Wrath

Chapter 11

Kaia wasn’t sure she owed Powell an apology, and she hadn’t decided whether she wanted to give him another chance or whether the time had come to make a clean break from both of the men in her life. All she knew was that she needed to see him, and didn’t know why.

The uncertainty had driven her straight to his doorstep.

“Kaia, ma chérie.” He swung the door open before she had a chance to knock. “I’ve been expecting you.”

The last time Kaia had been in the cramped bachelor pad-every time, in fact-she’d headed straight for the bedroom, which was large enough to fit Powell’s sagging mattress and not much else. This time, she sat on the futon. It was burnt orange, inherited from the previous tenant. Powell squeezed in next to her, and Kaia willed herself not to inch away.

There was one question answered: She didn’t want him back. His pathetic threats had twisted Kaia’s attraction into an instinctive repulsion.

“I knew you’d be back,” he leered, fondling a strand of her hair.

She slapped his hand away. “I didn’t come here for that,” she informed him.

“What, then?”

“It’s over,” she told him. She was certain now of what she wanted, but uncertain about too many other things-like why she’d felt so safe with Reed, even knowing what she knew, and why, sitting here on this familiar futon with her horny but harmless ex, she felt a shiver of danger.

Powell sighed. “Haven’t we danced to this song before?”

“Don’t be-”

“Cute. I know.” He tried to put an arm around her, and she jumped up off the futon, unsure why she felt so jittery, but willing to trust her instincts. “What? Are you still going on about that stalking thing? I told you, not my style.”

“No, I know it wasn’t you…”

“And you can’t seriously still think the Sawyer boy is a reasonable option-not after what happened yesterday.”

“How do you know about-”

Powell shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “I was there when they tossed him out of school. Very sad case, that. So tragic to see a young man just throw his life away, and all on a nasty little prank.”

Now Kaia sat back down again, taking Powell’s hands in her own and trying to smile. This had all worked out a little too well, especially for him. “Jack, tell me something.” She raised a hand to his temple and wound a finger around one of his chestnut hairs, curling it idly as she spoke. “How did you know about me and Reed, really?”

“I told you, ma chérie, I just knew. I could tell.”

She leaned toward him, brushing her lips lightly against his cheek, trying not to gag on the overpowering scent of his cologne. “You were watching, weren’t you? It’s okay, you can tell me. It’s kind of a turn-on.”

“Well, since you put it that way…” Powell traced his fingers down the side of her face and began lightly massaging her neck. Kaia tried not to jerk away. Then his fingers closed down on her skin, pinching her shoulder. He pushed her away from him, holding her in place like a vise. “What kind of an idiot do you take me for? ‘Oh, Jack,’” he simpered in imitation, “‘tell me all about how you love to watch me when I’m alone, how you’ve been following me, how you love to see me weak and scared. Tell me everything, Jack, it’s such a turn-on.’ If you want to know something, Kaia, just ask.”

“You took the photos,” Kaia said. It wasn’t a question.

“No point in lying now, is there?”

“And the car.”

“Mea culpa.”

“You planted the spray paint in Reed’s locker,” she realized, the pieces all falling into place.

“A master stroke,” Powell preened. “And yet you waltz in here ready to toss me away anyway, still loyal to that piece of scum no matter what he does. ‘Stand by my man’ really doesn’t become you, dear.”

“You’re going to fix it-you know that, right?” She couldn’t let them throw Reed out of school, especially now. The memory of pushing him away the day before rose in her like bile. “You’re going to get him out of trouble.”

“Or what?”

It was funny. Yesterday, when she’d thought she’d learned the truth about Reed, she’d felt empowered. But now, confronting the real threat, it was all she could do to force herself not to flee. “Or I sic my father on you. At school, it may be your word against mine, but if Daddy Dearest finds out that some perv has laid a finger on his darling daughter, what do you think he’ll do?”

“Come at me with a baseball bat?” Powell sneered. “I’m trembling.”

“Come at you with a team of lawyers,” Kaia corrected haughtily. “Get you fired, deported, jailed-he’ll get whatever he wants. He’s just like me that way.”

“Is he really ready to drag his baby girl’s name through the mud?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Though I doubt he’ll have to, once his team figures out how you ended up in Nowheresville, USA, in the first place. We all know it wasn’t by choice. What are you willing to do to keep that skeleton safely hidden in the back of your closet?”

