Chapter Ten
Nineteen years ago. Detroit, MI.
Christ, she was stunning today.
I shouldn’t be looking at her. I shouldn’t have ever looked at her. I should’ve stayed far away from her, but I couldn’t.
“Cain?” Nik called, laughter in her voice as she waved her hand in front of my face.
Blinking, I gently pushed her arm away, careful not to get any grease on her golden skin.
“What’s up?” I asked, clearing my throat.
Nik bounced on the balls of her sandal-clad feet in front of me, her baby pink dress swaying over her thighs. The dress was innocent enough, but the person wearing it was the problem. My eyes dropped, my body reacting against my own will to her presence.
A year ago, Nik was stick skinny and still reminded me of a child. Now, her body was changing, and her curves were becoming more and more noticeable each day, by me and everyone else. She was becoming a woman and, naturally, my straight male body fucking liked it. More than I should. I hated how the other guys at school looked at her. This school year had been hell for a completely different reason—her. She was in my halls again, around things—hearing things about me I didn’t want her knowing.
I cleared my throat again and turned away from her, ducking back under the hood of my buddy’s old Jeep.
We were in the shed at the back of my house, my sanctuary away from the devil woman inside.
Even though I rarely saw my mother leave her bedroom nowadays, I didn’t like being inside, only going there to shower and grab some clothes for the new week ahead. For the last six months, I’d been sleeping in the school gym, breaking in through the shitty weight room door at the back of the building. I’d dismantled the security system beforehand, knowing that the school district was too poor to provide us another one.
Ever since Xander skipped town the day after his graduation, I’d been on my own, fighting every single fucking day. The bastard didn’t even call.
I didn’t get my license until I was seventeen because I’d been so wrapped up in shit that shouldn’t have mattered, shit that scared Nik, shit she shouldn’t be around, but I needed the money. That was something a spoiled princess like her would never understand.
“Thought I told you to cover your toes when you came in here,” I scolded her over my shoulder, eying her ponytail. Her hair was curled today—something her little friend, Macy, taught her how to do no doubt.
I loathed the curls. They made Nik look like someone she wasn’t.
“And I thought you were coming over last night,” she shot back playfully.
My jaw tightened as I looked back into John’s engine, reaching for the wrench resting on the edge. “Got busy,” I told her. It was the truth—part of it.
“Oh.”
The hurt in her sweet voice made my stomach twist.
It’d been weeks since I’d climbed into her window, weeks since I’d laid on her bedroom floor, staring up at her ceiling as I listened to her read softly from her spot on the bed. When I turned fourteen, I stopped getting into her bed with her. It felt…weird. Then as I got older, I decided I shouldn’t be anywhere near the girl who grew up next door to me—not like that anyways.
The sad part about it was she had a crush on me.
I knew it, her parents knew it, the entire fucking school knew it.
I was popular at school for all the wrong reasons. Unlike my older brother, I didn’t choose to take my anger out on sports. I learned how to bury it—most of the time. When I needed to let loose, I usually let my fist fly into the sorry motherfucker who pissed me off in the first place. I was the bad kid. I hung out with the wrong crowd, I drank on the weekends, and I let the head cheerleader suck my cock every Friday night after she got done kissing her precious quarterback. However, lately, our little arrangement had come to screeching halt.
More accurately, it came to halt after I saw Nik at the football game two weeks ago, dressed up and wearing blush. I didn’t understand why she needed make-up. Before, I could go to school, be who I needed to be before seeing her in the evenings. She was my escape from the shit show of my life, a comfort. Now, things were changing, and I needed to do the right thing.
I was in hell, unable to escape the fucking green-eyed girl with the goofy smile.
“Cain?”
Shaking my head, I muttered a curse under my breath and set the wrench down. Snatching the towel, I began wiping my hands as I turned around to face her. I needed to cut the cord. Nik had no place in my life. In a few months, I’d be out of here for good. As soon as my diploma was in hand, I’d be heading off to college on a scholarship I’d busted my ass for. My brain was the only gift I’d gotten from my parents, and because of it, I would have a chance at life.
I was going to leave all of this behind—including Nik.
No matter how much it hurt.
“Look, Nik, I’ve been meaning—” My words stopped short as my eyes landed on the plate of homemade cupcakes in her hands. The center cupcake had a single yellow candle sticking from it, the flame burning bright in the warm September afternoon. I swallowed, my throat bobbing. My eyes flicked up to hers, unable to miss the excitement lingering in her mossy green.
“Happy birthday, Cain,” she said gleefully.
