips rolled against one another as I thought through my dilemma. I could lose him that night, in the truck, or I could lose him when he found out that his dad hadn't been anywhere near my house in months. Those were my two options. I could have a few days or weeks of feeling wanted again, maybe even loved, or I could finish the night as it had begun.
As an outsider...
Unloved...
Under attack...
Hated.
"Thank you," I whispered, reaching across the bench seat and placing my hand on his arm. "That would be great."
Smiling, he signaled for the turn that would take us into my subdivision. The opposite side of the street had a small convenience store on one corner and a bank on the other. Except for the traffic signal and the convenience store, the streets were dark and empty as midnight approached.
Starting to take the turn, Dare tapped the brakes. I glanced to find him looking off to the outer side of the intersection, his attention stuck on the bank's parking lot. I expected the area to be just as empty as the street, but a big, black truck was parked behind the bank, almost out of sight from where we were turning.
With its dark paint, the vehicle would have been invisible at that time of night if it weren't for the chrome bumper.
Black truck, lift kit indicating it was a 4WD, all that expensive chrome...
Recognizing Frank O'Donnell's truck, I licked nervously at my lips, an internal alarm blaring inside my head. Dare thought his dad was spending a lot of time at our house. My mother had told me to stay away until midnight even though that meant breaking curfew. Helen had been unusually cheerful the past two weeks, humming to herself and wearing the same kind of grin I could imagine a fox in a henhouse might wear. The presence of the tru
ck was the last clue to the puzzle.
Dare took the turn, his gaze still pointed at the parking lot. The back tire on my side bumped against the curb.
"Sorry," he whispered, his attention snapping forward. "I saw a truck that looks just like my dad's."
I squeezed his arm in panic, words slowly filtering past my lips before my brain could analyze them. "Drop me off here."
My teeth clenched. Had I sounded as desperate as I felt? The worst thing I could do was make Dare suspicious. If I walked through my front door half an hour early and found Frank O'Donnell on the other side fucking my mother senseless, it wouldn't matter so long as Dare was already pulling away from the house. The event would just be another secret I had to keep for Helen.
"Not a chance," Dare answered.
For one scary second, I thought he was responding to the thoughts in my head, that he could read my mind and had glimpsed the image of Helen and Frank together, their bodies sweaty and contorting in ways I couldn't even image with my limited exposure to the topic of sex.
"I'm seeing you safely to your door," he continued, patting the hand with which I continued to clutch his arm.
We made the turn onto my street while my brain scrambled in every direction for a logical reason to stop before reaching the house. I thought I hit on one. I blurted it out.
"If someone sees us and recognizes you, they'll go straight to your mom."
"It doesn't matter where in the neighborhood I drop you off," Dare countered. "That would still be a problem. And, we've arrived anyway. See?"
Numb, I stared at the front door, then the driveway, then, finally, at Dare. I hadn't released the death grip on his arm. Slowly, I forced my hand to relax and peeled the fingers away.