Powell flinched, and Kaia suppressed a smile. Her hunches were never wrong. Jack Powell had obviously stuck his hands somewhere they didn’t belong-and gotten burned.

“You really care about this loser so much?” he asked.

“I think the real question is, do you?” Kaia stood up. “Are you willing to risk it all, just to screw with him?”

“I’d rather screw with you,” Powell said. “It would be a much more pleasant way to handle this.You stay here with me now, and in the morning, I’ll smooth things over for your little playmate.”

Kaia darted her eyes toward the bedroom. “You’re suggesting…?”

“Don’t play coy, mon amour. You know exactly what I’m suggesting. Just think of it as-what’s that they say here? ‘One more for the road.’”

It would be nothing she hadn’t done before… and it would be a much easier way of getting Reed out of trouble than involving her father, who was sure to make a huge deal out of everything, but-

Even the thought of touching Powell again filled her with revulsion. She couldn’t whore herself out like that, even for Reed.

“Thanks, anyway, but I’ll pass.” She grabbed her purse from the couch, but he curled his fingers around it as well, suddenly yanking it toward him and pulling her off balance. His other hand clamped down on her wrist and pulled her back down to the futon, onto his lap.

He leaned over and kissed her, mashing their lips together and thrusting his tongue against her teeth, which were gritted together so hard, she thought they might snap.

“I told you to be nice to me,” he growled, his breath sour and hot on her cheek. “I gave you every opportunity.”

They wrestled for a moment, Kaia squirming and pulling, Powell’s hands locked tight on their prey, his muscles-the ones she’d so admired, compact, but like steel-forcing her down on her back, knocking the back of her head against the metal bar of the futon, pinning her arms behind her head.

“One more for the road,” he repeated as an unfamiliar sensation swept through her. Panic. “I think I deserve that much.”

Adam did his best to behave himself at basketball practice-but once practice ended, he was ready to step out of bounds. Forget trying to earn back a certain someone’s trust-he was done with women.

Correction: done with relationships. They’d done nothing but cause him pain, and all because he’d been thinking of other people when he should have been thinking about himself. He’d been slow to learn his lesson, but he’d learned it well.

Look out for number one-and right now, number one wanted some fun. Lucky for him, practice had been pushed back two hours since half the team was stuck in detention all afternoon. That meant missing dinner-but it also meant sharing the court with the cheerleaders. And now that he was back on the market, he was already their top priority.

Time to make someone’s day, Adam thought. The inner voice, cocky and cruel, didn’t sound like him. It sounded like… Kane. So much the better, Adam resolved. Kane was happy. Kane didn’t lie awake nights cursing the way his life had turned out. And Kane, his only previous competition, was mysteriously absent from practice.

More for me.

As the coach blew the final whistle, Adam scooped up the ball and dribbled it down toward the bouncy bimbos, who had just finished their last tumbling routine. He heard a few hoots of encouragement from the guys before they headed into the locker room.

“Adam, you were playing so great out there today!” one of the new cheerleaders gushed. She was cute, with an almost frighteningly wide grin, and seemed vaguely familiar.

“Totally awesome!” another chimed in. She, too, seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place her. “We almost screwed up our cheers because we were so busy watching you. Oh-” Her face turned red, and she burst into giggles. “I mean… we were watching the team.”

It was the “we” that gave it away. Individually, they had cute but totally forgettable faces. Together, Adam would know them anywhere as the joined-at-the-hip sophomores who’d been following Harper around all year, worshipping at the feet of their goddess of cool. Harper claimed to detest them, and refused to learn their names, instead, dubbing them Mini-Me and Mini-She. Adam had always suspected that she loved the attention they lavished on her, vapid and giggly as it might be. They were her clones, her property-

They were perfect.

“Glad you liked the show,” Adam said. Smile, he instructed himself, struggling to dig up the flirting skills he’d once had, before Beth. His mother had always told him he was a charmer-though she’d never made it sound like a good thing. He’d put that part of him up on a shelf somewhere for two years, but now it was time to dust it off, get back in on the action. “But you know, it’s a team effort.”

“Oh, the team would be nothing without you!” Mini-Me gushed. (Or was it Mini-She?)

“You’re the star.”

