I snorted as I turned around and handed it to her.
“Shut up,” she mumbled, seeing the smile on my face and snatching the book back.
I squatted down once more, grabbing her shoe off the ground, and then pulled up her foot.
Her skin was freezing, and I jerked in surprise. Her jeans had holes everywhere and no socks. Why wasn’t she dressed properly?
She pulled her foot away, grabbing for the shoe. “I can do it.”
But I held firm, giving her a defiant look as I pulled up her foot.
“God, can’t you take a hint?” she snipped.
“Your skin is freezing,” I remarked, slipping the shoe on. “Maybe you should—”
“Hands off,” someone ordered behind me.
I whipped my head around and saw that several men had arrived, their sport bikes parked in the middle of the road. Over Will’s truck engine, I hadn’t heard them pull up.
I stood up as they came around, and I watched as they placed themselves right in front of the girl, standing between us.
What the hell?
“Excuse me?” I looked around them, trying to see her.
“She’s fine,” said the one in the middle with the shaved head who was dressed in a white, sleeveless T-shirt. “We’ll take it from here.”
I let out a little laugh, feeling Will inch closer at my side and seeing Michael approach.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
But he just ignored me, turning his head to her and whispering, “Pull your hood up.”
She followed directions, quickly covering herself and keeping her chin down. Two guys flanked Shaved-Head, as Michael and Will did me, all of us walls.
“Leave,” the one in the middle ordered me.
“Yeah, no way.” I tilted my head, trying to make eye contact with the girl behind them. “Are you okay? Who are these guys?”
They could be her brothers, but they damn well didn’t look anything like her.
She stole a few glances up, and then I noticed it. A small smile pulling at her lips and an amused look crossing her features, her shyness all of a sudden disappearing. “They’re far more of a handful than you are, Horsemen.”
Her new pals broke out in a laugh, looking smug.
I lifted my chin.
“Let’s go,” Shaved-Head told her.
They all glared at us as they walked past, and the young woman followed, brushing my arm as she slipped by. I inhaled her faint scent. The energy in the air was suddenly so thick you could take hold of it. There was something familiar about her.
She handed her books to the tall one with blond hair and a silver chain around his neck, while the other one hooked her bike over his shoulder as he straddled his motorcycle.
She climbed on behind Shaved-Head, and I narrowed my eyes, watching her circle her arms around him.
I stepped forward as their bikes all roared to life.
She looked back over her shoulder one more time, and I finally saw her eyes. A beautiful green with touches of gold. “Thought you had some people you wanted to scare tonight,” she said.
What?
She turned away but not quick enough to hide the smirk on her face, and off they went, all three sport bikes whirring down the road as they sped away.
What the hell did she say? How did…?
I clenched my jaw, realization hitting.
The night is young. Maybe you’ll find someone else to scare tonight.
The girl from the confessional today. Fuck, that was her.
I watched her and those pricks disappear from sight, everything I’d told her today playing in my head again. How did she know who I was? And why had I never seen her before?
She was playing with me.
How confident and bold-as-fucking-brass she got when they arrived. She thought those guys—whoever the hell they were—could put us in our place. We were playing at being bad and they were the real thing. Is that what she thought?
“Do you know her?” Michael asked next to me.
I focused down the road, not sure how to answer that.
“If you want her, she’s yours,” Michael said.
I kept my smile to myself. Michael talked about women the same way he talked about cheeseburgers. It really was as easy as that.
“Want her?” Will cut in. “What the hell would he want with her when we have top-shelf chicks in our cars right now? Didn’t you see how she was dressed? No make-up, guys’ clothes... She’s a feminist.”
I closed my eyes, laughing to myself. Jesus. “I thought you liked the hard-to-get ones?” I joked, looking over at him.
But he just twisted up his lips, the secret object of his obsession no more primped up than the girl who’d just left. “Yeah, well…you want me to call Damon, or what?” he asked. “Someone said she worked at his house.”
She did?
“No,” I reply. “I don’t want him telling me anything about her. I’ll find out myself.”
He was already gone anyway, probably at the cemetery by now.
“So, are we going to get her then?” Michael probed.
But I just stared ahead, thinking.
She’d challenged me, hadn’t she? She’d made it a point to let me know who she was before she made her little escape with those assholes. To let me know she got me today only when she thought she could get away from us.
I barely nodded, every muscle in my body tight as a rope. “I kind of want to scare the shit out of her first.”
I heard Michael laugh softly and then saw him twist around, shouting, “Hey, Dayton!” He called to one of the cars, and I watched him throw his keys down the line. “Switch cars with me. And clean yours out! I need the trunk.”
Will cooed excitedly and rubbed his hands together, suddenly very much on board with this plan.
We turned to hand off our keys for others to take our cars to the cemetery, so the three of us could go on this run together. This was more over the top than my usual taste in pranks, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I didn’t want to stop myself.
I wanted to slam through every wall in my head and race so fast I wouldn’t have time to think. Right now, as far I was concerned, this night would never end.
She fucked with me today.
Now I was going to fuck with her.
Kai
Present
I walked into Sensou, the strap of my duffel bag falling across my chest as I looked around, taking inventory of everything going on. Foils clanged off to my right, coming from the room where Rika led her fencing class three nights a week. Weights clanked together and hit the floor in the weight room to my left, and grunts filled the entire dojo, echoing in the rafters, as students worked on forms and sparred in the great room.
I hurried silently across the new floors, itching to work out some energy. The collar of my shirt chafed my neck, and a light sweat cooled my chest and back. I needed to get out of these clothes.
While I drove back to Thunder Bay every Sunday to work out with my father and eat breakfast with my family, per my mother’s request, I didn’t let half of what I had inside me out. My father was in great shape, but he was still nearly fifty. I couldn’t hit him.
But at the dojo, I could hit as hard as I wanted, and after today, I needed it.
Following the meeting with the “assistant” earlier, I’d intended to come straight here, but instead of taking the exit off the bridge, I’d just kept going, getting lost in my car for nearly two hours.
Banks.
Jesus Christ. Six years ago, she more than piqued my interest. Today, she been cold, eerily calm, and very collected. I remembered her far differently, though. She’d tried so hard to be tough that night, but those dark eyes and how they could level me, and those lips…. Yeah, I remembered. She didn’t stay controlled for long.
And then a couple years later, when Rika hung with us one night and Banks had become a memory, I’d been captivated by our Little Monster, because she reminded me of Banks. The innocence, the fight, the way I wanted to look out for her…
But as quickly as she’d torn into my world, she’d run away, and all inside of a few hours, one night, six years ago.
Who was she? Where did she come from?
I pushed through the door to my office and slammed it behind me, dropping my bag and ripping off my jacket.