by C. M. Owens
But I never took into account that I’d be alone.
I was always sure I’d have Rush at my back from the day this all started, back when Demetri approached me three months ago at school while he posed as a substitute teacher just to get close to me.
Now it’s all going to hell, and I’m facing it alone.
And I don’t even know what will happen to him now that I’m gone, but I know he’ll be safe as long as he keeps his mouth shut about being with me.
I don’t have to worry about Rush.
He’s a survivor.
A much better survivor than me.
Because I bit the devil thinking he wouldn’t bite back.
****
After two hours, I start panicking, because Demetri was close to being out of town, swore he’d call, and now he’s not answering his phone.
A loud pounding at the door causes me to squeal as I drop the phone from my hands, and I stare at the door with a thunderous heartbeat pummeling my ears and causing my eyes to twitch in time with the pulses.
“Kara, open the fucking door now!” Drex shouts.
I dart to the door and sling it open, my entire body shaking as Drex barges in and shuts the door behind him.
“How did you find me?” I ask on a rasp.
He cuts his furious eyes toward me. “Do you really think sunglasses and a fake accent fooled Snake? Pop has guys out everywhere looking for you, and you lucked up by being spotted by my guy who called me instead of Pop. Not everyone wants you dead. It took me this damn long just to get away without being suspicious,” he bites out.
“Why didn’t you call and warn me you were coming back early if you’re trying to keep me alive?” I volley, eyes narrowing.
He glares at me as he steps closer. “Pop had us start driving balls-to-the-wall nonstop a few days ago. Said we had to get back, but he didn’t say why. You think he’d risk spooking you? He told us to tell no one we were coming back early, because someone might try to ambush us.”
“And of course you guys never question what he says,” I bitterly point out.
“We didn’t find out until we were almost back in the town. Pop has spread men out all over to look for you the second two of the guys told him you’d left without an escort.”
I start chewing on my thumbnail, feeling like an idiot for waiting this long to get out of town.
“What were you thinking, Kara? You went to the fucking cops?” he barks.
Not correcting him, because I’m still not sure what has happened to Demetri, I pretend as though that’s exactly what went down.
“I’m not wrong about this Drex. He killed my mother, and he probably killed yours too. Are you really so blind you can’t see it? How does he have everyone fooled when he doesn’t even try to hide what a monster he is?” I shout, tears teetering on the edges of my eyelids.
He curses before pushing a hand through his hair and pacing.
“I’ve got you a car. Cash is in the back. A couple of burner phones are in there too. You need to get rid of your phone immediately. Kara, you have to get out of here, and you need to do it now.”
“Come with me,” I say quietly, trying not to sound like I’m begging. “I don’t even have a driver’s license, Drex. What am I supposed to do on my own?”
The look he gives me is the most humane expression I’ve ever seen on his face, and he’d never let our father see it for fear that he’d be called weak.
It’s agony. He’s torn.
He doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t want to send me off on my own.
“I can’t,” he says, not surprising me.
It’s my second rejection of the day. One by lover and one by brother.
The club has them both.
And I’m just the spoiled brat stirring up unnecessary trouble in their lives. The lives they love. The lives they appreciate.
Never mind if it’s all a lie.
It’s easier to hide behind the lie than to fight for the truth.
Standing taller and holding back the tears, I nod like I get it, unable to speak.
“Go. Now. Axle, Dash, and Snake are in charge of this area. When your car passes, you’ll be moving into Sledge’s territory. The map with your route out of town is in the passenger seat. Understand? Even if they catch you, they’ll let you go. But as long as you be cool and drive naturally, they’ll never think to look for that car, and they won’t know which direction you went. Got it?”
Numbly, I nod again, not saying a word.
He grabs the back of my head, pulling me to him roughly, and I remain limp in his arms as my brother hugs me for the first time in my life. We’re not a family of huggers, obviously, so I know this is the last time he ever plans to see me.
I’m being cast out.
Let go.
All to be forgotten.
It hurts like hell.
But I don’t cry.
He leaves, and I calmly gather my things, listening to the roar of his motorcycle as it revs to life and peals out. I walk down the stairs of the motel with unhurried movements, and walk to the car that beeps when I press the unlock button.
It’s not a fancy car or an old beater. It’s right in the middle, though I can’t tell you the make or model, because I’m too numb to be observant.
I do as instructed, driving the path he traced out of town for me, never getting panicked again because I’m too busy not feeling anything.
It isn’t until I’m two states away and borrowing a gas station bathroom that all the emotion hits me at once. I slide down against the wall as my chest caves in on itself when reality crashes into me like a train.
And I give myself five minutes of solid sobbing in the public restroom, ignoring the concerned women who fail to get the strange crying girl to speak.
After that, I clean up and get out before the cops get called.
I don’t cry again.
At least not over the two men who betrayed me when it mattered the most.
Chapter 1
RUSH
“Anything?” Drex asks me when I answer his weekly call.
