waiting. She’s staring at a picture frame of the happy family, all gathered around.
“You look like a baby here!” she says before reaching out and pinching my cheek. “So cute.”
“Let’s go,” I say.
Her smile falls as she looks at me in concern. “Something wrong?” She sets the picture down and the moment it hits the table, it clatters. As she goes to reach for it, I grab her arm.
“Leave it.”
“Okay,” she says as I pull her outside. “We’ve known each other for months at this point, and you still act like everything’s a big secret.”
“It’s not.”
“I’ve never met your mom either. She wasn’t even around for your birthday party.”
“She’s sick. I told you that.”
She shrugs. “Yeah… but like what’s wrong with her?”
“I told you. Come on, Rose, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fine. Let’s go for a walk then,” she says as she heads off for the pond. She’s always liked watching the ducks swim for some reason.
“What do you think about getting away?” I ask. “Just running away.”
“You… know you’re nineteen, right? You don’t have to run away. You can just move out.”
As if my father would allow that. “Would you?”
She hesitates. “I mean, if we stay in this area, maybe, but my family’s here. I don’t want to just leave my whole family.”
“You complain about not meeting my mom, but I haven’t met your dad.”
She snorts. “Neither have I.”
“Oh. You can have mine if you want.”
“Your dad seems nice.”
I shrug as we reach the side of the pond. She bumps her shoulder into me before grabbing my hands and turning me to face her. “Say I consider ‘running’ away with you even though we’re both adults, what then?”
I really hadn’t gotten much further than the running away part. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
She drapes her arms around my neck and pulls me in before kissing me. I don’t want to kiss her, I have no interest in her that way, but she feels like an out. She feels like the only thing that might save me from this hell I’ve been caught in.
She pulls back, a smile on her face. “You were taking far too long, so I thought I’d handle it myself,” she says.
But is it right? She’s the only one who cares, so is it right for me to use her?
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Rose, I can’t do this,” I say as I wave between us.
Why the fuck do I have to be this way?
Eight
“You still dragging that little bitch around?” Rod asks as if I’m not currently attached to Shepherd and can’t hear him.
“No, I haven’t seen him,” Shepherd says.
“Ha. Ha. You’re so fucking funny.”
“Ah, my leech. I was confused about what you were talking about,” Shepherd says before jingling the handcuffs. “Yep, he’s right here. Always and forever by my side.”
“I don’t happen to find any of this funny,” I say as I try to fold my hands across my chest, which I quickly find is impossible when Shepherd doesn’t want to sacrifice his hand for my pouting.
“Oh, it talks!” Rod says.
Shepherd turns to me and scrutinizes me for a moment. “It actually never shuts up.”
“Funny,” I say.
“Fucking ridiculous!” someone yells from the direction we’d been heading.
“Uh-oh,” Rod says. “Jack was ready to blow yesterday; it looks like he finally did.”
Shepherd and Rod head toward the noise, which means I’m stuck following. I’d like to head away from the noise and just hide in Shepherd’s room until Tony hopefully forgets about my existence. But no, we all let ourselves into the room that Tony seems to enjoy hanging out in and punching people.
Tony already looks irate and boy am I glad it’s not aimed at me for once. “You have a fucking problem, Jack?”
“Do I have a fucking problem? You’ve ruined our fucking lives! We were all in this together, but the moment your daughter went missing, you threw us to the fucking wolves! Now we have to hide in this fucking building while our families are out there having to lie to the police. And on top of that, you kidnap the fucking chief of police’s son and bring him here. You’re letting your entire empire crash to the ground!”
Tony stands up and kicks his chair to the side before stepping in front of this Jack guy. I’ve seen him grumping around, but never knew his name.
Tony’s face is red as he grabs onto Jack’s shirt. “My daughter is missing, and you think I’m overreacting? Let this whole fucking business burn! I don’t give