Chapter 5 Taryn
Taryn
I rifle through the drawer in my dresser, trying to remember what I left here. Gunner hasn’t been gone long, and though he told me to get some rest I immediately decided against it.
I don’t feel like sleeping. And I don’t like it when someone tells me what to do. It makes me immediately want to rebel against them.
I’m also not ready to go back downstairs, though. Going through my old room sounds like a better option.
Honestly, most of the stuff in here is pointless.
Old socks. Pens and pencils I didn’t bother to take with me.
Some of my old journals. I put those to the side, surprised that I left them at all, but then remember the rush we were in.
My mother was in my room telling me to hurry and I was still horrified at having been caught in Gabe’s lap, grinding on him like I’d lost my mind.
I wasn’t being careful about what I grabbed.
And then once we were in the city, I hadn’t felt like I could come back for anything.
I huff a soft laugh at that, fully aware of the irony that I’m back in my room now only because I was arrested and chose to run from the city rather than succumbing to whatever my mother and Johnny have planned.
Then I see something I’d forgotten existed and smile in earnest. I reach gingerly for the Nikon 35mm, my heart skipping several beats at the sight of the beat-up black casing.
My old camera. The one my dad gave me when I was nine.
I brought it with me when we moved here and spent whole summers taking pictures of Gabe playing in the water, Gunner chopping wood, and my mother laughing in the sunlight.
God, those were good days.
Cannisters of film line the drawer around the camera and I frown, trying to remember what they might hold and figure out whether the film is even good anymore.
Hawke’s Wood is a small town, but there must be someone here who can develop them.
If that film isn’t ruined, I’ll end up with pictures straight out of the past.
The thought makes my heart sing.
I put the camera to the side, deciding that I’ll also buy film when I’m in town, and then stand back. This was the last drawer I had to go through, and that means I’m officially out of excuses to stay in my room.
I’m also hungry.
I glance at my phone and see that it’s nearly 10. I’ve been here for about an hour, then, and haven’t eaten since last night. No wonder I’m hungry.
I wonder if anyone else is here.
And whether they’re hungry as well.
I know this was once my home, but it isn’t anymore, and I have a sudden urge to do something while I’m around. Earn my keep. Be useful. I’m grateful that Gunner went out of his way to come save me, even if he seemed to regret it immediately afterward, and if I can do something to repay him, I will.
Besides, I don’t do well sitting still. I like to take life by the horns and tell it what to do.
When I got to the city and decided my escape route was getting into a good university, I had to face the fact that I’d changed schools—a lot—and my first high school had been the one-room school house in Hawke’s Wood.
The answer was simple: I’d worked three times as hard as anyone else to make sure my resume was good enough for a top-tier university.
And that’s just one example. The facts are the facts. I don’t sit still, and now that I’m here, I’ll just have to look around and figure out what I can do that will help Gunner and Gabe.
For as long as I’m going to stay.
* * *
The kitchen is exactly as I remember it, and I start piling things on the counter, getting ready to cook.
Eggs, check. Flour, check. Vanilla and baking soda.
Baking powder. Milk. Butter. Syrup. Perfect.
I’m in the midst of mixing everything together and warming the griddle for pancakes when the door to the kitchen opens and slams shut, and a storm blows in.
Gunner has been outside, I can see that much, and it must be cold out there because the temperature in the kitchen drops several degrees when he stops to stare at me.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks.
I look at him, lift one eyebrow, and look pointedly at the ingredients in front of me. “Building a snowman out of flour. Isn’t it obvious?”
He doesn’t laugh.
He doesn’t even smile.
And within seconds, a woman comes up behind him and winds her arms around his waist. She’s beautiful in a sun-drenched, wind-tossed sort of way, her skin sporting the kind of tan you get from being outside most of your life.
Her hair is long and tangled in a way that makes her look sexy, and from the way she touches him, she’s used to getting her way around here.
Her eyes are hard and glittering, though, and when she looks at me, I can see she’s already decided that I don’t belong.
This must be the infamous Gabby. Either that or Gunner has taken to dating multiple women at the same time.
“I don’t have time for snowmen. Or whatever it is you’re actually doing,” Gunner says, pushing past me. “We run a tight ship these days, Taryn. There’s not a lot of time for fooling around. If you’re going to stay here, I suggest you learn our schedule and stick to it.”
And with that he’s pounding up the stairs, Gabby hot on his heels.
This time, he doesn’t look back at me.
