Carter Page 6

  Russell copped a lot of bad flack for this. Men lined themselves up for a go at Cheryl, and some waited inside. I had to keep myself shut inside my room. Even when I was desperate to pee, I wouldn’t dare step foot out there. But that didn’t seem to make me as invisible as I longed to be. One man in particular was snoopier than the rest, and when I woke up to a large figure hovering over my bed, I nearly peed right then and there. If it hadn’t been for Russell catching him at the nick of time, I dread to think what he would have done.

  The argument that ensued after that was branded inside my memories forever. As soon as the scary man told the rest there was another girl – “one of age” – in the room, they started hounding Russell for a go at me.

  I thought Cheryl would protect me. She hated doing what she did. Surely she didn’t want to witness her niece subjected to the same thing. She had told me herself to never become her. Which is why I hated her more than anything when she didn’t say a word. Not that she’d ever given two shits about me, but I thought there was some kind of goddamn comradery there, especially in regards to what a complete dick Russell was and how disgusting the idea was to use me – that she wouldn’t put me through the hell she had gone through all these years.

  But no. Such courtesy was not extended to me. I wasn’t fortunate enough to be a passing thought in that coke whore’s head, and I was absolutely livid by it all. All these years living quietly in the far back of the trailer – hoping to be avoided like a plague and forgotten – had come undone. Now I had a target on my back, one that Russell had made clear to me just the other day.

  “You’ve just turned eighteen, Leah,” he’d said to me. “And it’s best you realize at this point I’m not going to be taking care of you all your life. You gotta work to have a roof over that head of yours. You gotta contribute like the rest of us, or maybe I’m gonna have to show you the door. Being on your own is a scary thing, and I’d hate for you to be on the streets doing something you could have just done here under my protection. Think on that.”

  Oh, I did.

  Obviously.

  Did the asshole think I wouldn’t or something? I thought about that every minute after he opened his mouth and said those words. I suppose I always knew it was coming. I just preferred to have my head stuck in the sand and keep living in denial. I think in some naïve part of my mind I thought I always had more time.

  I didn’t, though, and reality had become a tragic thing.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Carter. I wrapped the covers around myself as the icy wind tore into the room. “And shut the window, will you?” Winter in the Pacific Northwest was a bitch filled with buckets of cold rain and heavy winds.

  “I’m not shutting shit,” he retorted, getting off the bed. “I’ve come to get you, and we gotta go now.”

  My brows pinched together. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ron kicked me out,” he simply said. He picked up my backpack off my dresser and emptied it on the floor. All my textbooks and homework assignments fell out in a heap.

  “That’s my winter break’s homework,” I hissed. “Put that back inside.”

  “Where are you going to put your clothes then?”

  I was so confused. My head was spinning. “Why do I need clothes?”

  He sighed and shook his head at me like I was being dumb. “What did I just say? Ron kicked me out, and you’re coming with me.”

  I paused. “Your father’s kicked you out ten million times before, Carter.”

  He kneeled down to my level, and my eyes widened when I saw his lip was busted up.

  “This time it was different,” he told me flatly.

  My hand reached out to him, and my finger lightly brushed his lip. He was stoic about it, like my touch did nothing to him. Of course, I was used to this.

  “He hit you,” I whispered in shock.

  “I hit him back,” Carter replied evenly. He pulled away from me and resumed what he was doing, which was opening drawers and shoving whatever clothes inside. I cringed when he grabbed a handful of my underwear, and I leaped out of bed to stop him, taking my blanket that was wrapped around my body with me.

  “Enough!” I went at him. “Put that back, Carter! You’re being ridiculous! We have nowhere to go!”

  “I’d rather we have nowhere to go than be here in this shithole!” he fired back, pushing me back so he could resume.

  I was panicking at this point. He couldn’t just decide this for the both of us. I stepped away and watched him fill my backpack to the brim with clothes. I was a little disturbed by how well he’d sorted through them, knowing which ones I wore and which ones I didn’t. Carter was a lot more mindful than I’d given him credit for.

  “Carter,” I said quietly, my back resting against the door. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “No, I’m not. It’s crazy! Where are we going to go?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “I can’t jump into something this deluded. Are you hearing yourself right now? You need to stop and just think, alright?”

  He exhaled and shook his head like I was annoying him. Zipping up my backpack, he tossed it to the ground beside the window and turned to me. I had to crane my head up now to look at him. Carter was nineteen then and he was broad and big. One of the very few guys around at his age that actually looked manly, and I knew it was genetics at play because Ron was a huge guy.

  “I have stopped and thought about it,” he told me calmly, coming even closer now. “I realized that I would rather be scared shitless out there on the streets and be in control of my life than to be stuck here inside a prison under the illusion of safety.”

  He stopped in front of me, his body barely touching mine. I didn’t respond for a moment. I shut my eyes and looked away from him. I didn’t want to be under his affect again. Christ, he always made me drunk on him when he got close to me like this, and I know even then he was doing it on purpose to get his way. By fucking with my body I would forget about the logic my brain was spewing.

