Staring at Nolan, I tried to cut myself some slack for not realizing how sadistic he was, sooner. He was boyishly good-looking, with soft blond curls and hazel eyes, now with crow’s feet gathering like an elegant fan around them.
Wholesome. Handsome. Fearsome.
I jerked my arm like his touch was cold fire. I was about to swing my fist directly to his nose and pick up Shadow again when dark, violent energy crackled around me like electricity. A metal-hitting-metal thud and screech penetrated the air and everything stopped like someone hit pause. We both twisted our heads back.
Bane. Clouds of playground sand dancing around his army boots.
Bane. His stony jaw set in anger I could feel all the way down to my toes.
Bane. Holding Henry in a headlock, the preppy boy on his knees, staring at Nolan with horror I could decipher even with only the poor lighting of the streetlamp. Wren was in the car, holding her face and screaming. That’s when I noticed he’d smashed into the back of the Camaro with his truck, and not by accident. The car had slid to the concrete sidewalk bordering the playground. A swing swayed from the impact.
Up, down. Up, down.
I finally picked Shadow, hugging him close to my chest.
“Well, this is awkward.” Bane flashed a wolfish, badder-than-bad grin. “A sober dude crashing his truck into a bunch of sorry-ass tanked teenagers. Wonder who is gonna take the blame for that one?”
You could feel the atmosphere shifting in the small things. Nolan’s body going slack. Wren bowing her head down in defeat. A terrified tear rolling down Henry’s cheek. Nolan lifted both his hands in surrender, taking a step back.
“Stay where you are,” Bane ordered.
He did.
“I believe a trade is in order. This dipshit is of no interest to me, and you have no business touching Jesse Carter,” Bane said, tucking a joint between his lips and lighting it up with his free hand. He tilted his chin up, letting the smoke crawl upwards in a curly ribbon.
Jesse Carter. He knew my name, and probably everything else there was to know about me. Stupid me thought I could escape him by withholding information from him.
Wild relief washed over me when Nolan pivoted to face the big, blond surfer, forgetting all about me. I gathered Shadow into my arms again, watching the golden locks of Nolan’s hair from behind, wondering if I had it in me to grip a handful of them and smash his head against the concrete under our feet.
“Bane Protsenko?” Nolan scratched his smooth forehead.
“C’mere.” Bane curled his ringed fingers that held the blunt, beckoning. Henry was still on the ground, choking on a sob. Bane’s jaw was locked so tight I thought his teeth were going to snap out of his mouth. Nolan walked over to them, coiling into himself as his posture caught up with his pulse.
“What’s going on? We were just having fun.” He sounded like the good boy his mother probably thought he was.
“Was it fun for Carter?”
“Yeah!” Henry yelled, gagging around Bane’s arm. “We know her. We went to school together. R…right, Jesse?”
I shook my head. I may not have had the balls to kill them, but I would never protect them. “I went to school with them, yes, but they’re harassing me.”
I wasn’t sure if Bane was trying to blackmail me or simply do the right thing by me, but it didn’t matter. He was helping me, and I needed him there. Nolan stopped a good three feet away from Bane and Henry.
“What’s up, man? Nothing to see here. I’m sure you have better things to do than to bang up our night.” Nolan’s voice was toneless. He was trying to swallow in the anger he’d felt for being interrupted.
“Snowflake, what should we do with them?” Bane said ‘Snowflake’ like we had pet names for each other and ‘we’ like it was a concept I was familiar and comfortable with. Like we did things together all the time. Like we were friends.
I don’t date. My job doesn’t allow it. Long story. Let’s be friends.
A month after The Incident, I got back to school to complete my senior year and graduate. I saw Henry, Nolan, and Emery every day. I saw them in the cafeteria, and in class, and at whatever events Pam and Darren dragged me to in town in their attempt to fit in. Emery, Nolan, and Henry acted as if I didn’t exist, and they did such a thorough job, by the end of the year, even I’d bought into it. Point was, we always pretended we didn’t know each other. I was tired of pretending it didn’t happen.