I scowl at his retreating form, gripping the wooden spoon so hard it snaps in two, and wonder for the second time today if I’ve made a colossal mistake calling him.
I remember him as larger than life, all smiles and laughter, and though I haven’t seen him in years, I knew in my heart he would come for me if I needed him.
But this man isn’t the one I left behind. I can’t even see my former stepfather in that guy. There’s no laughter or sunshine, and there sure as hell isn’t any generosity. The Gunner I’m experiencing now is cold. Hard. Bitter.
I pour out the first pancakes, my eyes still on the stairs as I try to sort through my options.
I can’t go home, not if I want to stay free of my mother.
And I can’t go to Stella or Arden’s houses, for the reasons I already figured out.
Too dangerous. The entire city is too dangerous.
Unfortunately, I don’t have anywhere else to go.
My father’s family is all dead or I’d run for them, and my mother’s family. ..
I’ve never known them. I don’t even know if they exist. She never talks about them, and I’ve never seen pictures or an address. So no matter where they are, they’re out.
Which leaves Hawke’s Wood. And Gunner.
I look down and realize I’ve burned one of the pancakes during my daydreaming. “Shit,” I mutter. I scoop it up and turn to put it directly into the trashcan, but pause when I see that someone else has entered the kitchen.
And it’s not Gunner.
He’s the same height, but everything about him is different. He’s broader, to start with, and darker. Hair such a deep brown that it reminds me of chocolate, and eyes that verge on indigo. They’re wider than his father’s, and larger. They used to know how to laugh more quickly.
The world around me stills and my body lights up like someone has just connected me to an electric plug. I want to scream and shout—or maybe faint, I can’t tell. My heart starts hammering against my ribs, and my skin goes hot.
Because I know that face better than I know my own.
“Gabe,” I breathe. Then, because it’s the first thing that comes to my mind: “You used to be blond.”
He opens his mouth once, taking me in like he’s looking at a figment of his imagination come to life, and then closes his lips again.
His eyes move quickly up and down my body, then slow and move over me again, and I can feel his gaze dragging over my skin, like he’s using his fingertips rather than his eyes.
It makes me want to squirm. Arch my back and give him a show. Or hide.
I’m not sure.
The last time I saw this boy, he was staring out his window, tears in his eyes as my mother shoved me into her car, his expression crushed and betrayed.
The time before that, I was in his arms and he was kissing me like his life depended on it.
“And you’re supposed to be in New York City,” he says, his voice cracking. “Hello, Little Bird.”
Little Bird. The nickname they gave me when I first moved here and started finding broken birds outside.
Bringing them in and giving them space to heal, then turning them free when they could fly again.
At the time I’d thought that was all the name was.
Now, hearing it cradled gently in his voice, I remember that it’s more than that.
My mother never changed my last name to Hawke. She said it was important for me to remember where I came from.
But Gunner and Gabe made me one of their own with a nickname my mom had written off.
They’d taken the tiny girl who was forced into their lives and given her a name that showed the world that they owned her.
Hearing it from him now has my heart pounding and my blood humming with something I don’t understand.
Suddenly a girl appears at his side, laughing and flighty, and shoots me a look of surprise. “Who the hell is that?” she asks, not bothering to keep her voice down.
Gabe stares at me for a moment longer, then shakes his head, and it’s as if a mask comes down over his expression. Gone is the dreamy, surprised look of someone seeing the girl who used to be his best friend. Now he looks scornful and aloof. Conceited.
Dismissive.
“No one,” he says quickly. “Just my stepsister. Actually, not even that. Her mom walked out on me and my dad four years ago. Never even said goodbye. Guess that makes you my ex-stepsister, right, Taryn? Nothing at all.”
He wraps one arm around the girl, looks at me with dead, uncaring eyes, and then turns and walks out.
And I’m left alone once again, with nothing but the creeping feeling that no one actually wants me here.
.. and that they’d be happier if I just left again.
I press my nails into the marks in my palm, seeking something that will ground me, and gasp when one nail finds a fresh wound. It feels good, though.
It feels real.
At least physical pain is something I can control. Not like the pain of seeing men I thought loved me turn their backs and tell me I don’t matter.
I turn off the griddle, throw the pancake mix in the trash, and head back upstairs. I’m not hungry anymore. I need something to clear my head of the residue Gabe and Gunner just left. And then I need to work on a plan to go somewhere else.
I was wrong. Hawke’s Wood isn’t home. It’s just a place that looked like safety, when all it actually offers is traps.