  “Then go and do it on your own,” I muttered out weakly. “I’m not going anywhere, though.”

  He exhaled and shuffled even closer. He smelled of earth, and I noticed a sheet of dirt on his body, as if he’d rolled around the ground for bit.

  Goddamn him and his superpowers.

  My heart started thumping harder, especially when his hand touched my face. He pulled aside my hair and took my chin in his grip. He forced it up to him, and in the dark I could see the fire in his eyes. That mask he wore was down, and he was looking at me lovingly. Like he cared for me, and I wanted to believe it so badly.

  “Be with me,” he whispered desperately, bringing his face down to mine. “Ignore everything your head is telling you. Be with me, Leah, and let me take you away from this place. Away from Russell and the sick men he has around. He’s going to destroy you if you stay, and I’m going to make everything better if you come. Be with me.”

  He drew me in with those words. He stroked an already burning fire inside of me, making me heated and intent on his every word. I was lost in him like the fool that I was. He was pleading for me to be with him and, fuck, I wanted to be with him since I was ten years old.

  “Carter,” I whispered indecisively. “I don’t know –”

  He cut me off with a kiss. His whole body pressed against the length of mine. He took my mouth into his like it was everything to him. My hands immediately gripped his jacket and I kissed him back. Dear God, I burned for this guy. I opened every part of myself up to him. I surrendered my soul and I let him take every inch of it.

  The blanket fell to the ground and I would have been chilled to the bone if he hadn’t been covering me the way he was. One of his hands was in my hair, tilting me up as he kissed me even deeper. The other hand was somewhere against my back. Honestly, I wasn’t really paying attention to it or to anything else but the feel of our mouths locked together. This was better tha
n my first kiss with him. This one was all tongue and passion, and I needed it like my next breath.

  He pulled away abruptly, his forehead rested against my own. His eyes were shut and he was breathing just as heavily as me.

  “Come with me,” he urged. “We’ll get out of this together.”

  Completely high off his kiss, I stared at his lips and felt myself nod. “Okay.”

  He tore away from me instantly. Grabbing my hand, he led me to the window. He picked up the hoodie he’d given me a while back from off the floor and threw it over my head. I hastily slipped my arms into the sleeves.

  “Put your boots on,” he demanded.

  I grabbed them from under my bed and sat down to pull them on. He had already flung my backpack over his shoulder and I suddenly wondered where all the rest of his clothes were. Had he even packed? What was the damn plan? Was I being an idiot doing this?

  My gaze fell despairingly on my bookshelf. Would I have time to grab a few paperbacks? I didn’t know what I’d grab under such pressure.

  “Fuck the books,” I heard him say. “I’ll replace them for you, Leah. I promise.”

  I nodded once more and started to tie the strings on my boots. “Do you need to grab some of your things?”

  “I’ve got my backpack just outside the window.”

  I stood up and went to him. He stared down at me for a solid few seconds, a strange look on his face that made me wonder what the hell had happened to him tonight.

  “I’m all ready,” I said to him shakily.

  “You’re never coming back here,” he then told me sternly. “Never. You got it?”

  I managed a nod. “Okay.”

  Eight

  We took off down the streets, the rain pouring down all around us, instantly soaking me to the bone. He held my hand tightly the entire way, and it was his grip that helped push me forward when my lungs were hurting and the cold winter air became hard to breathe in. I couldn’t understand the hurry. What was the damn rush? Why couldn’t we have planned this better than just abruptly leaving it all behind?

  Blocks away from the trailer park, we slowed down in front of a motel. The Vacancy sign wasn’t on so I wasn’t sure why Carter had turned in.

  “Wh-where are we going?” I asked him through chattering teeth. “D-do you have a room?”

  My questions were answered when we began moving through the parking lot. He went to every old car and tried opening them.

  Oh, my God, he was going to steal a car, wasn’t he? He was officially going to become a thief and I was going to be his dumb-as-a- knob accomplice.

  Immediately I began to panic. I turned my face toward the motel, waiting for signs of someone watching us.

  “Carter, no,” I told him with a strain in my voice. “Please, no!”

  He didn’t listen. He found an unlocked sedan and opened it. He unlocked the backseat and pushed me inside with him. My heart was racing and the fear of being discovered had me pulling away from him.

  “Leah, don’t,” he ordered.

  He wrapped an arm around my waist and forced me on the seat. He shut the door behind us and we both sat there in the dark, drenched, cold, and panting. To say it was miserable was a severe understatement. We were beyond that word at the moment.

  “I’m not stealing the car,” he then told me quickly. “Just sleeping in it for tonight.”

  My eyes bulged out of my bed. “Sleeping in it? Are you insane?”

  “Would you rather sleep out there in the rain?”

  “I’d rather be sleeping in my bed!”

