Fiercely Emma: Cake Series Book Three

by J. Bengtsson

  “You.”

  “Me what?” I nearly screamed in response.

  “Do something,” she said, then turned over and away from me.

  “Me? These are your damn kids, not mine.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “How many of these pills have you taken?” I asked, as I grabbed the bottle and shook it. There was a healthy amount remaining, and my anxiety eased slightly.

  “Not enough.”

  “Mom, please,” I begged. “You’re not helping Jake like this. What if he comes home and finds you like this?”

  She turned over to me, her eyes droopy. “You don’t get it, do you? He’s dead. Jake’s dead, and he’s never coming back.”

  “Jake’s dead?” Quinn screamed, his eyes open wide in horror.

  “No, Quinn. No,” I said, grabbing his trembling hand and steering him from the room. “Goddammit, Mom!” I yelled, before slamming the door on her.

  The minute we got into the hall, Quinn collapsed onto the carpet, repeating the same two words: “Jake’s dead?” I tried to console him, but he was a quivering pile of tears and snot.

  “Don’t listen to her, Quinn. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Jake is alive, and he’s going to come home.”

  “Why would Mommy say that? Where’s Jake?”

  Not knowing what to say, I just scooped Quinn off the floor and held him in my arms. A noise caught my attention, and I looked up. Kyle was leaning against his door, eyes bloodshot and the bandage over his stitched face torn off. Dried blood stained his forehead. Had he pulled the stitches out? And his hair… he’d chopped it off.

  “Kyle, come here,” I said. “What have you done?”

  His wild eyes met mine. I scanned his nearly naked frame. Only a pair of boxers covered him. He looked emaciated. Kyle turned to shut his door on me, but I stopped it with my foot and forced my way in.

  The smell hit me first. The strong odor was clearly feces and urine. Kyle was using his and Jake’s room as a toilet. Jesus. What was going on in that head of his?

  The knife was the second thing I noticed. It sat on the floor surrounded by Kyle’s hair and splotches of blood.

  “What is happening?” I asked, my voice cracking in emotion. “What have you been doing?”

  Kyle didn’t respond. His eyes were downcast. I noticed cuts on his body. A nasty sickness brewed in my belly. My God, how long had he been left wallowing in his own filth with only a knife for company? If someone didn’t do something quick, I’d be burying another brother. But who was there to help? Mom and Dad were useless, and Keith hadn’t been home in days. I had no idea where to even begin. Kyle’s problems were beyond me; he needed help of the professional kind.

  I walked slowly toward the knife, but Kyle caught on and lunged for it, gripping it in his hand as if it were his only friend. Still holding a whimpering Quinn, I backed away, not even remotely secure in Kyle’s sanity.

  “Put it down,” I demanded.

  Quinn, who’d had his head buried in my shoulder, now turned to look, and terror transformed his perfect features. “Put it down, Kyle. What are you doing?” He started crying even harder now. I didn’t blame him. It was what I wanted to do too.

  “You’re scaring him. Just drop the knife. You need to come out of this room. Why don’t you go take a shower, and I’ll make you some food?”

  “No.”

  “It’s going to be okay. Please, Kyle, put down the knife.”

  “It’s not going to be okay,” he said, in barely more than a whisper. “You didn’t see what I saw. Nothing will ever be okay again.”

  And at that moment, I believed him. Life was spiraling out of control, and I was not equipped to deal with any of it. Three weeks ago I’d been an immature, selfish brat whose biggest worry was whether another classmate would come to school in the same outfit I was wearing. And now I was trying to hold a family intact on frayed strings that were unraveling faster than I could bind them back together.

  “Give her the knife,” Quinn wailed. So much for keeping the poor kid in the dark! He was going to be scarred for life after the five minutes he’d just had.

  “Get out of my room,” Kyle demanded, pointing the knife at the two of us.

  He was wildly unstable, and protecting Quinn became my only focus. I couldn’t help Kyle, and at this point, I doubted anyone could. I slowly backed out of his room, never taking my eyes off him. His misery took my breath away. Then the door slammed in my face.

