Follow Me Down - Melissa Toppen Page 0,1

trying to get yourself killed?” he scolds, stopping a couple of feet from me.

“I... I need to get out of here,” I stutter, looking behind me as I remember why I was running to begin with.

When I turn back and meet his gaze, I find myself looking into stormy eyes. The same color gray the sky gets right before it rains.

He looks behind me, clearly trying to figure out what I’m looking for before his eyes come back to mine.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” His eyes do another sweep of me as if he’s just now really seeing me.

“I need to get out of here,” I repeat. “Can you give me a ride?” I stutter, my breathing coming in hot, heavy spurts as my lungs work to pull in enough air. “I don’t care where you take me, just please get me out of here.” I sound desperate, unhinged.

“Come on.” He spins on his heel and stomps back to his bike without another word.

I tell myself not to follow him because, really, is getting on a motorcycle with a complete stranger in the middle of nowhere getting me out of danger or putting me in more? Yet for some reason I don’t entirely understand, I jog after him.

He throws his jeaned leg over the bike before kicking up the stand.

“Here.” He hands me his helmet. “Get on,” he commands, tilting his head back slightly.

I hesitate for a moment, fear tightening me like a vice. Sliding the helmet onto my head, I look back through the trees and then to the man in front of me, trying to weigh the lesser of the two evils.

Before I’ve made a conscious choice, I grab the handsome stranger’s arm and hoist myself onto the bike behind him. The engine rumbles beneath me and another wave of fear washes over me. I’ve never been on a motorcycle before. It should scare me. Hell, it should terrify me. But truthfully, the only thing I’m afraid of right now is the man I know is coming for me, and the one my arms slide around seconds before he kicks the motorcycle into gear and speeds off down the vacant and winding country road.

I try to pay attention to where we’re going but the darkness quickly closes in around us as the last of the sun’s light disappears from the sky, making it impossible. I’m not very familiar with the area to begin with. The only reason I was all the way out here was because Christy convinced me to come away for the week with her. Though I’d hardly call her a friend. She’s the daughter of Senator Riley. I’m the daughter of Governor Buckley. As such, we’ve been forced into a friendship neither of us really cares for.

A week of pampering and girl time at her aunt’s lake house is what she had said. We will have so much fun, she had said. I should have known better.

I’m not really surprised that when we arrived there was already a party in full swing, even though it was barely three in the afternoon.

Christy is a wild child. Always partying. Always causing trouble. Normally, my father would never condone me being friends with someone like her, but given his friendship with her father, I think he was hoping I would be a good influence on her. Or at the very least he was trying to win favor with her father. Because when she suggested a week away to celebrate our recent completion of high school, my father was all too happy to push me out the door.

If he only knew what he was pushing me into...

Truth is, I’m just as screwed up as Christy, I’m just way better at hiding it. I’ve drank a couple times. I’ve had sex, although my father would probably keel over dead if he learned that. Hell, I even shoplifted once. Then again, I was ten and it was a pair of plastic earrings.

Okay, I lie. I’m nothing like Christy. But I’m also not this perfect little princess my father thinks I am. Truth is, he really doesn’t know me at all. He sees what he wants to see. Which is probably why he’s never noticed how unhappy I am. My mom would have understood. Or at least I like to think she would have. I was so young when she died, sometimes I wonder if I really even knew her.

My mind drifts back to the party and I briefly