by Kieran Scott
Then he slammed his boulder-sized fist into Marco’s jaw. Blood spurted everywhere. I opened Kaia’s door. Her ankle was wedged underneath a jumble of broken dashboard plastic and metal.
“We have to get you out of here.”
“Oliver, no. You have to run,” Kaia whimpered. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“See, that’s your main problem,” I said, as the whole truck shook with Marco hitting its side again. “You’ve yet to figure out anything to do with you has everything to do with me.”
She managed a smile as a drop of blood dripped off the end of her nose. I bent into the truck and pulled at the plastic casing closest to her ankle, prying it away half an inch. Kaia jimmied her ankle free, then winced.
“Is it broken?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. But it hurts. A lot.”
“C’mere.”
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her out of the truck. She hopped away from the door on her good foot, and together we made our way around the front. Blood from Kaia’s forehead splattered my white T-shirt.
“Stop!” Kaia shouted, when she saw the man cocking his fist again. Marco’s face looked like hamburger meat. Rotten hamburger meat. “If you want to take me back to Hector T. or whoever it is you’re working for, I’ll go! Marco has nothing to do with it!”
“Girl, I got no idea who Hector T. is, or who you are for that matter.” The wrestler let Marco side to the ground in a heap. “What I do know is that Marco here owes me ten large, and it’s way past due.”
Kaia glared down at her sputtering uncle. “Is this your bookie?”
“I thought you were giving me another week,” Marco said, trying to push himself up by gripping the front tire.
“That was two weeks ago!” the man shouted.
“This is unbelievable.” Kaia extricated herself from my arms and tried to walk back to her side of the truck, but fell sideways against the grill. “Shit.”
“What do you need?” I asked her.
“My backpack.” She turned so her back was against the car and ran her arm over her forehead, smearing the blood into her hair. She kept her right knee bent, holding her foot off the grass. “Get my backpack. Please.”
I reached inside the open cab and pulled out the gray backpack. Kaia ripped it open.
“You want ten grand? Here.” She fumbled a stack of bills from the bag and slammed it against the man’s sizable chest. Guess there’d been another stash of cash in the Batcave. “Here’s ten grand. Plus interest!”
The bookie’s eyes widened. He sized up the backpack covetously, realizing that there had to be more money inside. On impulse, I reached into the bag and slipped out Kaia’s gun, aiming it at the man’s chest in what I hoped was a convincing way.
“Oliver!” Kaia cried.
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t,” I said through gritted teeth. “You got what you came for, and my guess is someone on this street has already called the cops thanks to the mess you made. I’d quit while you’re ahead.”
The bookie raised his hands. “You make a good point, kid.”
Then he turned tail and ran for his tanklike vehicle. I lowered the gun and shoved it back in the bag.
“Wow,” Kaia said. “That was pretty intense, Oliver.”
The look of admiration in her eyes pissed me off. Five minutes ago she was walking away like she didn’t need me. Well, look where we were now.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, starting up the embankment.
“Where’re you going?” Kaia asked.
“To get your dad’s car,” I said without pausing. “Not like I can single-handedly carry both of you back to the house. At least not before the cops get here.”
I tried not to think about my bare feet or the bloodstained pajamas I was wearing as I stormed indignantly up the road.
chapter 28
KAIA
“What now?”
Oliver situated himself as far away from me as he could and still be in the kitchen. He’d cleaned up Marco to the best of his abilities using the extensive first aid kit my parents kept in the hall closet, and wrapped my ankle in ice and an ACE Bandage. The cut on my head I’d taken care of myself. I couldn’t stand Oliver’s cold, businesslike demeanor. Not that I could blame him. Maybe if Marco and I had turned back to the house in time—if I’d apologized and told him I’d wanted him to come with us… But I hadn’t gotten that chance, and now he was furious.
At least it didn’t seem like I was going to need stitches. Butterfly bandages had stopped the bleeding. But Marco and I looked like we’d been through a war.
“We take my dad’s car,” I said, shifting in my seat. My ankle was resting on a second chair and my leg was starting to get stiff.
Marco shook head, then winced. “Not a good idea. You got all these people looking for you, you can bet they know what kinds of cars your mom and dad drove. They might even have the plate numbers or be able to track the GPS. It’ll just make you easier to find.”
Oliver blew out a sigh. “You don’t have another safe house nearby with extra cars parked in its garage?” He sounded half-amused, half-resigned A sudden rush of endorphins killed my pain and I sat up straighter. We didn’t have any other safe houses nearby—unless one considered Sante Fe, New Mexico close—but we did have another transportation option. Although, with my ankle, the plan was iffy at best.
“What?” Oliver asked. “What is it?”
I looked at him and smiled, hoping he’d smile back. He didn’t. Still, there was no turning back now.
“I think I have an idea.”
• • •
The concrete and ammonia scent of the Go Go Storage facility reminded me of my dad more vividly than his bedroom or a whiff of the shirts in his closet. We used to come here every weekend when we were in Houston, and each time it felt like Christmas morning.
I grinned at Oliver. “You ready to meet the rest of my family?”
“Kaia, please tell me you haven’t been keeping your parents locked in there all this time,” he said, looking tired.
