THE BEAMS OF sun warm my skin and I stretch lazily on the blanket. I’m at my favorite place on earth—the back field of my house. Walk long enough and eventually I’d wander onto Cyrus’s property. Dad would let the grass grow high here and he’d have it cut several times throughout the summer and sell the hay, but he would leave this small portion untouched for me.
I loved the wildness of free-growing grass, trees with long limbs and branches heavy with leaves. Beside me, Chevy’s propped up on one elbow and he’s watching me. Chevy always watches me.
“I’m dreaming,” I say.
He smiles, shifting from fourteen to seventeen, then back to fourteen. Can’t decide which one I like better. He’s handsome either way, but at fourteen, Chevy couldn’t make up his mind on whether to hold my hand. Confused about how he felt, since we had been raised to love each other as siblings, but we were more than brother and sister, more than friends. The two of us always shared a special connection.
At seventeen, he broke my heart. I blink and Chevy is sixteen and I loved sixteen. He did way more than hold my hand then and we were light-years away from him shattering my soul.
I’ve always been able to do this. Be aware when I’m dreaming, but there’s a cost to it. Sometimes I become paralyzed. Powerless to move my body. My mind awake, my muscles asleep and I’ll panic at the thought of never being in control again. To never speak or walk or run.
I hope this isn’t one of those dreams. To be sure it isn’t, I focus hard and I’m able to twitch a finger—not in the dream, but in reality. Coldness rushes into the heat of the day and I pull back from my conscious mind and return to the dream, but a sense of dread washes through me.
“We aren’t safe,” I say to Chevy. “I shouldn’t be asleep.”
“I first kissed you here,” he replies like that’s an appropriate response, but it’s a dream and I go with it.
“We did a lot more than just kiss here.” Happiness swirls within me at the memories of stolen moments I thought would last forever. We did a lot of firsts in this back field. Too many to count. None of it rushed. All of it slow. Teeny, tiny baby steps because I was never ready for too much too fast and Chevy was patient, always patient as if he was just as scared as I was to go any further than we had before.
Chevy’s smile widens and it’s that mischievous dimpled one that continuously dared me to go along with one of his crazy schemes. Smuggling hot cookies out of Olivia’s kitchen when we were seven. Lifting Cyrus’s Reign of Terror cut when we were ten. Pickpocketing Eli’s keys so we could go joyriding in his truck before we had our licenses.
Can’t take much credit. Chevy was the mastermind with the fast hands. I was the lovely assistant who helped with the distraction, but I loved being part of the action.
I reach out, stretching because I miss touching him so much, but his smile fades and his expression darkens. “Violet, wake up.”
Fear seizes my lungs as storm clouds gather in the sky. Chevy grabs ahold of my arms and yells, “Wake up!”
My eyes snap open, a haze of morning light barely lightens the basement room and the air is knocked out of me as I’m being shoved to the concrete corner. Scuffed black boots in front of me, and when I look up, Chevy has his back to me, arms out, the handcuffs dangling from his fingers.
Nausea races up my throat. They’re returning and this is all Chevy has for weapons.
I push off the floor, and as I stand, Chevy presses back so I’m flush against the wall. “Stay behind me.”
I rub my eyes to wake myself as four men enter the room. All of them from last night. Fiend marches in behind them like a victorious general. Two men fan to the left, the other two to the right. Fiend stays near the door in the middle and sizes Chevy up. “I heard you were wily, but I had bet you couldn’t bust out of cuffs. Guess I was wrong.”
Chevy says nothing and Fiend makes a show of leaning as he looks at me. “Have a nice sleep?”
I don’t break eye contact as I follow Chevy’s lead on staying silent.
Fiend hikes up the waist of his pants. He has a belt on, but his gut is overbearing. “This is how it’s going to play out. McKinley, you’re coming with us. We need to talk about your club.”
“I’m not a member, and even if I were, I don’t speak for the Terror.”
“Your grandfather is the president of the Terror. I have faith you can handle this negotiation.”
“Nothing I do or say holds any weight in the club.”
“I disagree. President’s grandson does hold weight. Especially when it’s his life on the line.”
“You got something to say, say it,” Chevy spits out. “But I’m not leaving her.”
Fiend’s eyebrows rise. “You mean Violet? We know who she is and who her father was to your club. Just like we know who you are and what she means to you.”
My gaze snaps to Fiend’s and he catches it, then winks. Chevy shifts, obviously uncomfortable with the exchange. Uneasiness gathers in my stomach in rolling waves. In the car, Fiend kept reaching over like he was going to pull down my shirt. Twice he almost succeeded. He stole my bracelets. Stole my necklaces. Stole Dad’s watch. Touching parts of me I wished he hadn’t in the process. I suck in a breath in order to contain the dry heave.
I went full-on crazy when he touched me and I kicked the hell out of him. Then Fiend hit me. Several times. I tried to fight back, but he was bigger than me and I thought he was going to keep going until I died, but the man in the front seat barked an order at Fiend to back off, for me to shut up, and the asshole retreated to his side of the backseat and went silent.
It’s funny how my body throbbed, but I felt no pain. How blood trickled against my skin, but there wasn’t an ache. I don’t know what any of that was about, but I do know both men scared me, I’m still scared and I want more than anything to go home.
I didn’t tell Chevy all that really happened. He’s already sacrificed enough to save my brother. I’m not sure if I’ll ever tell Chevy. Not sure if I make it out of this I’ll ever tell anyone. I just want to leave here and pretend none of this happened.
“This can be easy,” Fiend says. “You come with us and she stays here. If it becomes hard, it’s because you made it hard. Anything that happens to you is by your choice.”
Such a bullshit answer. “My choice is to leave.”
Fiend offers me a fake sympathetic shrug. “Not my call to make. But I’ll tell you what, if it makes you feel better, I’ll stay behind to keep you company. Finish what we started last night.”
Heat rushes to my face, dizziness overwhelms me and, this time, I bend over when I can’t contain the dry heave. An arm around my waist, and when I glance up, dark concerned eyes meet mine. It’s Chevy, and as he takes in my reaction, stone-cold anger replaces the concern. He quickly returns his attention to the men who stepped closer at the lowering of his defense.
“I’m okay,” I whisper and shove him away from me. To protect him. To protect us.
“Let’s go, McKinley,” Fiend demands.
Chevy stretches out his arm again. “No.”
Fiend nods, the men are in motion and Chevy backs up, pinning me to the wall again. Fiend reaches to his back and all the air rushes out of my body. There’s a gun in his hand and he’s pointing it at us—at Chevy.
“Move or I’ll shoot you,” Fiends says like he’s bored. “That leaves her alone with us. Your choice.”
My pulse pounds violently in my veins. Chevy promised to protect me, but I don’t want him dead. “Go with them.”
“No.”