It did, and it hurt. It still hurt, years after. It would always hurt, for as long as I lived.
I took a step forward. “What are you doing in Todos Santos?”
Nolan turned his head to me. Henry winced. The silence was pregnant with things I didn’t want to hear.
“We’re on a forced vacation.” Henry’s voice broke. He was always so much weaker than Nolan, than Emery. The frail, dangling link that was likely to snap first.
“What’d you do?”
“None of your business,” Nolan snapped.
“What. Did. You. Do?” Bane’s tenor was chilling. A cold knife gliding down your skin, its edge poking your flesh. Roman Protsenko was highly connected in Todos Santos. Even I knew that. He was the kind of person you really didn’t want to mess with.
“Campus incident.” The words sounded like they wanted to be swallowed back into Nolan’s mouth. The three golden boys of All Saints High went to college together. East Coast. That was the deal their parents had made with Darren and Pam.
We want your kids as far away as possible from ours. Much good it had done me.
“Consisting of?”
“A girl…” Henry said through clenched teeth. My heart split into mosaic pieces. They’d assaulted someone else? “We didn’t do anything. That’s why it’s just a week. She was sauced as hell. Anyway, we only messed around with her. Shit was under investigation for like, a second, but we’re good to go back.”
Bane’s eyes sought mine under the sad artificial light. He was no less dangerous than they were. If anything, they were hyenas, and he was a lion, quiet and deadly. “What’re we gonna do with them, Jesse?”
“I don’t want them anywhere near me ever again. No talking, no touching, no breathing in my direction.” My teeth chattered, even though it wasn’t cold. I wasn’t proud of using Bane to make sure the boys were off my case, but the temptation was too much. Henry and Nolan were bullies. If they smelled weakness, they would strike. They’d continue to provoke me until the day I died if they didn’t have an incentive not to.
Bane said, “You heard her. Consider this her official restraining order against you.”
“I’m sorry, but who the hell are you to tell us what to do?” Nolan spat out. Bane released Henry from the chokehold, sauntering over to Nolan. The air was drenched with menace. The world seemed painfully mundane while wrapped up in Roman Protsenko’s exceptional orbit. Like he was bigger than the place he was born in. He captured Nolan’s throat in his palm and squeezed, still reeking of bored stoicism. “If you get anywhere near her again, I will personally make sure it will be the last time you step foot in this town. Your family will be driven out of here. Your college dream will be dead. I will unleash every ounce of power I have in this town to make sure your lives are a continuous, Freddie-Kruger-style nightmare. Fair warning: I’m very good at nightmares. I’ve lived a different life from yours, and know what you rich kids can survive…and what you cannot.”
I’d have paid good money to see Nolan’s face at that moment, but he had his back to me. What I did hear clearly was Henry choking on his own saliva. “Man, let’s get the hell out of here! Let’s go!” simultaneously with Wren, who wept out, “Nolan, don’t be an idiot!”
Nolan stood like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, askew and unsteady, realizing for the first time the lesson he had taught me—that we were all fragile and breakable. Bane unlocked his hand from Nolan’s neck and pushed him toward the car.
“You’re trying my patience,” the blond mammoth growled. “Under any other circumstanc
e, you wouldn’t walk out of this park alive.”
Nolan tossed me a narrowed-eyed look. “Fine. You’re dead to us. Happy?”
Hardly. But I wanted them to finally let go of me, so maybe, one day, someday, I could let go of them.
“You’re a prick,” I hissed, nuzzling my face into Shadow’s fur.
“And you’re a slut. Just remember that when the town’s bully replaces your ass with someone who isn’t crammed with STDs.”
That awarded Nolan a punch to the face from Bane. It happened so fast, he staggered and fell down, his ass hitting the concrete. Bane kicked his face with the tip of his boot, and I heard something crack. I barked out a laugh, mainly from shock. Henry half-ran, half-stumbled to Nolan, picking him up by the collar of his shirt and galloping toward the Camaro. “Dude, we need to bail. Now!”