The weekly calls only started about a month ago, even though I’ve been at this particular job for much longer.
If you’d have told me a year ago that I’d be talking weekly to Drex about a girl we avoided speaking about for years, I’d have shot you in both knees just to piss you off as much as you’d pissed me off with such an insinuation.
Yet here I am, doing exactly that, and no one is mourning their shot kneecaps either.
It’s all been some kind of fucked up mashing of lives over the past year.
“Same as always on her end. Work first thing in the mornings, next she hits the gym, and after that she heads home and starts her nightly ritual of doing random shit. Tonight’s random thing is stringing popcorn on fishing wire.”
He sighs like he’s not amused. “Some days I’m certain he’s found her and is toying with us. Some days I don’t think he has a clue if she’s alive or dead. Some days I think he’s forgotten about her altogether. I hate these head games. You never know what Herrin’s next play will be. I’m not willing to risk her.”
Looking through the window, I watch as she moves around her small apartment that has no blinds. I mean, if she’s not putting up blinds, clearly she wants to be watched.
“For a girl afraid of dying, she’s recklessly vulnerable with her home situation.”
“It’s been seven years, Rush. She’s likely gotten too comfortable and considered the threat to be over.”
“There might be one issue,” I tell him, cracking my neck to the side. “But it’s not with Herrin. It’s the thing I found out about last year.”
“The thing you dug up?” he asks vaguely, like he’s making sure no one can overhear.
“If I dug it up, then I’m sure someone else has pieced it together. Five guys rolled into town about two hours ago asking questions about Karen Canady and where they can find her.”
I hear him mu
tter a curse, and then some shuffling comes through over the phone.
“Is she aware of them? And are you sure this isn’t related to Herrin?”
“She’s not aware of them, from what I’ve observed. I only caught wind of them because of some of the bugs we have in the local stores. Definitely not Herrin’s guys. They were also asking about their brother and if anyone remembered him.”
“Shit,” he says on a long breath.
“Maybe they’re drawing the same conclusion I did,” I go on. “Eight months ago, Collin Smith drives through a nowhere-town on his way to his family’s hunting lodge. Next thing you know, he’s met a girl and decides to skip the family hunting trip and spend two weeks here instead. In forty-eight hours, he went missing and no one heard from him again, though there were some shady credit card charges at gas stations alongside the interstate.”
“During two days where Karen wasn’t at work,” he says on a sigh. “If she killed him, there was a reason. Either he knew her and was going to blackmail her, or he really pissed her off.”
“I’m guessing it won’t matter to the five brothers who are coming through on their way to the family’s hunting lodge. My guess is they stopped here to pick something up to hunt.”
“Then I strongly suggest keeping a close eye on the situation and turn them into the hunted if that’s the case,” he bites out.
“No worries,” I say with a smirk.
My fist forms as Kara starts taking off her clothes for the whole damn world to see, per the usual. But when she moves through her house, I start moving through mine.
Her bedroom can only be seen from my room, and we’re barely twenty feet apart. All the houses are small with about the same space between them.
She wisely surrounded herself with people who would hear a gunshot, and in this rinky dink town that has very little crime, someone would also immediately report a gunshot.
She slips out of the rest of her clothes, and my eyes rake over her naked body with the same appreciation I’ve felt for months. Her curves are twice as sexy as they used to be. Her hair is platinum blonde, a stark contrast to the raven’s hair she was born with.
Her lips stay lined in red.
Her contacts stay blue.
Everything about her screams, “fuck me.”
No longer is she the fifteen-year-old kid who wrapped herself around me in secrecy every night. No longer is she a kid at all.
But neither am I.
I’m nothing like she remembers.
“Rush, you there?” Drex asks, reminding me I’m on the phone with her brother.
The idle thought of jerking off to the sight of her is immediately nixed.
Clearing my throat and smirking, I answer, “Yeah. Just got distracted. Any word on that Demetri guy you were looking into?”
“Yeah. He died seven years ago. Same night we got back into town and I sent Kara off safely. I still haven’t found the story he intended to print. I wouldn’t have known about him at all if Sarah hadn’t had her hacker friend do some digging on everyone Kara was in contact with back then.”
I take a deep breath, not wanting to recall the fucking day from hell when the life I was finally happy with was suddenly ripped to shreds. I hated her at first.
Actually, I still hate her when I think about it.
Then I hated myself.
Still do in some ways.
Then I hated Drex.
Still do most days, if I’m being honest.
But the one person I’ve hated the most through all of this? Herrin. And I hate him every single second of every single day with every single breath in my body.
My jaw grinds as I start speaking again. “Herrin got to him that fast?” I ask quietly.
“Yeah. He’d have gotten to Kara too. They were both too naïve to know what they were up against.”
“But you knew. And you still didn’t bother to come find me,” I point out.
“I had no idea you were with her. I thought you two were friends, but you played dumb during all that,” he growls.
“I played dumb because I didn’t want Herrin getting any information out of me. And I sure as fuck didn’t trust his golden boy son,” I say, and then I groan when he starts laughing under his breath.
