Chapter 6
Darla
The back door clicks shut, a sound of finality that echoes in the sudden, suffocating quiet of the alley.
I’m left standing with my back pressed against the rough brick, watching them go.
East doesn’t look back. Every step he takes feels like a subtraction, like he’s peeling another layer off me until I’m raw and see-through.
The solid set of his shoulders is a wall, a clear and deliberate rejection that makes my chest ache.
Nash walks beside him, a silent shadow, then they’re gone, swallowed by the noise and smoke of the clubhouse.
I stay where I am, frozen. The cool night air feels thin and sharp in my lungs.
The brick is cold against my back where his body heat used to be, a phantom warmth that my skin still craves.
If I close my eyes, I swear I can still feel him there—the heat, the pulse, the almost. My lips still tingle from the ghost of his breath, from the promise of a kiss he snatched away at the last second.
The memory of his eyes, dark and warring with a grief I know so well, is a brand on my mind. I shouldn’t want to kiss you, but I do.
My breath hitches. Liar. He pulled back. He always pulls back.
I knew this would happen. I shouldn’t have come.
But Frankie had insisted, with that look in her eye, the one that says her ‘senses’ told her I had to be here, and you don’t argue with Frankie’s senses.
She knew this was a possibility, a risk.
Coming here, to his world, meant walking that same tightrope over the chasm of our shared past. It meant being near him again.
And being near him has always been a dangerous, beautiful, impossible thing.
It feels just like prom night. The silence presses so hard it hums. It’s too easy to fall into memory when the present hurts this much. The memory crashes over me, unbidden and sharp.
The air back then didn't smell like damp earth and stale beer; it smelled of cheap hairspray and the sweet, cloying scent of gardenias from my corsage.
We had slipped out the side door of the gym, away from the pulsing music and the suffocating heat of the dance floor.
East was complaining about his tie, his fingers fumbling with the knot.
“I feel like I’m being strangled by a silk snake,” he’d grumbled, the low rumble of his voice a stark contrast to the high-pitched pop music still bleeding through the doors.
“You’re just not used to looking respectable,” I’d teased, stepping closer into his space to fix it for him.
My fingers had brushed the warm skin of his neck, and the air had shifted.
The joking stopped. The world narrowed to the few inches between us.
His eyes, so full of easy laughter just a moment before, had darkened, his gaze dropping to my mouth.
He’d leaned in, a slow, deliberate movement, and my heart had hammered a frantic, hopeful drumbeat against my ribs. Finally.
“There you are.”
Declan’s voice, soft and familiar, had cut through the moment. We’d sprung apart as if we’d been caught doing something wrong. He was standing there, holding two cups of punch, his easy smile not quite reaching his eyes as he looked between us. “I was looking for you.”
East had just shoved his hands in his pockets, his jaw tight. And the moment was gone. Stolen.
The thumping bass from inside the clubhouse is a physical blow, dragging me back to the present. To this alley. To the same impossible distance. Some things never change. The air feels wrong in my lungs—too hot, too real. Like smoke, the past peels away, but the ache it leaves behind doesn’t.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I push off the cold brick wall.
I can’t stay out here. I can’t run. Somewhere inside, Nash’s steady voice rumbles—a reminder that even silence has sentinels here.
All that’s left is to walk back into the fire.
I retreat into the noise, back into the light, searching for the safety of the bar. Back to Frankie.
She hooks her arm through mine, a familiar tug toward a high-top she’d already claimed hours ago. Her grin is wicked, sharp enough to ward off anyone stupid enough to think about cutting in.
“You disappear for five minutes,” she singsongs, “and somehow East is suddenly playing guard dog. Should I be jealous?”
I snort too loudly, tossing my hair back as if the sound alone can scatter the ache in my chest. “If I wanted a babysitter, I’d call the mayor’s office.”
“Please.” Frankie drags out the word, rolling her eyes. “Your father couldn’t babysit a potted plant.”
I laugh for real this time; the sound tears out sharper than I mean it to. “You’re not wrong.”
She grins, pleased with herself, and kicks the chair out from under the high-top like she owns gravity.
“Two waters and pretzels,” she calls, not even glancing at Kyle before he hurries to obey.
He moves fast—too fast. With the same spark East used to have before life taught him to slow down.
Watching him now feels like looking at the before version of someone I already know the ending to.
Then, lowering her voice, “You’re pale. Drink before you faceplant. ”
I glare, but I down half the water anyway. The cool liquid slides down my throat that’s raw with things I won’t say.
Frankie watches me over the rim of her glass. She’s always been able to do that—look too long, too steady, like she can read more than I want her to. Maybe she can.
I push my hair back, restless. “He invited Trent over. For dinner. Saturday night.”
Her mouth stills around the pretzel she’s chewing. She sets it down slowly. “Trent Moreland?”
“Mm-hmm.” I try for casual, and fail. “Apparently the Graves and Morelands go way back. Dad thinks it’s time I ‘got acquainted.’”
Frankie leans back in her chair, stretching her legs out like she’s making space for the rage settling in. “Acquainted. That’s one word for auctioning you off to a creep.”
I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Well, he didn’t phrase it like that. He said it with silverware clinking and candlelight. Very civilized.”
Her eyes narrow, storm-dark. “You’re not going—”.
Her expression shifts, the hot anger receding, replaced by that still, watchful look.
It’s the one that always makes the hair on my arms stand up.
The air between us seems to thicken, like the moment before lightning strikes.
It’s always like this when her eyes go unfocused—like she’s listening to something I can’t hear.
Her eyes go distant, unfocused for a second.