He shoved Nolan into the Camaro and bolted around to the driver’s seat, attempting to start the car a few times before the engine roared to life. He reversed with a screech, bumping into Bane’s truck slightly before fleeing the scene while peppering small bits of the car’s wrecked hood in his wake. My eyes followed the vehicle, dancing in their sockets. I was so entranced by what happened, I hadn’t even noticed Bane was standing right in front of me. But he was.
There, with his long, muscled body.
Green eyes like winter mint, dark and frighteningly alive.
Under the harsh light, I could see the holes where his past piercings must have been. Lower lip. Nose. Eyebrow. He was tall and smooth and youthful. Regal in his beauty. The only things staining his noble good looks were his tattoos and beard.
My gaze swept down to his knuckles. They were individually inked, carefully hiding every inch of skin.
My eyes halted on the dark stain between them. Nolan’s blood.
I looked up.
I didn’t know if it was the air that smelled of grass and adrenaline, or the allure of the night that promised to swallow what had passed between us into a secret, or the fact that he’d saved me, but I didn’t hate Bane like everyone else in that moment. My mouth opened of its own accord, and the words tumbled out. “Thank you.”
“What would it take for you to have coffee with me?” He breathed hard, picking up where we’d left off. Last time, I told him he’d need to save my life.
I guess he just had.
“For you to tell me why you want to do this.”
“I need to fix you,” he said, his greens on my blues.
To. Fix. You.
Shadow stirred in my arms, trying to sniff Bane from a distance. I was surprised he didn’t try to bite his head off like he normally would. He knew how weird I’d felt about men.
“I don’t mean to sound rude, but who the hell are you to fix me, and who said I’m in need of fixing?” I tilted my chin down, aware of the fact I hadn’t exchanged so many words with another man for years. I was on the verge of shoving him away. How dare he? But I was also on the verge of smashing my body against his, collapsing into a hug. How good was he? No one had ever tried to fix me. Even Darren and Pam merely wanted to get rid of me. Of course, I did neither. The Untouchable never touched anyone.
Bane took a step forward. I didn’t take a step back.
“I heard about your story. I heard about what Emery, Nolan, and Henry did to you. And let’s just say I have someone close to me who experienced something similar, so shit hit pretty close to home.” He pointed to the space where the Camaro was no longer parked. I thought about what I knew about him. About his bad reputation. But then I also remembered that he’d been the one to shut down the Defy game in All Saints High. That all he’d ever been to me was kind and helpful.
“I don’t think you understand, Snowflake. You don’t have any say in this shit. I’m going to help you whether you want my help or not. And I’m willing to punch every face in Todos Santos if it makes you feel safer, my own included. I don’t want to fuck you, Jesse.” He breathed hard, and in my mind, he was cupping my cheeks with his big, callused palms, and I didn’t even flinch.
In my mind, his cinnamon breath skimmed over my face warmly.
In my mind, we didn’t have all that dead space between us, and our voices didn’t echo against the nothingness of the empty night, because I wasn’t so broken and scared. “I want to fucking save you.”
“But—” I started.
He cut me off. “They called you a whore. What they did to you is inexcusable. You’re going to be saved, hear me? You’re going to be saved, because the other girl couldn’t be saved.”
I didn’t question it.
I didn’t doubt it.
I just accepted it, the way you do the sky above your head, knowing he was a stronger force than my resistance ever would be.
Bane had helped me. He’d protected me.
And, sadly, it was more than anyone else had done in my life.
All he wanted was coffee. Somewhere public. Once. I could survive this. I could.
I thought about the wilting Mrs. Belfort, and how loneliness drove me running from my memories and nightmares in the middle of the night, then nodded. He motioned for me to get into his truck, and I shook my head, lowering Shadow to the ground. We were going to walk. Bane threw his cell phone into my hands.