“Can we skip this argument just once?” he finally asks, still sounding amused.
“Fuck off,” I tell him before hanging up.
It’s good timing, because she walks out of the bathroom, still naked, after presumably doing various girly things as part of her nightly ritual. I hate that the windowless bathroom hides her from me when she goes in there.
When she climbs onto her bed, she shoves the sheets down, settling in for another nightly ritual I love watching.
In fact, it’s the favorite part of my fucking day and has been for months.
She reaches over, grabs her bright purple vibrator, and I step out of my boxers after pushing them off as I grab the lotion and work it all over my painful hard-on. Leaning one arm against the wall beside my window, I fist my cock in my hand as she goes straight to work.
She runs the vibrator up and down, using her own arousal to coat the tip and prep it for her. Her body starts to move as she teases herself, giving herself the only foreplay she can get without a second party.
I’d kill a fucker if there was a boyfriend in the picture I had to watch touch her. It’s fortunate she’s single.
That vibrator moves inside her, and the little bunny ears at the top start moving doing their own job. I’ve broken in a time or two and studied that vibrator up close, wanting to know each detail about it so I could really appreciate my view at night.
Her back arches as the purple vibrator works her toward orgasm, and my hand pumps harder so I can catch up with her. When her mouth opens to make a sound I can’t hear—but distinctly remember like it was yesterday—as her body arches and her free hand fists the sheet beneath her, pleasure starts at the base of my balls, shooting up my spine, and I explode, shooting my release all over the wall in front of me and not giving a shit.
It joins the rest of the mess I’ve been making for months. I pity the fucker who has to clean it up when I’m finally gone.
After cleaning myself up, I move to my bed in the dark room. The windows have been specially tinted on my house specifically to keep anyone from seeing in without the lights on. They have a reflective surface during the day when the sun is shining.
It makes stalking a little easier. She makes it easy too.
Half the time I want to fuck her. The other half I still want to turn my back the second I know she’s safe.
If she’d told me she was actually going to run that night, I would have gone with her. At least that’s what I tell myself. If she’d have told me every-fucking-thing, I know for certain I would have gone.
But she didn’t.
She gave me half the information and a conversation that sounded hypothetical. Then she fucking left.
And when she was hurting and feeling alone, and finally reached the point where she wanted to call someone and ask them to come to where she was, it wasn’t me she called.
The only time Kara Caine has tried to reach out in all these years was the one time she called her brother.
She didn’t call me.
Doesn’t matter.
I have one job to do that Drex knew I’d never let anyone else handle, and that’s making sure she’s safe from Herrin without uprooting the life she’s made for herself.
So that’s all I’m doing.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
Chapter 2
KARA
“I’m going to be running a little late today,” I tell Julia as I park behind the restaurant and hurry toward the street.
“How late?” she asks on an annoyed sigh.
“Not sure. I’m never late, so don’t act like it’s that inconvenient. I have an appointment at nine this morning, and it could be short or long, depending on the news.”
She mu
tters a curse and snaps at Pauly to get his ass in gear because the eggs can’t cook themselves.
“Fine. Whatever. Just try not to be too late. You know Pancake Tuesdays are the busiest.”
“I know. That’s why I keep pushing for Pancake Thursdays too, because Pancake tips are the best.”
She groans like she wants to kill me, but I love the busy days. The days go quicker and I make a hell of a lot more in tips.
“What’s the meeting about?” she pries. “If you’re thinking about taking that job over at Henrietta’s diner—”
“I’m not,” I butt in, jogging toward the back of the coffee shop and spotting my nine o’ clock sitting in the exact spot I expected, back turned to me as he feigns interest in the paper.
“Good. Then hurry.”
Hanging up, I move quickly, snatching up the table just behind him, and steady myself as I finally bring this stupid little game to an end. It’s gotten tedious at this point.
“I keep waiting for you to make yourself known. I’ve never had a stalker before, so what has attracted you to me?” I ask, glad my voice is steady and doesn’t shake, even though it’s taking all I have not to tremble.
The tedious game I’m referring to is the waiting game, and he still hasn’t made a move.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice him visibly tense, and he doesn’t answer right away. So I prattle on, pretending to be unaffected.
“I mean, the coffee is mediocre at best here, so I know you don’t come to this exact table just to drink it all day on the days I work. Especially since the lettering on the window here obstructs the view to your face from the diner, but still allows you to easily see through my work’s windows. So who are you? The devil or the devil’s advocate?”
Turning, I move my face close to the back of his neck, and he cracks his neck to the side without turning to face me as he pulls out his earbud.
I’m giving myself away, but if he’s been watching me for months, he’s not too convinced that I really am Karen Canady.
Tattoos slither up the back of his neck, and I try to figure out who he is without asking. I’ve never seen him up close, but I’m not an idiot. He started showing up a few months ago, and he’s grown increasingly obvious with his stalking from over here.
