“I couldn’t live under the same roof with you anymore and pretend I didn’t notice.”
Words that are closer to the truth than I’ve ever allowed myself to get.
“Notice what?” she whispers.
This is the edge. The line I should not cross.
“That you weren’t a kid anymore.”
Silence fills the cab, wrought with tension. She shifts in her seat, crossing her legs, and it feels like pure denial. The desperate, almost uncontrollable urge to pull her closer and see what that dress is hiding nearly unravels me. Just sitting beside her is breaking me.
“You don’t get to disappear and then show up like you own me,” she says.
Her breath is stronger now. I can hear it over the sound of the engine. Something hot and dangerous moves through me at the sound of that word coming from her lips.Own.
“You have every right to be mad at me, Eliza,” I say slowly, focusing on deep breaths. “I’ll never let anything like that happen again.”
The image of Tony with his hand on Eliza invades my mind, flooding me with rage and jealousy. The bastard deserved a lot more than I gave him, and he would have gotten it had I not wanted to get Eliza the hell out of there.
She looks at me skeptically, causing the pain in my chest to deepen. This is bad. She’s my step-sister. There’s a reason I moved out in the first place, and now I’m being pulled back.
“Yeah, right,” she mutters, looking away out the window.
I open my mouth to speak—to say something I shouldn’t—but grit my teeth and stop myself. I am almost grateful when Isee the house up ahead and pull into the driveway. I’m quickly losing control. I’m not sure I can trust myself around her for much longer…
And what’s worse, I’m not sure that I want to…
3
ELIZA
I watchCaleb as he parks the truck, looking completely calm and composed, like he didn’t just beat the crap out of a guy. My heart is still pounding in my chest, just like it has been from the moment I stared up into his eyes outside the club.
He cuts the engine, and suddenly the world feels tense. The night thick. Even the slightest sound of the trees is deafening against the silence in the cab. I shift slightly in my seat, trying not to make it obvious that I’m still trembling from tonight’s events. I’m not sure what’s got me more on edge—being attacked, or being saved.
Anger cuts through me. I want to curse him out for abandoning me last year. For embarrassing me when he pointed out all the stupid decisions I made that led to my assault. But I don’t. I relax into the moment, feeling safer than I’ve felt in over a year.
He still isn’t looking at me. His strong hands grip the steering wheel as he stares ahead at the house, its windows dark. Thank God my parents are asleep. The last thing I need is to have a conversation with them about what just happened.
I feel the spot on my wrist where he grabbed me, remembering his touch, the way he led me from danger with such confidence. So sure of himself. At that moment, as his grip tightened, the rest of the world fell away, and I felt truly under his control. Protected. Claimed.
My phone vibrates, and I quickly pull it out of my purse. It’s Mara, and I realize I’ve missed six calls from her and a load more texts.
“Hey, sorry,” I say as I answer. “I’m okay. I didn’t see your calls—”
“Do you know how worried I was!?” she shouts. I can hear the concern in her voice. “I thought you were dead!”
This is so embarrassing. What kind of a friend am I? I should have called her the moment I knew I was safe. “I’m so sorry, Mara. I’m all right though.”
“But how? Like…what happened to you? Where are you?”
I glance over at Caleb, who I know can definitely hear Mara’s voice blaring through the phone. “Caleb…he just happened to be in the area and…took care of Tony for me then drove me home.”
Long pause. I can just see Mara’s face in my mind as she processes this. She’s met Caleb before. “Hejust happenedto be there, huh?”
Not good. I can just hear the wheels turning, the sarcasm in her voice. I have to squash this now before she becomes suspicious.
Something resembling a single laugh rises up from Caleb’s throat, but he covers it with an obviously fake cough. He still isn’t looking at me. I look better than I ever have in my life, yet he’s still just staring straight out the glass.