“Five, three, three, seven. Have 911 on speed dial. I’ll drive slowly. Keep the passenger door open just in case. But you’re not walking home with your feet looking like that.” He motioned down, and I followed his gaze, finding my ankles and Keds beaten almost to death, the little pocketknife nearly falling out of my blood-soaked sock. I nodded slowly, tucking it back in. I then dialed 911 and kept my thumb hovering on the green button, and got into his truck.
It was the shock that made me do it.
New Jesse never got into anyone’s vehicle.
“Just one question, Bane,” I said after giving him directions to my house. “What were you doing here tonight? It’s a gated community.”
He cut his engine, sank back into his seat, and rolled his head to look at me. “I have a hookup in El Dorado every Thursday. I have the electronic key.” He flashed the small black device between his fingers.
I swallowed hard as I tumbled out of the passenger’s seat with Shadow in front of my house.
My ankle dragged, leaving a bloodstain on his old leather seat.
And I thought it to be ironic.
How he was the most powerful man I knew, and yet, I was the one to mark him before he marked me.
THE MINUTE DARREN TEXTED ME that Jesse went to the track for a jog, I was out of bed and in my truck, speeding in its direction.
Fine. I’ll rephrase: I was out of Samantha’s bed—an El Dorado local lay and a lawyer who gave me legal advice—and heading toward the track.
It was three thirty in the fucking morning. If Snowflake had a death wish, she worked hard on fulfilling it. I’d arrived just in time. In a classic, deus ex machina, more-luck-than-brains scenario, there were two douchebags, one jaded girl, and Jesse and her dog in the middle of the shitshow.
She’d been so disoriented and horrified that she’d accepted the excuse for my sudden arrival and hadn’t even doubted me. She’d tripped on her ass bolting out of my truck when I dropped her off, and I’d pretended not to notice because I didn’t want to embarrass her. It was a lie I didn’t usually offer, but she had special circumstances.
Thin trails of her blood smeared on my passenger seat reminded me just how broken she was, and how careful I needed to be with that one.
I fucked plenty of women for money. Unfucking them, though? That wasn’t my expertise.
The flip side was I’d finally milked a coffee date out of her. Only, between surfing and taking care of business, I had very little time for coffee, so today, she was going to tag along for a business meeting.
And by a business meeting, I meant extortion. Same shit, really.
I met Jesse at Café Diem the next day at four o’clock. The fact that she showed up at all was a miracle. She glided between the busy
tables and hectic bar, wearing her usual, creeper-from-the-nineties attire of black ball cap, baggy jeans, and that damn black hoodie. The blandest outfit in the world to hide who she really was.
My Whole Life Has Been Pledged to This Meeting with You
A poet. An explorer. A romantic. A culture-loving, dragon-slaying princess.
Bonus points—she apparently had the ability to make me sound hella emo. So there was that, too.
Darren Morgansen gave me the gist of what had happened to her. Jesse had dated Emery Wallace, heir to Wallace, Walmart’s main competition on the West Coast, all throughout high school. Emery was your typical spoiled fucktard with too much money and zero grasp of what real life was about. The one with the right clothes, the right car, and the wrong friends. He loved the idea of dating the prettiest girl in school. A virgin, no less. On the night his jackpot of a girlfriend had supposedly lost her virginity to him, Emery installed a camera behind the PlayStation in his room to record the whole thing.
Only he never deflowered her.
There had been no blood.
There had been no signs of virginity being taken.
Jesse Carter had been about as virginal as a used condom.
If anything, Darren had said (or rather, sniffed) that according to the rumors, the live camera showed that she’d been bored, on the verge of yawning at his thrusts.
Emery chose a questionable method to show her how he’d felt. A few weeks later, he’d snatched her from a junction where she’d been standing, waiting for the light to turn green, driven her to a deserted alley with his best friends, and marked her forever. Jesse knew the kids at her school would have a fucking field day if the truth came out, so the families struck a deal: the boys were to stay away from Jesse and leave town to attend an out-of-state college, and she was never to speak about The Incident. Ever. The idea that someone on Jesse’s side had agreed to that deal made me want to strangle the life out of both of them.