Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
“ S o, to clarify…” I close my eyes and lean my face against the window of the car, savoring the coolness against my cheek. Outside, the sky is still getting darker, and I’m not sure if we’re going to make it back to Hayden Fields before it starts to rain. “Our plan, your plan is?—”
“You don’t need to go over it again,” Cass interrupts wearily, knowing what I’m going to say. “We’ve gone over it?—”
“Is that you have no plan . Because apparently, you suck at planning. So you’ve packed a bag and you’ve decided to crash with me. In Hayden Fields. Our hometown. You know, the one where you?—”
“ Thank you, Winnie,” he cuts me off with a sigh. “Really, thank you .”
I roll my shoulders in a shrug, grinning a little even without seeing his face. “I’m just being helpful, Cassian.” Lightly I run my fingers over the fresh bandage on my hand, unable to help the nerves that prickle under my skin at the thought of going home.
Something is going on in Hayden Fields. Someone , obviously, is now targeting me like Lacey and our diner regular, though I don’t have any idea why or who it is. But running away isn’t the right option, especially since I can’t be sure if the person won’t just follow me to Akron.
But…
“What if people recognize you?” My words are soft compared to the sound of the engine, and now my eyes are closed because I don’t know if I want to see his expression. But to my surprise, Cass reaches out to smooth his hand over my hair, tucking it back behind my ear. “What if people?—”
“I’ve been coming back to Hayden Fields for years, sweetheart,” he reminds me softly. “But I will say it’s touching that you’re worried about me.”
Finally opening my eyes, I turn to glare flatly at him. “Worried about you ?” I repeat with a snort. “You misunderstand. I’m worried about me and my reputation.”
His chuckle is music to my ears, and he flicks my cheek playfully. “What reputation? As the town’s favorite babysitter? Haven’t you heard what happens to well-known babysitters in Hayden Fields?” His humor never falters, and I open my eyes to look over at him.
“You’re so confusing when it comes to that,” I murmur hesitantly, unsure if this is a subject I’m okay with broaching at the moment. “I never know if I’m allowed to bring it up or I should pretend it never?—”
“There’s no pretending it never happened,” he replies, cutting me off smoothly as he pulls onto the street that connects to mine. “No denying it, or smoothing over it. Besides, do you think I haven’t killed anyone else in the years since then?”
His words hang in the air, and I don’t know how to respond to them. I tap my fingers on the console, nervousness making my stomach churn uncomfortably.
Fuck, I’d really never considered that as a possibility.
“Have you ever wanted to kill me?” I ask, hating how my words hang in the silence of the car.
He doesn’t answer. Not for a few seconds, anyway, and I can see him thinking about his words. The fact he doesn’t answer right away makes me nervous, and within moments, I’m fidgeting in my seat, fingers tapping against the console.
At least, until he covers my hand with his and presses it flat. “I was never going to kill you,” he murmurs. “I would never hurt you, Winnie. Maybe I didn’t understand my feelings for you back then. At least, not like I do now. But I would never hurt you. I’ve never considered it. I’d kill for you,” he adds with a small, impish grin.
He turns onto my street and I look up, a question on my lips…only for it to die in my mouth as I see the car parked in my driveway.
“Fuck,” I murmur. “Why the hell is mom here ? Umm…” I blink rapidly, putting together a plan. “Maybe drop me off and park down the block? Just for now. I want to figure out what she’s doing. She’s not…I doubt she’s staying long.” He pulls to a stop in front of my house, but before I can get out, Cass grabs my shoulder, stopping me.
“You’re forgetting something,” he tells me, his gaze meeting my puzzled expression.
“What am I—” He drags me close to him, my elbow hitting the console, and presses his lips sweetly, possessively to mine. My body tenses for a moment before I relax into him, letting him coax me into a deeper kiss.
Fuck, he’s way better at this than he has any right to be.
With one quick nip to my lower lip he lets me pull away, grinning slightly as he takes in my flushed face and panting breaths as I just stare at him. “Oh, okay,” I say dumbly. “You’re totally right. I was forgetting. What was I?—”
“Out of the car, Winnie,” he chuckles. “Go see your mom while I find somewhere else to be in order to not look suspicious.” His fingers ghost along the back of my hand, making it harder to open the door and get out…or try to.
It’s hard to get out of a car without taking your seatbelt off, after all.
When I finally manage to disentangle myself from the belt’s stranglehold with Cass’s snickers audible in my ears, I close the door and stumble toward my house, trying to get myself together before my mom can see me.
God, she’d have words for me if she saw that.
Or…well, maybe not. Lou certainly would have questions and demands and want to talk all about it. She’d probably be able to get it out of me that it’s Cassian Byers in the car somehow. She’d bribe me with a milkshake, with cookies, with all the things necessary to get me to spill the details.
But mom isn’t really like that. At least, not with me. I push open the front door, head cocked as I listen for the sound of her existing. To my surprise, I hear the tv on in her bedroom, so I trudge up the stairs with the subtle hope and fear that maybe, just maybe, she’s decided to change her mind. That she’s going to stay here for longer than a few days.
That hope is dashed the moment I walk into her room and see the two suitcases laid out on her bed. Disappointment sears through me like a brand, but I push it as far from me as I can. There’s no point in being disappointed when I should’ve seen this coming. Especially now, only a few days before Halloween.
Mom can’t stand being in Hayden Fields around this time.
When my mother, who’s the spitting image of Lou, comes back into the room, but doesn’t notice me at first. She drops a pile of shirts in the bigger suitcase, brow furrowed in concentration, and it’s only when she turns to go back to her closet that she notices me with a surprised gasp.