“Okay,” she says, the word a quiet, grim statement of fact. “So you’re going.”
“I don’t have a choice,” I mutter, the words a confirmation of something she already seemed to know.
Frankie’s finger traces a lazy, invisible symbol on the bar top.
“You always have a choice,” she says, her gaze still distant, as if she’s reading something in the wood grain.
Her tone has that undercurrent again—the one that makes the air feel thicker.
“But the moment he walks into your house, you be on guard. The air around that name is… spoiled. Watch everything. Listen to what they don’t say.
Be a snake in the garden, Darla. Not a lamb. ”
I shiver, even though the room is sweltering. “You make it sound simple.”
“It is.” She smirks, the focus snapping back to her eyes, tossing a pretzel into her mouth. “You forget who you’re talking to. I’ve been getting you out of trouble since sophomore year. Choir room Pop-Tarts, remember?”
Despite myself, I grin. “You swore the fire was divine punishment for bad song choices.”
“Still true,” she says, smug. Then, quieter, “Don’t let him script your life, Darla. Not Trent, not Winston. You hear me? There are ways out of any cage. You just have to find the right key... or a big enough hammer.”
I sip the rest of my water to hide the lump in my throat. “I hear you.”
But I don’t tell her the truth: that even when I’m here, drowning myself in bass and smoke, it still feels like my father’s hand is wrapped around the back of my neck.
The phantom pressure is a brand. A constant, suffocating reminder of the cage I just left. Suddenly, the noise of the bar is too much, the air too thick to breathe. I need a moment. I need four walls and a lock. A place to put the mask back on straight before it shatters in front of everyone.
I give Frankie a tight, forced smile. “Be right back,” I murmur, sliding off the stool.
The walk to the bathroom is a short, blurry journey through bodies and noise, my reflection a ghostly stranger in the dark mirror behind the bar.
The bathroom door swings shut behind me, the click of the lock a small, satisfying sound of finality.
It’s mercifully empty. Cold tile. Harsh light. A mirror that’s too honest.
I lean on the sink, my breath shallow, my eyes dragging over the reflection I’ve learned to perfect.
For a split second, his reflection lingers behind mine.
Not real. Not there. But it still makes me turn.
The black tank still clings, its straps slipping from my shoulders.
The snake-print skirt rides higher than it should, the belt tilted from shifting too much.
I tug it down, then up, then leave it crooked—hating how much it feels like I wore it for him.
I trace the chain at my throat, the metal cool against overheated skin. I remember the way his hand pressed against the wall beside me, inches from touching it. Inches from touching me.
Stupid. Reckless. Unnecessary.
I splash cold water over my wrists, watching it drip down, pooling against the porcelain. My reflection doesn’t soften.
I came here because it felt like control.
But maybe I’m just my father’s echo, mistaking rebellion for freedom.
Maybe control isn’t about defiance. It’s about choosing who I’ll be when no one’s watching.
Walking into the Outsiders’ den was my way of flipping off my father—proof I could make choices he couldn’t script.
He doesn’t own this world, and he doesn’t own me here.
But I’m still sneaking around, aren’t I?
Slipping into this place like a thief, hoping he doesn’t notice.
Playing rebel while the strings are still tangled around my throat.
The truth settles like lead in my chest. I’m not free. Not yet.
I straighten, wiping the water from my skin, smoothing the wrinkles from my skirt like I can erase the thoughts too. In the mirror, my face is composed again. Controlled. Polished. The daughter he raised. The girl East doesn’t get to unravel.
“You don’t get to care,” I whisper to my reflection, and the words cut sharper than when I threw them at him.
Because part of me still wants him to. It's always been him. Even when another boy's smile was the only thing that felt like home, it was always East in the shadows of my mind.
I press my lips together until they stop trembling.
No more waiting for East to remember me. No more bending to my father’s will. I might not know how yet, but I’ll cut myself loose. When I do, no one will ever own me again. Frankie told me to be a snake. Maybe that’s the trick: stop being prey. Stop waiting to be saved.
I push through the door, and the noise hits like a wave.
The bass is a living thing, pounding a steady rhythm in the soles of my boots.
I find Frankie at the bar, and a single look passes between us.
In my eyes, she sees the battle I had with my reflection.
She doesn’t ask. She just slides two shots across the counter.
“Tequila,” she calls over the music. “The good stuff. For a bad night.”
“It’s only Tuesday,” I say, and for once tonight, the words feel light and free.
Frankie just grins. “Tuesday needs a better PR team.” She clinks her glass against mine, and we down them in one go. The tequila burns, a sharp, clean fire that feels like it’s chasing away the fear in my veins.
Through the haze of the music, a shift ripples through me.
I glance up from Frankie’s laughing face and across the crowded room.
East is there. He’s standing by the pool table, but he’s not playing.
He’s just watching. His expression is unreadable, but the weight of his gaze is a physical touch, a question I don’t have the answer to yet.
Instead of panic, a different heat settles in my stomach—not of longing, but of resolve. A quiet fire. I’d made a promise to myself in the bathroom mirror, and I intend to keep it.
I look away first, not out of fear, but because this decision is mine to make. I turn back to Frankie, the warmth of the tequila now feeling less like an escape and more like fuel.
“My father’s going to be so mad,” I say, but a real smile touches my lips. “He’s going to kill me if I don’t get home soon.”
“Let him try,” she says, grabbing my arm, a hint of something feral in her eyes. “He won’t get through me.”
We laugh and order one more round. The night hums like a live wire. For once, it doesn’t sound like a warning; it sounds like freedom. Just one. For the road I’m about to build.