  I found Grace watching TV, seemingly oblivious to the drama surrounding her. Setting Quinn down, I stared at my little siblings. If this was our new normal, what was their life going to be like from this point forward?

  “I’m hungry.” Quinn sniffed through his sobs.

  “I know. I’ll go make some food. Just stay here. I’ll come get you when it’s ready.”

  As soon as I left the little ones, I searched the house for my father. Gone. I knocked on Keith’s door. No answer. I headed back to my mother and again roused her from her sleep.

  “Mom. Kyle needs you.”

  “I’m sleeping,” she mumbled.

  “Well, then maybe you better wake up, unless you want to lose another son,” I replied, angrily. “He’s in his room cutting himself with a knife, if you even care.”

  Mom bolted upright, her hair a tangled mess. “What are you talking about?”

  “Kyle. He needs his mother. Pull yourself together and be one!”

  8

  Finn: The Golden Ticket

  Pulling into the parking lot of the offsite ticket booth, I watched a composed Emma instantly transform before my eyes.

  A heavy sigh escaped her. “Oh, great.”

  I whipped my head in the direction of her frustration and groaned myself at the horde of people lined up for tickets. It appeared half a block long.

  “Crap,” she said. “Do you need me to go with you?”

  Suddenly I felt like a toddler in need of his mommy. “I just… I have no flippin’ clue how I’m supposed to do this,” I answered, desperate for her to stay not only because I was dense and needed direction but also because I just really wanted her to stay. “Why don’t you wait in the air conditioning while I stand in line?”

  Emma looked conflicted. I knew then that it wasn’t the heat that was bothering her but the extra attention that would be required to attend to my needs. Clearly, she hadn’t bargained on her good deed costing her so much time.

  “No, maybe I can find a faster way,” she said, making her decision and sticking to it. “Let’s go.”

  A furnace of heat settled over us upon exiting the vehicle. Now I really felt bad for dragging her out with me. But Emma didn’t seem affected by the temperature. She was focused on the task at hand as we made our way toward the crowd of people. As far as I could see, there were two lines: one for VIP guests, the block-long one; and one with only a few people in it, for passes comped by the festival artists themselves. Emma studied the signs a moment before confidently choosing the shorter line. Yep, I was digging this can-do attitude.

  The first time I saw her staring at me through the windshield of her car, I knew she was a force to be reckoned with. With her straight, white-blonde hair, tanned complexion, and those golden sunglasses disguising her appearance, I thought I was looking at Hollywood Barbie, the Collector’s Edition. But since real life Barbie dolls didn’t actually exist, other than on creepy YouTube videos, my next assumption was that she was a celebrity making her way to the music festival. It certainly wouldn’t have been unusual to have one of her kind out in the desert all by herself. With its proximity to Los Angeles, this three-day event brought out the rich and famous in droves. And this girl definitely had the dazzling starlet thing going on.

  I knew the type well. Working in the industry, woman who looked like her typically had their own trailers and didn’t associate with the help… although I could say with a small level of pride that I’d been known to catch the eye of B listers from time to time, thank yo
u very much. But this woman was at the top of the alphabet, for sure. I just couldn’t pinpoint exactly where she fit in on the Hollywood landscape.

  Yet surprisingly, Emma wasn’t flaunting whatever it was that elevated her to the higher level I assumed her to be. In fact, she was giving me no clues at all. I was used to women presenting to me their full (and messy) life stories by the end of a ten-minute, one-sided conversation, so this restrained demeanor had me on edge and longing for something of substance to hold onto. Instinctively I knew Emma was the type of person who revealed herself one tantalizing detail at a time. I just wanted to be somewhere in the vicinity when it happened.

  “How do you know which line to stand in?” I asked.

  “I don’t. Educated guess.”

  “See, I don’t think so,” I replied, teasing. “You just don’t want to get into that amusement park line over there.”

  She smiled, not refuting my claim.

  “And if this one doesn’t work, then what?”

  “Then I’ll be forced to call in a few more favors.”