“Winnifred!” she greets, one hand pressed to her chest. Her dark hair and eyes are so different from mine that we might as well not be related at all.
But maybe that’s part of the problem. I have all of my dad’s features. From my pale skin, to my light grey eyes, to my nearly platinum hair. I remind her too much of the man she loved, the man she turned a blind eye to when he was abusing me.
The man I killed with his own gun.
“Hey Mom,” I reply, waving one hand at her a little lamely. “I, uh, didn’t expect you home. But you don’t seem like you’re staying?”
“No, I’m uh.” Here it is. The nervousness, the avoidance, the desire to get away from me that anyone with eyes can see. “I’m sorry for being gone so much lately. There’s change with the company, and—” She keeps going, using the same excuses she’s used all of my life to justify not staying here. I’ve heard them all before, and they’ve never been that convincing. I’m sure I could list them all out before she gets a chance to. But it doesn’t change that it hurts.
It always fucking hurts to be left alone.
“Where are you going?” I ask, hiding my hurt as best as I know how. “How long will you be gone?”
“Oh, well, I’m glad you’re here, actually, because I wanted to talk to you in person about this.” Her movements become more frantic as she talks, and I realize she’s about to drop a big decision on me that I won’t enjoy. “When Julie and I were in San Francisco, I realized I need to be there more. We’re just expanding so much, and hotels get expensive. Plus, they’re not that comfortable, you know?”
“Sure,” I say, feeling like my mouth is full of sawdust as I watch her continue packing. “I get it.” I really don’t get it, since she’s certainly never invited me on any of her trips.
“So I was thinking about buying a condo out there, you know? Somewhere that I can stay without needing exact reservations.” But something is off as she says it, and it clicks just as she turns to fiddle with something on her dresser.
“You already bought the condo, didn’t you?” I ask flatly, trying to remind myself that I am an adult and I don’t need her to be here all the time. Or at all.
Literally, at all.
“You really do know me so well, huh?” Mom laughs, beaming at me and throwing more of her clothes in the open suitcase. She closes it up and glances at her phone again. “I wish you’d been home earlier today.”
No, she doesn’t.
“A car will be here in a few minutes, so?—”
“If I know you so damn well after all these years, even with you doing your best to not be a part of my life, then what’s your excuse for not knowing me at all?” The words come out quiet and jumbled, and it’s so hard not to cry. This is far from the first time she’s let me down or run off from me, but God, it hurts every single time it happens.
The silence in the room is the definition of deafening. She doesn’t look up from her phone, her eyes unfocused as she stares at the screen. It’s the first time I’ve ever brought up the giant elephant that sits in every room we're in; moving with us no matter the location.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Mom murmurs finally, picking up her suitcase and taking it to the door. “Would you grab the smaller one for me?”
“No.” I don’t move from my spot near the door. “No, because I’m tired of helping you walk out of my life. I’m tired of?—”
“You’re an adult, Winnifred.” Her voice is brittle and flat, cracking along the ends of words. She’s never spoken to Lou like this. She’s been mad at her, sure. They butt heads a lot. But she’s never sounded so…disinterested.
So cold .
“You don’t need me to be here with you all the time. I’m done raising you, and you can take care of yourself.” She strides out of the room with me on her heels, finally spurred into motion.
“First of all, you didn’t raise me. You let Dad hurt me.” I don’t know why I’m doing this now, but the words just won’t stay bottled up. “That’s not raising me. You put me in a position where I had to defend myself, and I did. You know, for a while I thought that you just couldn’t handle the fact that you didn’t help me. I thought you felt guilty.”
I follow her back up the stairs, standing on the landing as she collects her other bag.
“But we both know that’s not true, huh? And ever since then, you’ve worked as hard as you can to get away from me as often as you can. You know I can hear it when you and Lou get into fights about me, right?”
My mom stands on the landing a few feet from me, but she’s never seemed more distant. Not since the first time she looked at me with this cold, detached air while I was in the mental hospital, right before she walked away.
“You just don’t understand.” Mom sighs, rubbing a hand over her face. “Things are complicated, Winnie. You can’t understand?—”
“If I don’t understand, it’s because you won’t let me understand.” My hands curl, nails digging into my palms. “I just…” Fuck, I’m going to cry. I can feel the heat behind my eyes burning, pressing, as I widen my eyes to hold the tears at bay.
“I just want you to love me.”
“We’ll talk about this when I get back.” Her words sting, hurt, ache as they twist in my chest, and I fall silent, at a loss. “I’ll text you from San Francisco. I’ll let you know my schedule.” When she looks up, her bright, fake smile is back on her face. I realize quickly she’s going to pretend none of this has ever happened.
It’s what she’s best at, after all.
“I’ll pick you up something nice, okay? Maybe a necklace to go with the bracelet I got you last time?” She walks down the stairs and keeps talking, having a one sided conversation as I just stand there . “See you soon, Winnie! Hold down the fort for me.” She turns, giving me one last bright smile before she picks up her other suitcase, and closes the door behind her with a soft, but final, slam.
“Guess I’m alone again,” I murmur, eyes fixed on the door. “Just like always.”
Suddenly, arms slide around my waist, yanking me back against a taller, solid form behind me. “Oh, sweetheart.” Cass buries his face in my hair with a sigh. “You’re not alone.” His grip tightens possessively, and I realize a normal person would be unnerved by the possessiveness in Cass’s hold and in his voice.
“I’ll never leave you alone again, Winnie. You’re mine forever.”
I should protest. I should tell that he’s moving too fast for me, that we have so much to discuss before I agree to anything past whatever we are currently.
But I don’t do what I should. Instead, I turn in his hold, throw my arms over his shoulders, and bury my face in his shirt so he can’t see me cry.