Fighting for Rain - BB Easton Page 0,14

like when he’s sleepy, when he’s sick, when he’s lying, when he wants me to take my clothes off, when he’s angry, when he’s frustrated, and when he’s playing the part of Mr. Popular. I know what it sounded like when he was six years old and lost his two front teeth at the same time. And now, I know what it sounds like when he’s just plain lost.

“You can have my house, Mrs. Renshaw,” I say, tearing my eyes away from her son. “I’m never going back there again.”

Wes

“Wes, wait!” Rain calls out, but I just keep walking.

I’d rather give myself a root canal than sit around for another second of this precious little family reunion.

“Rainbow!” Carter yells after her.

I turn around at the sound of his voice, only because I want to watch her choose him. Them. I need to see it. I need to feel the twist of the knife because I know that’s the only fucking way I’ll be able to let her go.

“Sorry. I meant, Rain …” Carter has this bullshit, pitiful puppy-dog look on his pretty-boy face, and I want to put my fucking fist through it. “Can we go somewhere and talk? Please?” He pulls his eyebrows up so high that they disappear behind his mop of curly black hair. Then, he bites his bottom lip.

Motherfucker. I know that look. I invented that fucking look.

“Not right now, Carter,” Rain says, picking up her untouched plate of eggs. “I have to go check on Quint.”

Not right now? How about not fucking ever?

I feel my muscles tense and my teeth grind together as I glare at the piece of shit in the Twenty One Pilots T-shirt, but by the time his eyes land back on me, I’m loose as a motherfucking goose. I roll my neck and stick my hands in my pockets like I’m waiting in line at the DMV, not thinking of all the ways I could crack his skull open.

Rain turns and walks toward me, her face flushing when she realizes I stopped to watch their little exchange, but I keep my face slack and my posture relaxed.

You’re not mad. You’re bored. Bored, bored, bored.

Everybody knows how this show is gonna end. Rain becomes a Renshaw. She gets her happy little family back. They have two-point-five kids who can dunk from the foul line and don’t even need therapy. The. Fucking. End.

I wait for her to catch up. Only a jealous, bitter asshole would turn his back and keep walking right now, and I’m not jealous.

Nope. I’m just so fucking bored.

Rain’s face looks tortured as she approaches, and I feel the fire inside me die down. Her right cheek still has three pink claw marks on it from when she got attacked at Burger Palace. Her lips are chapped. Her hair is matted. And her big, round eyes look like two empty swimming pools now.

Drained.

Dull.

Desperate.

I hate how badly I want to be the one to fill them back up.

A moment before Rain closes the distance between us, gasps and shrieks and, “Oh my God!”s fill the food court. I look past her and see that every digital monitor behind every fast-food counter is on and glowing red.

“Wes?” Rain’s voice is barely a whisper as she comes to stand beside me. “What’s going on?”

I watch as the black silhouette of a hooded horseman holding a scythe flashes on-screen for less than a second.

“Did you see that?”

I nod.

Another one flashes—this time, the horseman with the sword. Then, another and another. Faster and faster, their images appear and disappear until the screens are just pulsating black-and-red pools.

People scream.

Sophie dives for her mother’s arms.

And Rain grips my bicep so hard that her nails break the skin.

“Maybe this is just the nightmare,” I say in a half-assed attempt to make her feel better.

“It’s not, Wes. It’s real.”

“None of this is real, remember? It’s all just a hoax.”

“Citizens,” a female voice with a French accent booms through the speakers, drawing my attention back to the screens.

The face of a middle-aged woman with mousy-brown hair, sharp features, and dark red lipstick fills the left side of the screen while the word citizens is written in at least twelve different languages on the right side.

“My name is Dr. Marguerite Chapelle. I am the director of the World Health Alliance. If you are seeing this broadcast, congratulations. You are now part of a stronger, healthier, more self-sufficient human race.”

Rain and I look at each other as dread slithers across her face