I clenched my jaw and stooped to grasp the metal handle on the orange, garage style door—gripping Oliver’s elbow for balance. I flung open the door. It retracted noisily, clanging to a stop, and there they were. Betty and Bettina. The family motorcycles.
“Oh, baby, it is so good to see you,” I murmured.
With Oliver’s help, I limped up next to Bettina, my 2012 Triumph Street Triple, all black, with chrome accents, and ran my hand over the supple leather seat. She was perfect, her silver muffler glinting in the sunlight. I kicked my bad leg over her and settled down onto her seat. The sigh that escaped my lips was pure joy. But there was something else too. I felt a certainty pulse through me. I was doing the right thing. Maybe it was seeing our bikes, all shined up and ready to go, as if we’d never left. Maybe it was the fact that everything about this storage space was my father, from the oil stain under my boot to the boxes of old CDs in the corner to the superhero movie posters lining the walls. I knew he was watching over me, and I knew what he’d want me to do.
I had to find my mom. We had to be a family again, to whatever extent we could be. No matter what her text said.
“Um, Kaia?” Oliver said. “Is your plan really to ride motorcycles all the way to LA?”
“That’s my plan,” I said, running my fingertips reverently over Bettina’s handlebars. I looked at Marco. “Can you grab the key?”
Moving slowly thanks to the beat-down he’d suffered at the hands of his bookie, Marco retrieved the key from its hook on the pegboard. I shoved it into the slot and turned, then pushed the stop switch and starter button. My baby roared to life, and exhilaration flooded my bones. Then, I tried to shift into first.
“Shit!” I cried out. My ankle was gripped with pain.
“What are
you thinking? You can’t use that ankle,” Marco chided.
“I know. I know.” I leaned down to grip it as it throbbed. “Wishful thinking.”
“So now what?” Oliver asked as I cut the engine again.
“You drive Bettina here and I’ll ride behind you,” I told him.
Oliver laughed humorlessly and raised his palms. “Are you kidding me? We’d both be killed. I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle!”
“So I’ll teach you.”
I reached for his hand and awkwardly climbed off the bike, trying not to jostle my ankle too much.
“Marco can ride Big Betty, and we can shove the bags in her side car.”
I tilted my head toward my dad’s Harley. It was a lot more bike than Bettina, but even in his debilitated state, Marco could handle her. As long as his good eye didn’t swell shut.
Letting go of Oliver, I hopped over to Big Betty and checked the gas gage. It was full, like Bettina’s. That was so dad. He was always prepared. We’d be good to go for a couple hundred miles.
“Is this why I’m still here?” Oliver asked.
My heart skipped a beat at his tone. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared me down. I still couldn’t get over his new haircut. If he’d looked older and hotter a couple of days ago, now he was a supermodel. It was very distracting. Especially when he so clearly hated my guts.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“This morning you were ready to ditch me, but now you’re hurt, and you need me again,” Oliver said. “Tell me the truth, Kaia. If you hadn’t wrenched your ankle in that crash, would I even be here right now?”
Marco muttered something about a smoke and made his way outside. I limped back over to Bettina and gripped her handlebar and seat for support. She was all that separated me from Oliver, but she may as well have been an army tank.
“Oliver, I’m sorry,” I told him. “I was coming back for you, I swear. Right before that asshole drove into us, I was telling Marco to turn around. We were going to come back for you.”
There was a spark of hope in Oliver’s eyes, but he bowed his head, and then his stone-cold expression was back. “How am I supposed to believe you? How am I supposed to trust anything you say to me ever again?”
“I’m sorry I lied about that day in Oaxaca. About my parents. About everything, okay?” I begged. “Please, just don’t hate me.”
“You don’t get it,” Oliver said.
“No, you don’t get it.” My voice broke and I paused, trying to pull myself together. “I have relived that day a million times since it happened, Oliver, and not only asking myself what I could have done differently. Could I have saved my mom if I’d…done anything at all? But that guy…the guy I killed…I see his face every single time I close my eyes. The way he looked at me, like he didn’t understand what was happening to him…”
I pressed the heels of my hands to my brow bone and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to clear the boy’s image, but there it was, bright as day. My eyes filled with hot tears.
“I can’t get him out of my head no matter what I do!” I whispered harshly. “And talking about it? It makes it worse.”
“Kaia—”
“And the way you’re looking at me right now doesn’t help either,” I muttered. “Can’t we just—”
“Kaia, stop.” Oliver’s eyes shone. “I’m not mad at you because you didn’t tell me the details of the worst fucking day of your life. I get you not wanting to relive that. I haven’t told you what it was like to watch my mom die, have I? How I felt the day my dad walked out of social services and drove away? Or the way my skin split open the first time Jack hit me? No. I don’t need to know the gory details of your worst moments any more than you need to know mine.”
He walked around Bettina and stopped in front of me. “But I need to know is the big stuff. The stuff that makes you, you.” He reached out for my cold, clammy hand and held it gently. “Because I love you. Every. Last. Little. Damaged. Bit of you.”
He kissed a different part of my face with each word. One cheek, then the other, then my forehead, my nose, my chin.