  “Why? So guys could come and go in there as they please?”

  I didn’t say anything. He had a point there. I brought my legs up to my chest and stared out the window. The streets were completely deserted, the wind tore through the rain, slamming sheets of it against anything in its path. Including the car. This was completely surreal. I wondered if I’d have time to go back home and slip through the window and nobody would know about any of this.

  “Lay down,” Carter told me.

  What choice did I have? The guy was going to get his way whether I liked it or not, and it wasn’t as though I could escape him because a) he was strong as hell and I was a weed, and b) I was going to die of hyperthermia if I went out there for another minute.

  The seats were only small, and they smelled like smoke. Laying down was a mission, but I managed it. We were both on our sides, his legs bent to accommodate his length. He spooned me against his chest, holding me tight across the waist. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and the space was a little claustrophobic, but it beat being out in that storm.

  I sighed and shut my eyes. “This is insane.”

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he just held me tighter to him. I couldn’t understand any of his behaviour. It wasn’t like him to touch me like this. To hold me at all. He hugged me every now and again, sure, but he was very careful to keep a distance. What changed all that? Why was he holding me like I was the only thing in his life that mattered? I was so confused.

  “You didn’t have to take me,” I told him quietly, staring straight ahead at the seat in front of me. Whoever owned the car was a fan of zebra print. It was absolutely everywhere and I began to wonder if the car owner was just as disturbing as their taste in interior car design.

  When Carter didn’t answer once more, I made the uncomfortable choice of turning around to face him. He let me turn, his hand sliding down a little so that it rested just above my bum. Despite my soaked hoodie, his touch felt warm. I stared into his guarded blue eyes and waited for him to speak. His silence was a little out of the norm.

  “You gonna tell me what happened?” I asked him.

  He shook his head slightly. “Not right now.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  I frowned. “Is your father okay?”

  He shrugged. “He’ll be in one piece, I guess.”

  What the hell did that mean? I raised my brow in question, but he didn’t open those beautiful lips to explain some more. It would have been the courteous route letting his best friend know the exact details of what pushed him out the door until we were here, sleeping inside a vehicle he’d sort of broken into. But no such luck with Carter. He decided to take the mysterious route and leave me hanging.

  “I think you should take me back,” I whispered to him.

  His grip around me only tightened at that, and I felt like a balloon on the verge of popping if he squeezed a little more.

  “No,” he responded solemnly. “We discussed this.”

  “We’re homeless now. Are you aware?”

  “Perfectly aware.”

  I swallowed, feeling my body tighten in fear. “I can’t do this, Carter. This is freaking me out. I’m absolutely terrified.”

  “I know you are, but we’ll figure it out.”

  I shook my head. “We’ll figure it out? That’s your response? I want to know the plan. I want to know what you expect is going to happen from here on out. Where are we going to sleep? What do we eat? Where will we shower? What about my school? Some of us haven’t graduated high school, you know.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he repeated calmly.

  The last thing I felt was calm though. I was already thinking of the future. I didn’t want to be those window wipers on the side of the road, begging for some loose change. Or have to wear a sign that read “Homeless and hungry” in the hopes someone would pity me enough to give me a hot meal. Or have people judge me as some druggie in the streets because of an addiction I didn’t have. I didn’t want to pee in alleyways or shoplift at the stores. I wasn’t strong like them, and now I wished I’d hugged every freaking homeless person I’d come across because this shit sucked. I wanted my life back, even if it meant living with an evil man and a whore in a dingy area. It was safer than this, and I was opting for the lesser of two evils.

  “You’re letting your fear get to
you,” Carter said, pulling me away from my thoughts. “I’ve got some money stashed inside my pocket from my previous job, enough to see us through for the next while. You don’t need to fear anything, Angel. I know deep inside you’d rather be here with me than at that shithole. You say I didn’t have to take you, but how could you think I could just walk away? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing you were under that roof with all those men coming and going, especially when one of the sick pricks went into your room.”

  I softened a little by his concern. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one fearing them. I mulled his words over, and he was right, I suppose. I was letting my fear get to me. I guess it was the unknown that frightened me. I liked to be in control of what tomorrow brought with it. I wanted some predictability because it meant stability too. But was I prepared to continue that lifestyle among criminals? Because that’s essentially what Russell and Cheryl were at the end of the day. If I had a choice whether to live neglected and unloved with the certainty of a roof over my head, or live in the unknown with a man that I reserved a special place in my heart, the answer came without thought.

  Carter.

  He would always come first.

  I sighed and told myself to be calm. I trusted him. That’s all that mattered at the end of the day. He seemed to feel my mood shift and he relaxed further in the seat.

  Relaxing too, I brushed my fingertip over his bruised lip. “Does this hurt?”

  He shook his head. “Not so much.”

  “Even when we…?” Heat rushed to my cheeks as I thought about the kiss he gave me in my bedroom – well, my old bedroom now if we were going to be technical.