Adam sighed. Something about this felt wrong. You’re just out of practice, he assured himself. After all, he’d thrived on this kind of attention for years before meeting Beth; there was no reason he couldn’t turn back the clock and enjoy some meaningless fun. Or, at the very least, there was no reason he couldn’t go through the motions and pretend he was enjoying himself-sooner or later, it would have to turn into the real thing, right?

“So… I guess since you girls go to all the games, you must see all our mistakes,” he said, flashing a modest smile.

“No way!” Mini-She protested.

“You guys rock!” Mini-Me swung her pom-poms in the air, as if that should decisively settle the point.

“Still, I bet you could give me some pointers-you know, as objective observers,” Adam said. “How ’bout I treat you both to some pizza and you can tell me what you think?”

“Us?” the Minis gaped at each other.

“You want to take us out?”

“You want to hear what we think?”

“Now?”

“Both of us?”

Adam nodded. Two girls-double your pleasure, double your fun, right?

(This isn’t you, a small voice inside him pointed out. Shut up, he told it.)

“I’ll go get changed and meet you back outside the school in fifteen minutes, okay?”

They nodded, too dumbstruck to say anything. Then, simultaneously, they turned and raced toward the girls’ locker room, ponytails and pom-poms flying out behind them.

Adam trudged back toward his own locker room and tried to think eager thoughts. But all he could think of was the looks on Harper’s and Beth’s faces if they saw what he was doing.

Beth would be disappointed.

Harper would be disgusted.

By the time he’d showered and changed, Adam was both-but it was too late to back out now. He wasn’t the kind of guy who made a date and disappeared, even if it was a date his kind of guy should never have made in the first place.

They were already there waiting for him when he pushed through the front doors, each dressed in a tight-fitting skirt he was sure he’d seen Harper wear and discard a few months earlier.

“We were afraid you’d changed your mind!” Mini-Me chirped, her face lighting up when she spotted him.

“Ready to go?” he asked weakly. Mini-Me linked her arm through his.

“Three cheers for pizza!” Mini-She squealed, and grabbed his other arm.

Too bad Adam had lost his appetite.

Beth fidgeted in her seat by the corner of the stage, fuming. When the principal had asked her, as a special favor, to participate in the governor’s assembly even though her speech hadn’t been chosen, she’d figured it was a decent enough consolation prize. Some prize.

It turned out that “participate” had meant “introduce Harper and tell the school what a wonderful girl she is.”

Upon realizing that, Beth had been too horrified to back out-she’d just frozen, bobbing her head up and down in response to the principal’s babbled comments about poise and eloquence.

There wasn’t enough poise in the world to pull this off, Beth thought, glancing to her left, where Harper was playing with a long thread fraying off the pocket of her jeans. The principal had insisted on having a run-through before the main event-and it wasn’t like Beth had anywhere else to be. After all, work wasn’t an issue anymore.

Get out, her manager had said. Take off your uniform, leave your time card, and get out.

All those months of sucking up to him, with his bad breath and greedy comb-over, all those late nights and double shifts, all wasted in a single, fatal failure of her impulse-control system. She’d trashed everything just because Kane Geary couldn’t leave her alone and, for once in her life, she couldn’t just grin and bear it.

Part of her believed it had been worth it, just for the look on his face-at least, the patches of his face visible beneath the dripping milk shake. But the other part of her knew she needed the job: for her family, for college, for keeping herself on track, and sane.

Still, it had felt good.

“Beth?” the principal called. “You’re up.”

“Good luck,” Harper whispered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Beth snapped.

“Just… good luck,” Harper said with no trace of a smile. “I’m, uh, sure you’ll be… great.”

Beth stared at her, waiting for the punch line, but there wasn’t one. Harper had never said a friendly word to her-not without an ulterior motive-and there was no reason to think she’d start now. “Don’t talk to me,” she hissed. “I don’t want to hear it.”

Beth walked slowly toward the podium at the center of the stage, thinking that something was wrong here. It should have been Harper delivering the saccharine opening lines, forced to stroke Beth’s ego and choke on her words. It should have been Beth welcoming the governor, awing the auditorium of students and faculty and media with her stunning prose.

For a moment, Beth wondered: If she tried hard enough, could she wake herself up to find that she’d fallen asleep in Adam’s arms three months ago, and all this was just a bad dream, brought on by pre-SAT stress?

