Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (8)

My nose stings but I refuse the sudden temptation of frustrated tears. I’m not going to cry, not in front of this asshole. If he feels my knees shaking, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He just leans closer, his eyes hooked to mine. I know he won’t back down. And he can see it too, the moment the realization truly settles in my veins.

My shoulders drop. “I’m begging you,” I whisper.

“You’re not doing a very good job of it, I’m afraid.”

“You really are a dick.”

“And you want to get out of here as much as I do. This is your only ride out, so you’d better keep quiet,” he says, and then his hand is on my head, pushing me down with gentle pressure as the other guides the lid down behind me, forcing me into darkness until I squeeze my eyes shut. “When we get to Providence, I’ll let you out and you can cause havoc on your own time. Until then, try to behave yourself.”

The trunk clicks closed. My eyes open to the total darkness. My heartbeat thunders in my ears. The tears I hid from him come full force now as I curl my body into a tight ball and hug my bag to my chest, Batman’s discarded wet suit damp against the top of my head. I pull the arm of it down to rest across my forehead where a film of congealed blood and white makeup and sweat begs to be scraped from my skin.

You’re okay. You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay. You know what to do.

I repeat my mantra until my panicking breaths slow just enough to pick up the sound of the muffled words exchanged between Batman and Conor. It’s a clipped and pragmatic conversation. My hope that Conor will talk some sense into his friend is a fleeting one, because a moment later the driver’s door creaks open and slams shut. The engine starts with a growl, and then we’re rolling away.

I need a new plan.

I harness my fury to stay focused as we maneuver around a couple of gentle turns and settle into a steady speed. When I’m sure Batman must feel confident that I’ll behave myself, I bang my fist on the roof of the trunk in a riot of flesh against metal.

“Not sure if you’ve heard this before, but you’re a total asshole,” I yell, tears still leaking from my eyes. My banging becomes a percussion to punctuate my chant. “Asshole, asshole, asshole.”

“Pipe down,” he snarls before applying more pressure on the accelerator.

“Come make me, I fucking dare you.” I bang again, and he finally turns the music up to drown me out. The moment it’s on, I soften my blows and protests, and then I let them fade away.

When I’m satisfied he thinks he’s won this round, I turn on my phone’s flashlight and rummage in my bag.

My maniacal cackle is drowned out by the engine and music as I pull out the screw-in whammy bar for my Jackson guitar with my sweaty, shaking hand. I may have been born a Montague, which comes with its own set of batshit-crazy history, but I’m a Covaci too, and my stepdad taught me all kinds of useful tricks, like how to break free of cable ties. How to tie a hangman’s knot. How to load a gun.

And how to escape the trunk of a vehicle.

The vintage latch is a little tricky, but on the plus side there’s probably no warning light on the mechanical dashboard to tip my crusty chauffeur off when I manage to pop it free on the third try. I hold on to the mechanism to keep the trunk’s lid open just enough that I can watch the road fall away behind us. We’re still in the middle of nowhere—no traffic, no pedestrians, hardly any houses. It’s just the forest. Me and the dark and the red taillights that bleed into the black night.

The car slows. The driveshaft disengages as Batman shifts gears and brakes. The taillights brighten. One blinks, signaling a right-hand turn.

I pop the lid just enough to slip free of the trunk before we’ve rolled to a stop. It’s not a graceful dismount. I smash a knee on the asphalt and tear a hole in my sweats. The exhaust fumes spill across my face when I kneel behind the bumper. I gently hold the lid down so that he won’t notice it in the rearview. The old hinges are stiff enough that it doesn’t spring open when I lessen the pressure. I can’t close it completely, but if Batman doesn’t spot me as he turns, I might have enough time to disappear.

The lights dim as he takes his foot off the brake. With a growl and a puff of gray smoke, the engine revs. The car coasts around the turn and rolls away.

I linger for just a breath of time, crouched on the empty road. And then I rise, wipe the cooling tears off my face, and walk away in the opposite direction.

You don’t know me, I think when I cast a final glance to the car before it disappears around a bend.

And he’s right.

He doesn’t want to.





BULL’S-EYE




Lachlan


… ONE YEAR LATER


“We haven’t had a happy hour like this in years,” Leander says as he tosses a dart. An instant later, a garbled cry bounces off the concrete walls as the metal point lands in Robbie Usher’s cheek. A few more darts quiver in his face as he shakes with fear and pain. His sobs escape from the gag that stretches back the corners of his mouth to reveal his swollen, bloodied gums. His top and bottom teeth are gone all the way to his molars. Bleeding gums aside, the dart hanging from his lower lip looks especially painful. Naturally, that one is Leander’s favorite.

So far.

Can’t say this is the life I imagined for myself, pulling teeth with pliers and playing darts with some guy’s face in my boss’s basement on a Friday night. Who does, I guess? Come to think of it, I probably didn’t spend much of my childhood imagining what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was too busy figuring out how to survive. I don’t remember dreams of being a firefighter or a police officer or a teacher or anything at all. The most vivid daydreams I can recall were how to get away with murder. I even wished for it on my thirteenth birthday, when my brothers cobbled together enough money to buy ingredients to make me a cake.