The towel slipped from my hand, falling to the dirt floor by my old Chucks.
“Nik,” I said, my voice thick.
She waved her hand, moving past me to the folding table I found at the junk yard three months ago. She carefully set the plate down and plucked up the center cupcake. She held it out on her palm, a bright, stunning smile stretching over her face. “Happy birthday to you,” she sang jokingly. “Happy birthday, Cain!”
I swallowed, my Adam’s Apple bobbing. “You didn’t have to—”
“What are you talking about?” she cut me off, shaking her head. Then she rolled her eyes. “Cain, it’s your birthday! I always make you something.”
It was true. Every year since she turned ten, she’d been making me something for my birthday and Christmas. Two Christmases ago, I only survived because of all her baked goods.
“Go on,” she urged, stepping towards me. “Take it.”
Her vanilla scent overwhelmed me, and I suppressed a groan. She always smelled so sweet. It was horrible. Shooting her a glare, I snatched the cupcake from her, blowing out the candle. I brought it up to my mouth, pulling down the paper.
“Cain,” she giggled. “Wait—the candle is still in there!” She rushed forward but stumbled.
Suddenly, she was falling, and I moved on instinct.
A second later, she was in my arms, the cupcake forgotten on the dirt floor as I leaned against the Jeep. I didn’t give a shit. She was in my arms. Her body was against mine. Our eyes held each other’s as everything around us faded away. I was surrounded by her. Her hands against my chest, her softness against all the hard parts of me—
Fuck.
Shaking my head, I moved my hands to her upper arms and gently pulled her away. “Careful,” I mumbled.
She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by a horrible sound.
The sound of my mother screaming inside the house.
My head snapped in that direction, and I was moving. Looking over my shoulder to Nik, I held back my hand. “Stay in here, yeah?”
Immediately, she nodded, her skin flushed. I did my best to ignore that, turning away from her. As I crossed the yard, I heard a bang from inside the house, followed by my name. “Cain! Get your ass in this house right now!”
I climbed up the back porch steps, casting another look into the garage before opening the screen door.
Bile rose up in my throat as the smell of rot and smoke hit me. Flies and bugs crawled all over the floor, weaving through the various piles of trash.
I kept my eyes scanning the rooms as I made my way through them, always on guard—a lesson I had to learn when I was thirteen when she attacked me from behind for not stealing her enough cigarettes from the gas station. I came home from school and got hit in the back of the head with a frying pan. I was out for a day and a half. When I woke up, there was a drunk man standing over me with hunger in his eyes. I’d kicked him in the balls and hightailed it out of there.
“Cain!”
My head snapped to the left to find my mother with her back to me, wearing a dirty t-shirt and someone’s boxers. Her skin was covered in scars, bruises, and dirt. Her hair was a rat”s nest, filled with dandruff and grease. She turned to me, baring her yellow stained teeth. “Where’s my purse?” she barked.
“How the fuck should I know?” I drawled, keeping my distance from her.
My mother was insane. This wasn’t an insult; it was the truth. She needed to be medicated but she refused to leave the house. In fact, she hadn’t left the house in over six years. The only way she made rent was by selling her body. All my life, I’d grown accustomed to strange men coming and going. I stopped caring when I stopped sleeping here.
“I need my purse.”
“I don’t have it,” I snapped.
Her head twisted to me then, her dead eyes filled with hatred as her lip curled. “What did you just say to me, boy?”
That line didn’t work on me anymore.
Once upon a time, I would hide in fear the second she asked me that, but now, I was bigger than her. Stronger than her. Her threats were as empty to me as her damn heart.
“Right,” I muttered, spinning on my heel to head back outside to the shed. To the engine I’d been working on. To my sweet girl from next door.
A faint clicking sound compelled me to look back, my eyes widening as they landed on the gun pointed at me. I froze, the old fear taking over. My mother was the person who was supposed to love me most in this world. That’s how it was supposed to go, but here I was, in the claws of death as she held her life in my hands.
I swallowed. “Where the fuck did you get that?”
My mother laughed, a cruel sound coming from her. “Tom said I needed something to protect myself with,” she sneered as she stepped over a pile of trash, nearly tripping. “What do you think the police will say when I tell them it was self-defense?”
I remained silent, every muscle in my body tensing, ready to fight as she continued. “What kind of a son attacks his own mother?” she gasped, acting as her hand went to her chest. “What kind of pathetic kid would do such a thing?”
“Cain?”
A sweet voice filled the cold, dirty house, and my mother’s eyes widened. “Who is that?” she barked.