  I shook my head. “You must have a killer friend group.”

  “I do.”

  The way Emma said those two words with such certainty told me she had a rich pool of resources to pull from. Not like my pathetic support system of flakes and leeches.

  “Name and ID, please,” a perky redhead called out to us. In front of her on a table was a printout with names on it. My chances of being on it were slim to none.

  “Finn Perry,” I said, as I dug out my ID and handed it to the woman. She smirked, then glanced up at me with a raised eyebrow. It was the response I always got when people read the name on my driver’s license.

  “It’s Finn for short,” I explained, reddening. Damn Shelby.

  “I should hope so,” she said, shaking her head in amusement.

  This perked Emma right up. She’d been watching our exchange with interest. This was clearly a detail-oriented woman who didn’t rest until she had all the facts. Too bad for her this was not one she’d be finding out anytime soon.

  “Wait, what?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, Ind…,” the woman started, before I stopped her in mid-breath.

  “It’s Finn. Just Finn.” I flushed in embarrassment.

  “What’s your real name?” Emma asked, her nose wrinkling as she peered at me with amusement. Those eyes… christ, she was gorgeous.

  “No, sorry,” I said. “That’s a second date type of question.”

  The ticket lady’s eyes darted back and forth between Emma and me as if she were watching a romantic comedy. I fixed my stare back toward her and she cleared her throat and regained control.

  “Anyway, Finn.” Of course she had to overstate my name. After all, we now had a pressing secret between us. “I don’t have any ticket under that name, or for the one on your driver’s license. Sorry, hon.”

  The minute the words left her mouth, I deflated. It was like every Christmas I ever had growing up. All that excitement and build up, and the best I would ever get was a broken toy from the junkyard out back. Screw you, Santa.

  Emma wedged herself up against the table, her fingers firmly splayed out on the flat surface with a steely determination ready to intimidate any who stood in her way… and damned if I didn’t appreciate her commitment to my cause. “Actually, the ticket was just called in by Sean Wilson.”

  “Called in, you say? Okay, hold on,” the redhead said, getting on her phone. She eyed Emma with interest as she spoke with someone on the other line.

  I took to biting my nails as I waited. If this didn’t work, I was back to square one, which was a ditch and a good cry. Maybe Bucky would drive all the way here to get me if I promised him a thirty rack of Natty Light. Luckily, he was easier than me to ply and manipulate; yet the chances of him having a vehicle that could make it this far were slim to none.

  “That’s a bad habit.” Emma interjected her opinion into my moment of extreme stress.

  “I know. I’m nervous.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “How can you be so calm? You heard her, there’s no record of my name.”

  “Because it was called in ten minutes ago. Relax… and stop biting your nails. Do you have any idea how many germs are under there?”

  She took a step back, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Did she fear microbes would start flying off me? “No, but I take it you do.”

  “Not the exact number, but I promise you, it’s more than either one of us could bear.”

  “Honestly, germs don’t bother me at all.”

  “They should.”

  “Why? So I can get all freaked out by them? No, thanks. I prefer not to know what grows in my sponge.”

  “You use a sponge?” Emma visibly paled as she swallowed back her disgust at my everyday habits.

  “I do. And not only that, but I also fully embrace the ‘five-second’ rule.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s nauseating,” she said, covering her mouth in an apparent attempt to keep my airborne spores from invading her sterile space. “What could you possibly gain from eating food off the floor?”

  “It’s not that I actively pull up a rug and dine off the carpet, but if something tasty falls to the ground, I have no problem picking it up and shoving it in my mouth.”

  “Oh, so you have standards. Good for you.”

  I eyed her in amusement. Was she for real? This genuinely bothered her. How adorable. “Of course, I have standards. For example, if I drop broccoli, the floor can have it; but if I drop something like a cookie, I’ll give it a full ten seconds on the ground before blowing on it and gobbling it down.”

  “Ahhh, yuck. You do realize a simple puff of air will in no way clear away all traces of microorganisms?”

  “I’m with Finn on this one,” the ticket lady said, injecting herself into our conversation and winking at me. “Who cares about the germs… it’s a cookie.”