“Ms. Manning? Any day now will do,” the principal said dryly.

If it was a nightmare, it wasn’t ending anytime soon.

Beth unfolded the small sheet of paper she’d brought with her, a two-paragraph intro she’d jotted down the night before. She took a deep breath and faced the sea of empty seats. “Thank you, Principal Lowenstein. And thank you, Governor, for visiting Haven High School. We’re all so honored to have you here.” Pause for applause, Beth told herself. But she was just delaying the inevitable.

“I’m now pleased to introduce one of Haven High’s most distinguished students, someone who deeply cares-”

Beth stopped. This was a joke. As if Harper Grace had ever deeply cared about anything except herself.

But they were just words, she reminded herself. Lies, yes, but not important ones. She just needed to talk fast and get it over with.

“Who deeply cares about the future of this school. As everyone knows, Harper Grace-”

She stopped again. She may not have had the nerve to speak the truth, but she didn’t have the stomach to tell the lie.

“Are you okay, Beth?” Harper called from the side of the stage. At the sound of her voice, Beth only felt weaker.

Principal Lowenstein walked over to the podium and put a hand on Beth’s shoulder. She flinched away. “Is everything all right?”

No.

When was the last time the answer hadn’t been no?

“I’m just not feeling very well,” she said softly. “I think… I think I need to go, if that’s all right.”

She fled before the principal had a chance to respond, and before she could see the jeering look on Harper’s face.

Every time she thought she’d scored a point, it seemed like she just got kicked down into the mud again, trampled and humiliated. Everything she tried to do blew up in her face, while every move Harper made was flawless-and deadly.

Beth still had the moral high ground. She had all the principles in the world on her side. But Harper had the strength, the will, and the ruthlessness. Which meant Harper had the power, and maybe she always would.

Miranda had heard the rumors.

That Rising Sun Casino was a desert oasis, filled with bronzed guys and buxom blondes, high-roller tables and penny slots, drama, intrigue, adventure, a twenty-four-hour buffet and all the cocktails you could stomach. And they didn’t card.

It seemed an unlikely setting for Bacchanalia, Miranda thought, as the silver Camaro pulled into a space by the entrance of the casino. A few neon lights flickered on and off, and an old man lounged in the doorway smoking a cigarette. It didn’t scream intrigue so much as infection.

But at least some of the rumors were true, Miranda discovered, as Kane held the door open and she walked down an aisle lined with withering potted palms. The cocktails were abundant, as were the buxom blondes ferrying them around the casino floor.

And indeed, they didn’t card.

“You like?” Kane asked, sweeping his arms wide to encompass the place as if it were his handiwork.

Miranda couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose. “It has a certain… charm.” To her right, a line of older women looked up from their slot machines, their hands fixed on the levers with a death grip. (And they seemed determined to stay there until “death grip” became a literal description.) Eventually, having ascertained that neither Miranda nor Kane looked likely to infringe on their turf, they looked down again, back at the buckets of coins and spinning dials that always came up one short of the jackpot.

Kane laughed. “Never brought a girl here before,” he admitted. “But, somehow, I thought you’d enjoy it.”

Miranda flushed with pleasure. When he’d proposed the impromptu road trip after detention, she certainly hadn’t worried about her curfew, or asked where they were going or when they’d be back. She’d just basked in the glow of his attention.

“So what’s first?” he asked. “Blackjack? Slots? Maybe you want me to teach you a little poker?”

Miranda and Harper had been playing poker late into the night since junior high. They used M &M’s and Vienna Fingers for chips, then ate their winnings. She shook off the memory and grinned up at Kane. “Please. Point me to the poker table. I’ll kick your ass.”

And she would have, too, if he hadn’t pulled out a straight flush at the last second.

It was hard to tell when he was bluffing.

After a full circuit around the casino floor, it was clear: Kane couldn’t lose-not at games of skill, not at games of chance.

They eventually ended up in the gift shop. Kane had declared they needed a souvenir to commemorate the occasion. “How about this?” He held up a teddy bear in a bright blue shirt reading I ♥POKER.

“Congratulations. That may be the tackiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Kane clucked his tongue. “Oh, Stevens, you’re not trying hard enough. Just look around us-this is a cornucopia of crap.”

Miranda had known Kane for a decade, and had studied his every move for almost that long. She’d seen him sardonic, sarcastic, sullen, supercilious-but never quite like this. Never silly.

