This is my only chance.
My fingers reach the handle of the passenger door, and I yank it open.
"Sophie!" My mother’s voice sounds miles away, but I don’t turn around. Instead, I jump on the passenger seat, slam the door shut, and look to the left at the same time.
Next to me sits a young man whose appearance is almost frightening. Broad shoulders. Strong arms covered with dark images down to the backs of his hands. Raven-black hair that is short on the sides and slightly longer on top. Hard facial features. Storm-gray eyes that scrutinize me.
"What do you think you’re doing, little darling?" His rough and deep voice vibrates through my chest while he lifts a brow, astonishment and anger flickering in his eyes.
My throat threatens to constrict, but I won’t let it. He’s the only chance I get. My only chance for freedom.
"Drive, please," I plead, praying earnestly to God for the very first time in my life as I hear my mother calling for me outside. "Please!"
THREE
COLE
This isn’t really happening right now, is it? Oh, for fuck’s sake. Wasn’t it enough that a dog literally ran into my truck on Monday, so I have to drive to the vet clinic every day since to visit?
"Please!" The girl literally begs me while she looks at me with those amber eyes of hers.
"I can’t take you with me," I reply with a harsh tone, hoping it will get her to get out of my fucking pickup. A girl who just clings to my leg is really the last thing I need right now.
She quickly turns her head toward the house. I follow her gaze and see a middle-aged woman approaching us with an expression far from happy. My suspicion deepens that I should get this girl out of the truck as soon as possible.
She looks at me again. "I’m begging you,drive."
Every fucking cell in my body screams to shut down the engine, get out of the car, and pull her from the passenger seat with my own hands. But as I hear her voice—the way it trembles and seems hurried—and look into her wide-open eyes, I can’t bring myself to do it. There’s so much desperation and fear in the warm brown that I put the gearshift in D instead, look at the road ahead, and drive off. Through the red light.
The tires spin briefly, but before the woman can reach us, the truck shoots forward. The girl turns in her seat to look out of the small rear window of the pickup. In the outside mirror, I can see the woman desperately trying to follow us, and I congratulate myself inwardly for my bad luck.
I have no idea what the hell is going on here, but I hope the woman couldn’t decipher my damn license plate because she doesn’t seem too happy about what’s happening.
When the road makes a slight bend and the intersection, along with its useless traffic light and the angry woman, disappear from our view, the girl turns around again and visibly slumps in her seat. I can even hear the air leaving her lungs as if she’d been holding her breath.
"Thank you."
It’s only a barely audible whisper. When my gaze shifts to her, she looks at me with wide eyes as if I’m both her savior and the devil in one person.
I’m certainly not the former, I think to myself with a hint of bitterness, before looking back at the road.
After turning left at an intersection, I reduce the speed until we come to a halt on the side of the road. Then I kill the engine, turn my upper body, and take a closer look at her.
She’s wearing something that looks like it was made by the Amish even though it’s not a dress. A few strands of gold-blond hair have loosened from her simple, low-sitting knot. Her skin has a light shade without being pale, and her plump lips are slightly parted as she looks at me with what seems to be a cocktail of curiosity and fear.
"What was that about?" I ask her bluntly, the words coming out harsher than intended.
She lowers her gaze and looks at her hands, which she’s wringing in her lap. "I…"
"You?"
"I had to leave." As she speaks, she looks up with a now defiant look.
"Why did you have to leave? And who was that woman?" I already have a pretty good idea of what the answer is, but still, I want her to say it out loud. As if I had to confirm that the shit she just got me into is more than just knee-deep.
"She’s my mother."
"You didn’t answer the first question."