A second later, Dominique came into view, her light having no place here. Not in this place. Suddenly, my mother’s focus wasn’t on me anymore. She whirled to the side to where Nik stood in the mouth of the hallway that led back into the kitchen. “Who the fuck are you?”
Nik didn’t answer. How could she? Her eyes were on the barrel of the gun pointed at her as she stiffened in fear.
“Put the gun down,” I demanded, my voice unsteady. A new fear slithered across the floor, making its way up my spine before coiling around my neck, fangs out. Ready to strike. “Put the gun down!” I roared.
Outside, the skies had darkened, an afternoon storm greeting us. Thunder clapped in the distance as the silence in the place I’d never called home became deadly. Tears formed in Nik’s eyes as she looked over to me slowly, her bottom lip trembling.
“C-Cain, w-what’s going on?” she breathed out, her words choppy.
“Oh,” my mother chuckled, looking at me. “Is this your little girlfriend?” Her arm lowered a fraction, and she lifted her foot to take a step.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I growled, halting her movements.
The gun was pointed back at me as my mother screamed, “You don’t tell me what to do, boy! I am your mother! I am your superior! You answer to me and only me! You got that?”
I looked over her shoulder to Nik. “Get out,” I barked.
She began shaking her head. “No. I won’t—”
“Now!” I roared as my mother looked back to Nik. I moved, only one thing on my mind: the image of the gun firing at my girl. My hand clamped around my mother’s dirty arm, and I yanked her back. Nik ran, her footsteps pounding down the hall, and once I heard the screen door slam, the tight grip on my neck eased.
My mother, being too drunk or high to keep up with my movements, dropped the gun onto the floor. Keeping the woman upright, I bared my teeth as I got in her face. “I’m not your little boy anymore, you bitch.”
For half a second, I saw her eyes flash. Then, it was gone, and she was trying to yank away. “Let go of me.”
“In a fucking minute,” I promised, swiping up the gun and tucking it into my jeans. I walked her to the stairs and forced her up them, two steps at a time, as she yelled at me, using the same phrases over and over. They didn’t hurt me anymore. I’d grown immune to her toxicity. I dragged her down the crowded hall and through her bedroom door. There was a naked man on her bed, passed out, his hand on his cock.
Averting my eyes, I shook my head in disgust as I released her. She fell back onto the bed, her eyes wide. “You’re just like your father,” she yelled.
I ignored her, turning and walking out of the room. I walked down the hall to my room, pushing open the door, the scent of cheap, lemon air freshener greeting me. My room was spotless compared to the rest of the house, and I was surprised she hadn’t trashed it already. I slammed the door behind me, locking it before I went to the small closet. I grabbed the other duffel bag I’d stashed here just for this fucking day.
Silently but quickly, I packed the rest of my shit, which wasn’t much. I went to the bed, lifting the mattress to pull out the small envelope from in between the springs. Bag hanging from my shoulder, I ripped the paper open and dumped the contents into my hand.
The set of keys felt cool but heavy in my palm.
Closing my eyes, I whispered, “No turning back.”
That was the promise I made to myself the day Xander left. He didn’t turn back, and neither would I.
Jaw set, I went to the window, opening it for the last time before I tossed my bag out. Once it landed on the ground with a soft thud, I took one more look at the cage I’d been forced to grow up in. I was finally escaping hell.
Without another glance, I swung my leg over the windowsill like I’d done a thousand times before. My head lifted, and I looked across towards Nik’s bedroom window. An uncomfortable knot formed in my gut as memories came rushing forth. I may have had a shitty childhood, but fuck, she was the highlight of it.
Sighing, I jumped down, bracing for the fall. I landed on my side, just like Xander taught me years ago. I picked up my duffel and ran into the backyard, heading straight for the shed. Rain started coming down as I entered. “Dominique?” I called.
A second later, I saw a flash of pink as she rose up from her hiding place behind the Jeep. She wiped her face quickly. “Cain?”
“Hey,” I said softly, coming to her. I stepped on the cupcake on the way, but I didn’t care. I needed to get to her.
She was still trembling. “I-I went to get my parents, but—but they w-weren’t home. I didn’t k-know if y-you wanted me to c-call the c-cops,” she stammered.
Fuck no, I didn’t want that. That last thing I need was the fucking cops.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I cooed, pulled her into my arms.
Her cheek hit my chest, her arms between us as I held onto her tightly. I looked up to the ceiling, listening to the rain. “I’m sorry,” I whispered finally.
“It’s not your f-fault,” she hiccupped.