“Why did they do this, Oliver?” I heard myself say.
“Who do what?” he asked.
“My parents. Why did they drag me around the world while they committed murder for a living? Who does that? What kind of people are they? What kind of parents? Why couldn’t I have had a normal life? Why didn’t they love me enough to give me a normal life?”
I felt the tears coming and bowed my head against his shoulder, biting them back. Oliver hugged me, rubbing his hand up and down my back.
“Maybe they wanted to give you a normal life, you know? Maybe they wanted to, but they didn’t know how. Maybe that’s not who they were.”
I took in a broken breath. “Sometimes I think you’re way too mature for your own good.”
“It’s a gift,” he replied, straight-faced. “And a burden.”
I laughed. He smirked and kissed my forehead.
“But I get it,” he said. “You think I don’t have a thousand ‘whys’ in my head all the time? Why did my mother have to die? Why did my dad have to leave me? Why did I get dumped into Robin’s crappy life? Why does Trevor have to deal with all the shit he has to deal with? Why does Jack even exist? Oh, and get this—why has my dad been living in Charleston for the past year but has never even come to see me?”
“What?” I felt as if I’d had the wind knocked out of me. “How do you—”
“I looked him up on your Batcave’s supercomputer,” he said. “And now I have one more big, fat ‘why’ to add to the list.”
My heart felt sick for him. How could his father not want Oliver in his life? He had no clue how amazing his own son was and he didn’t even care.
“I’ve asked myself all these questions a million times, Kaia, but now, I think I finally have the answers.”
I sniffled. “You do?”
“Because,” he said, running his hand over my hair. “If we didn’t have such fucked up lives, we never would have found each other.”
All the tension in my body finally released. He was right. Blissfully, beautifully, perfectly right. If my parents hadn’t disappeared, I never would have ended up in South Carolina. If his mother hadn’t gotten cancer and his dad hadn’t left him, he never would have moved in with Robin and lived in our town or gone to our school.
Maybe fate really had screwed with us to bring us together. It wasn’t pretty, but it made us, us.
“I like that answer,” I said with a smile. We kissed, a long, slow, comforting, exciting kiss that lasted until Marco cleared his throat and crushed his cigarette under his boot right outside the door.
“So,” Oliver said, pulling back. “How about you teach me how to ride this thing?”
“Bettina,” I said with mock admonishment. “Her name is Bettina.”
chapter 29
OLIVER
El Paso, Texas. One more town I never thought I’d see. I lifted the helmet off my sweaty head and took in the mountains sprawling in the distance. Before this trip, I’d never seen a mountain in my life. Not in person anyway. Now, after Kentucky, southern Illinois, and western Texas, I was starting to get used to them.
I took a deep breath as Kaia let go of my waist and hoisted herself off the bike. I reached for her hand, and she squeezed mine, then started limping toward the motel where Marco had already disappeared inside.
I put the kickstand down and followed her. After ten hours in the saddle with only two quick food breaks, my whole body felt like it was buzzing. The vibrations of the road had moved into my bones, and every step I took was an effort. The muscles on the insides of my thighs would never be the same again.
But still, I was in love—utterly and completely—with riding. I had a feeling that driving in a car would never feel right to me again
. Not that I could afford a bike of my own any more than I could get my own ass to the DMV to get an actual license, but hey, maybe someday. Out on the road, anything seemed possible.
I’m never going back.
The thought came out of nowhere, but it filled me with this lighter-than-air feeling. I looked around at the mountains and I felt sure. Knowing I could bump into my dad on the street in Charleston was even more of an incentive to stay away. I would miss Trevor. I would always think of him and always hope and pray that he was safe, but that part of my life was over.
The only question was, where the hell would I end up?
Kaia pulled off her helmet. Her short blond hair swung. What I would have given to run my fingers through it. To get her alone for five minutes. To talk about how she imagined our future. But then Marco reappeared, and I remembered it wasn’t just Kaia and me anymore.
“I got us a room,” Marco said, striding across the parking lot.
“Just one?” I asked, which made Kaia blush.
Marco flipped the key around on its silver ring. “I don’t think we should split up. Besides, I wanna keep an eye on you two.”
He narrowed his eyes as he looked at me, and I raised my hands. I was too tired to deal with his pseudofather bullshit.
“Whatever,” I muttered. “All I want is some food and a bed.”
“And that bed’s gonna be shared with me,” Marco said, crooking his arm around my neck. “Fair warning, kid. I like my space.”
Whoop-de-frickin’-do. Marco dragged me toward room five of the ten‐room establishment. The outer walls were a dingy poop color, and the doors had been painted gray. The hotel was located about fifty yards from where two freeways intersected, and tractor-trailers blew by at alarming speeds, kicking up discarded food wrappers and flattening the grass with their exhaust. It was not going to be a quiet night, but if I was going to be sharing a bed with Uncle Marco, I had a feeling noise was going to be the least of my problems.
Inside, the room was small, dark, and wood-paneled with a popcorn ceiling and a threadbare rug. The two double beds sagged in the middle, and there was one table lamp to light the room. Kaia limped to the bathroom and shoved the shower curtain aside.