“Okay, then, how about this?” She lifted a pair of earrings, holding them up against her lobes; the bright orange and green feathers dangled so low, they brushed her shoulders.

“Gorgeous. Now all you need to finish off the look is…” He selected a heavy chain of oversize, garishly painted beads and fastened it around her neck. She shivered at his touch, and his hands paused. She looked up at him and, for a moment, it seemed like-

“Not my style,” she said, ducking out of the necklace, and out of his reach.

What is wrong with me? Her heart was pounding, her breaths too fast and too short, and she backed up a step, almost knocking over the shelf of commemorative shot glasses. “Careful, Stevens.” He took hold of her arm to steady her. “You break it, I buy it.”

Breathe, she instructed herself. This could be it. But it was as if her body was rejecting the good luck as too alien for her system. She’d imagined this moment so many times, and now that it was here, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do or say. She couldn’t get her hands to stop shaking.

Probably, she was just imagining the sudden shift between them. Nothing was going to happen, she warned-or maybe reassured-herself. To Kane, she was just a buddy; why would he suddenly see her differently?

It must be the double vodka martini, she realized. It had made her forget herself.

She’d also forgotten that he was still holding on to her arm. Or perhaps he’d forgotten to let go.

“Problem, Stevens?” He smirked, and it was almost as if he could tell what she was thinking.

“I’m fine,” she claimed. “But the martinis in me seem to be a little clumsy.”

“I don’t think it’s the martinis.” He guided her toward the back of the gift shop, against a wall of “Guaranteed authentic!” Native American dreamcatchers. They were hidden from the rest of the store by a shelf of tourist guides to the Southwest. “I think you’re nervous.”

“Why would I be nervous? Were you playing with loaded dice?” she teased. “Think they’re onto us?” She shook her head in mock disappointment. “I should have known you’d only gamble on a sure thing.”

“You know me too well.” He was close enough now that she could smell the alcohol on his breath. How drunk was he? she suddenly wondered. How much of this amazing afternoon was him, and how much-“That’s what I love about you,” he said softly.

“And here I thought you only loved yourself.” She kept her voice hard and bright, hoped he wouldn’t see how that word affected her.

Kane grabbed her hands and pressed them to his chest. “Stevens! You wound me! Here I am trying to be all sensitive and all you have for me are insults and innuendos?”

He was joking-or, at least, she hoped he was. Miranda had a nasty habit of blurring the line between flirtatious banter and cutting dismissals. But this time, she felt relatively safe, and so she played along.

“So sorry, Kane,” she gushed fakely. “However can I make it up to you? I’ll do anything!”

“Anything?” He arched an eyebrow.

“Anything your devious little heart desires.”

He smiled then, the same smile he’d given her at the poker table just before laying down his hand: I win, you lose.

“Then kiss me already.”

And there, between the dreamcatchers and the tourist guides, swaying to the scratchy, easy-listening remix of an old Céline Dion song, Kane gently cupped her chin in his warm hand, tipped her face toward his, closed his eyes, and slowly brought their lips together.

Technically, it wasn’t her first kiss-but, in a way, it was. Because always before, it had been about the mechanics: the teeth scraping, tongue swirling, saliva swishing. Miranda had always focused on her breathing and where her hands should go, on the sucking and popping noises her lips made, silently wondering, Is this it? Can this be all there is?

Now she had her answer: no. That was nothing. This was-this was Hollywood, this was Gone With the Wind, Kirsten and Tobey hanging upside down in Spider-Man, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. This was every amazing kiss she’d ever imagined, with sparks and fireworks and a shock of pleasure exploding through her body.

This was Kane Geary caressing her cheek, sucking on her lip, moaning softly, pressing her against the gift shop wall. And this was her, forgetting herself, and how she might look or whether she was doing it right, forgetting to worry about what it might mean, how far it might go, if they’d be caught.

This was pure. This was passion.

And, most impossible of all-

This was real.

Would everyone in the audience hate her, Harper wondered, gripping the sides of the podium. Would all those hundreds of faces watching her be hoping for her to fail, or maybe just wondering what the hell she was doing up there in the first place?