I pulled her away from me, my hands cupping her face. Her skin was wet from her tears, but still so fucking soft, her eyes were focused on our shoes. “Look at me,” I ordered.
When she did, my heart crashed louder than the thunder outside. “I don’t know what she would’ve done if you hadn’t come inside,” I admitted. My mother was unstable. She could’ve fired the damn gun for all she cared.
“I was scared for you,” she whispered. “I don’t like that woman. I hate the way she treats you,” she whispered, more tears falling.
I couldn’t stand those tears. My thumbs swiped them away quickly. “Shh,” I cooed, “it’s okay now. I’m okay. I’ve always been okay, especially since you and your loud mouth showed up next door.”
Nik shot me a glare before playfully punching me. I chuckled, and when the sound faded, my brows furrowed. “I’m serious, Nik. You’ve saved me in more ways than I can count.”
Her big green eyes widened, and all I wanted to do was get lost in them. “You know you’re my lucky charm,” I said softly. “You’re my four-leaf clover.”
The rain was pelting down now, and I heard a bang from inside the house. Nik sucked in a breath, and I knew it was time. I had to end this. I had to get her out of her and away from this house.
“I have to go,” I told her.
She nodded. “You can’t stay there anymore, you’re right. We’ll figure something out—I’ll talk to my dad. Maybe we could—”
“Nik, I haven’t slept in that house in over six months,” I said, cutting her off with my truth.
She blinked as I brushed some of her hair to the side, taking in her beauty. Fuck, she was so damn beautiful. I’d never forget her face. Even if, by some miracle, I met another woman, Nik would always be in the back of my mind.
“What do you mean? Where are you sleeping?” she whispered, her arms coming around my waist. I stiffened.
This was wrong.
I shouldn’t be leading her on like this.
Not when I planned on never seeing her again aside from school. I dropped my hands from her face and gently pulled her away from me. “I have to go.” I brushed by her to get the Jeep keys from the work bench. I unlocked the back door and tossed my duffel inside before turning to load up the tools I’ve collected over the years from the scrap yard.
I felt her eyes on me as she watched me work. Once I was done, I came around to the front and quickly made sure the Jeep was okay to drive the short five miles to the storage unit. When I shut the hood, she came to stand beside me. “Where are you going?”
I turned to her. “Away from here, Nik. I’m eighteen. It’s time to move on.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek as her arms wrapped around her middle. Then, she looked away from me to the house. “You sound like you’ve had this planned.”
“This afternoon—hey, look at me,” I said, grabbing her chin. I couldn’t it stand when she didn’t look at me. “This afternoon, what you saw in there, was not part of the plan. I mean, fuck, I didn’t even know the bitch had a gun.”
She winced. “I don’t like that word.”
“That’s the only word I have for her. Sorry.”
She stared up at me, not saying a word. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that she didn’t like me referring to my mother like that. That’s what she was, a fucking bitchy woman. It wasn’t my fault Dominique didn’t understand that.
I dropped my hand, shaking my head. “You wouldn’t understand anyways. Not with your perfect family, your nice little house, with your clean clothes and fresh food.”
I took a step back. This was good. It was better this way. She would never understand the hell I’d been through, even though she watched it from a front row seat most of my life.
Nik shook her head. “Don’t—that’s not…don’t talk like that. Of course I understand.”
Anger took over then, something dark and twisted stirring inside me. “No,” I said lowly as another round of thunder sounded off outside. “You’ll never fucking understand, Dominique. You live in a picture-perfect world with your stupid cupcakes and pretty dresses. You know nothing!”
She flinched as another tear fell. “Why are you talking to me like this?”
I laughed, looking away from her. “Damn, you just don’t get it, do you?”
When I looked back at her, even though I’d been driven by anger, I knew that hurting her was the only way to sever this—no matter how amazing it’d been. “We’re done, Nik. I don’t know why you keep fighting for a friendship I grew out of years ago.”
“You don’t mean that,” she pushed out, shaking her head.
“I do,” I confirmed, walking around her to the driver’s side of the truck. “It’s time to grow up.” I yanked open the door, climbing inside. A small part of me expected for her to come to the window and plead for me not to leave.
She shocked the hell out of me when she lifted her chin slightly, wiping away her final tear. Without another word, she walked to the table, grabbed the cupcakes, and walked right back out. I watched, not even bothering to start the engine as she walked across the yard and through the wide gate opening.
She didn’t look back.
My gut twisted, but I ignored that too.
“No looking back,” I whispered, starting the engine.