  Exactly! How was that so hard for Emma to grasp? Clearly the redhead had become fully invested in our dispute, and I welcomed her support. Emma? Not so much. Her jaw clenched ever so slightly. I wasn’t sure if she was annoyed that the woman had become a part of our dialogue or that she’d taken my side.

  “Anyway,” – the ticket lady widened her eyes and gave me a look that said, good luck with this one – “We were able to locate the request, but I can’t process it here. A gentleman will be coming to escort you to the office and expedite it for you.”

  “See, I told you,” Emma said, visibly relaxing and physically pulling the fingernail out of my mouth. “Now you can stop munching on your fingers. I’m sure inside the festival walls there’s a tasty corndog lying in the dirt somewhere just waiting for you.”

  I burst out laughing. That sarcastic snark coming from such a polished woman was totally unexpected… and feisty. This Emma chick was all kinds of cool. Suddenly my heart started beating a little bit faster, and my eyes glazed over in a fusion of trepidation and excitement. I knew the feeling well: that shot of adrenalin I got just before performing some dangerous or death defying stunt. Huh? Interesting development. Who would have thought a woman could do the same for me as roof jumping?

  Glancing back at the ticket lady behind the table to get her approval on my witty companion, I found that she was busy giving Emma her own thorough eye inspection.

  “So who do you know?” she asked. “It’s got to be someone big.”

  Although Emma completely ignored the question, it caught my attention. “What do you mean, ‘who do you know’?” I asked.

  Using my past line against me, she said simply, “That’s a second date question.”

  Emma wasn’t as diplomatic with the woman as she was to me. She shot the redhead a warning glare just daring her to continue with her line of questioning.

  There she was… my diner diva. Earlier in the day, when I’d first observed her sashaying ass making its way into the din
er, my interest in her was nothing more than pure lust. That killer bra-shunning figure, those long giraffe legs, and those bronzed cheekbones that cut slopes across her face had me worked into a frenzy.

  She was out of my league, yes, but that was part of her overall appeal. Emma was the woman you tried for just in case. Yeah, you probably didn’t have a chance in hell, but if you didn’t at least give it a try, you’d be kicking yourself later when you were spending a little extra time in the bathroom that evening. So my plan with her had been simple. Primal. Make contact. Let her know I was interested, ready and willing – just in case, you know, she wanted to go slumming.

  What I hadn’t expected upon first contact was an instant and intense attachment. She’d accepted my stare and raised me a thousand. Those eyes, they’d nearly brought me to my knees. It wasn’t so much the striking, almost overcast coloring that did me in; it was the way she looked at me like she’d never seen one of my species before and was fascinated. Her interest in me was clear, yet so was her loathing. It was a unique emotional combination that I couldn’t even hope to comprehend. Either you were attracted to someone or you weren’t, right? I mean, was there any in between?

  And that’s how the first conversation went down, too… she was an unpredictable play in contrasts, and I was hopelessly hooked and dangling from her line. My overwhelming desire to know everything about her immediately consumed me. I was no ‘instant love’ kind of guy, preferring instead to take it slow and really get to know the woman I was planning to walk through flames for. With Emma, however, I’d surmised in a matter of minutes that a few third-degree burns wouldn’t be such a high price to pay to get her attention.

  Unfortunately, Emma didn’t see it my way, and swiftly kicked me to the curb before any permanent damage could occur. Still, it pained me all the same. Rejection wasn’t something I experienced often. Usually women approached me, and if I wasn’t interested, it became my job to let them down gently. No one would ever describe Finn Perry as a cocky asshole. I was a classic pleaser, always putting everyone else’s thoughts and feelings before my own. It was a personality trait I both loved and hated. Nothing upset me more than people thinking I was a jerk; but at the same time, being nice and accommodating tended to attract the bloodsuckers. I was an easy mark for the right parasitic female. Maybe that’s what drew me to Emma. I needed her more than she needed me. In fact, I was apparently the last thing she wanted, and damned if that didn’t light a fire under my ass.