She’d tried to stay true to her resolution to be a better person. She’d even been nice to Beth, much as it had twisted her stomach. It hadn’t done much good. Beth didn’t want her to change, that was obvious; Beth wanted her to be the unredeemable bitch, someone she could blame all her problems on, so she wouldn’t have to take a closer look at herself. Harper knew the feeling.

But Harper couldn’t avoid looking at herself now. She looked out at the sea of empty chairs and grew certain that tomorrow’s audience would see right through her surface, down to her rotten core. And what was her reward for all this self-examination? Clammy hands, sweaty brow, pounding heart, lockjaw. She didn’t need WebMD to diagnose herself. It was a textbook case: stage fright.

Harper fixed her eyes on the top line of the speech. She opened her mouth.

Out popped a squeak, and nothing more.

Her lips were dry, and her tongue suddenly felt too large for her mouth. She needed water. She needed air-in bigger and bigger gulps.

She needed to get away.

“Ms. Grace?” the principal asked, probably suffering from her own case of déjà vu. “Everything all right?”

Yes, she tried to say. It’s fine.

But nothing came out.

And Harper Grace didn’t do speechless.

There isn’t even anyone watching, she told herself angrily. But it didn’t seem to matter. It was all those empty seats, all that space, all the pressure-

“I have to get out of here,” she mumbled, finally able to speak now that she’d given up the fight. She left the copy of the speech on the podium, waved weakly at the principal, and ran off stage, feeling sick.

She’d always been proud to be Harper Grace, with the distinguished name and the impeccable rep-everyone wanted her life.

They could have it.

Is this what it feels like? Kaia asked herself dimly in the small, faraway place she’d retreated to in her mind. She pushed Powell away, twisted, turned-but wasn’t it all a bit half-hearted? Wasn’t there a piece of her wondering, Is this really happening? She couldn’t believe, couldn’t force herself back down into her body, where it would be real. It seemed like something she was watching on TV, like one of those interchangeable Lifetime movies where the damsel always finds herself in distress. As if the scene would play out the same way no matter what she did.

Kaia had always thought that, in a real emergency, life would be clearer, the picture sharper. You wouldn’t coolly wonder whether those self-defense classes had been a waste of money, you wouldn’t be as cold and calculating as you were in everyday life. You would recognize the need to act. Instinct would take over.

You wouldn’t wonder, Should I scream? Will that seem foolish? Am I overreacting? You wouldn’t wonder, coldly, curiously, What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I scream?

And then she heard the low purr of the zipper, felt it scrape against her skin, and then she did scream. She stopped thinking and wondering because it was real-he was on top of her, heavy, unmovable, and she screamed and spit and bit and tore at him, and still his hand clenched both her wrists and forced her arms down though her muscles screamed in pain, and when she slammed her forehead up into his, he barely moved, barely noticed, so intent was he on holding her down, shifting into position, wriggling out of his khakis with one hand while gripping her wrists with the other-

Her knee came up, hard. And connected. He dropped her wrists, grabbed his groin, doubled over with a soft sigh, and she sat up and punched him in the Adam’s apple. Twice, for good measure. Grabbed her purse-not her shirt, though, because he was on top of it, half sitting, half lying on the futon, grunting with pain. But before she could escape, he pulled himself up and lunged toward her. She darted away, but not fast enough, and he slammed her against the wall, the edge of the futon digging painfully into her lower back. He grabbed her hair, tugged her head back, his laughter hot against her skin.

One hand pinned between their bodies, her other flailed behind her, waving wildly through the air, then fumbling across the coffee table until she felt the head of his tacky marble copy of Rodin’s The Thinker. It was solid and heavy in her grasp, and in a smooth arc she hoisted it into the air and slammed it into the back of his head.

There was a surprisingly quiet thud, and he fell limp against her, the small statue slipping out of her trembling fingers and crashing into the floor. A splash of blood lit up the stone face.

Kaia pushed Powell’s inert body away, and it toppled to the floor, facefirst. She didn’t check to see whether he was breathing, or wipe the blood off the statue or her fingerprints off the doorknob. She didn’t cry, didn’t scream, didn’t hesitate.

She just left, fumbling with the lock, slipping out the door and stumbling on her way to the car. She pulled out of the driveway fast, without looking, and sped down the road into the darkness, away from town, away from people, turning up the radio and rolling down the windows to drown the night in cold air and loud music.

She blew through three red lights and hit open highway before realizing: She had nowhere to go.