Chapter 1 #2
Elias moves toward me with the dog's pink leash around one of his wrists. Once he's at my side, he sinks down onto the ground beside me, facing me, and places his hand firmly over my heart.
"Hey, look at me." My eyes meet his in the darkness. "Breathe."
I shake my head. I am breathing, but it doesn't feel like it. It doesn't feel like air is actually filling my lungs before violently forcing it out.
"Slower," he says, pressing that hand harder into my chest. Something about that pressure brings awareness back into my body, and even though I'm still shaking hard enough to cause my teeth to chatter, my breath slows.
"There you go." Elias holds the flask out to me. "You want a drink now?"
I nod, taking it from him. After watching me struggle with unsteady hands to unscrew the top for a few seconds, he does it for me, and I bring it to my lips.
It's gin. I've only had it once before, but I recognize the familiar burn.
"You good?" he asks.
"Yeah," I finally say. "I just need a minute."
He stands, holding his hand out to me. "Come on. Let's go inside."
Taking it, I allow him to pull me to my feet.
It's the first time I'm able to assess his height relative to my own, and at 5'4", this guy has at least a foot on me.
I cross my arms in front of my body and follow him into the old cabin, waiting just inside the threshold while he turns on a small, dim lantern on the other side of the room, illuminating the space just enough for me to make out my surroundings.
It's mostly empty, aside from a wood burning stove at its center and a couple of dog bowls in the corner.
Empty beer cans and liquor bottles line the back wall of the main room, the wood singed black and the glass absent from its windows.
"You're still shaking," Elias says. "That was really stupid, by the way. Even if you did survive the fall, the current would have sucked you out so fast—"
"I was just trying to help."
"I didn't need your help. You don't know these woods like I do."
I shrug and turn toward the door. "Okay, well—"
"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm a dick, but I'm not trying to be a dick right now. I just don't really need any more dead bodies on my property. More bodies, more problems."
He must be joking, but I don't laugh, and neither does he. He simply shrugs, taking another pull from the flask before sitting on a blanket near the far corner of the room and patting the space beside him. "Come sit. I'll show you something."
I realize everything that's happened in the past hour is nothing but a slew of horrible, sloppy decision making, and that when a strange man wants me to follow him into a decaying cabin in the middle of nowhere and then join him on a blanket so he can show me something, I should run away, but I don't. I cross the space and sit beside him.
"So, are you homeless or something?" I ask.
A hand on my shoulder lowers me onto my back, and I freeze up. His eyes spot the fear in my own, and a smile creeps across his face. "Look up," he says.
My gaze moves from that look on his face to the space where the ceiling should be, but all I see is stars—stars gleaming in a dark sky and a full moon bright above me.
Even through the thin layer of clouds, they're clear in a way that they never are in the city, where every billboard and neon sign competes with the void, drowning them out until they're nothing but background noise.
It's comforting, and for the first time, I allow myself to think that this will all be okay.
Maybe even better than okay. It's probably better that I found out how fickle Sawyer is now rather than later…
and I still don't know why Thea was hiding in his car.
This could be what I need—a fresh start in a quiet place, a family.
Some of the best stories start just like this—from ruin.
"Nice, huh?" Elias lies down beside me, but in the opposite direction, and I feel his hot breath against my bare legs. "You know, in a place like Aurora Cove, it isn't very often I come across someone who doesn't know me. And knowing me…comes with a lot of preconceived notions."
"Like what?" I ask hesitantly.
"Most people are afraid of me," he says, and then I feel the tips of his fingers, first on the inside of my knee, and then slowly trailing up my thigh until they reach the hemline of my black denim shorts.
I hold my breath, only exhaling when they descend lightly along the same path.
"Most of the time, I like it. But you don't know any better, do you? And I kind of like that, too."
The last part comes out as an almost-whisper against the outside of my calve. "Why are they afraid of you?"
But I think I know. There's a duality to him. He's beautiful, but fragile, with something more volatile lurking not far beneath that surface. He's equal parts frightening and disarming—the golden boy look that lures people in, and the callous smirk that makes them regret it.
I'm starting to regret it.
"I can't really explain it. It's not that easy," he says as those fingertips make their way to my apex once more.
"What about you, Saige? Are you easy? You know, if I would have known what you looked like when you tried to run me over, I wouldn't have been so mad about it.
I would have asked you to back up and do it again. Harder."
This time, he doesn't stop at the hemline and retreat; his fingertips slip underneath my shorts, stopping at my panties. My heart pounds, and wet heat pools at my core. But inside my head, an alarm goes off, telling me to run. I try to listen—really I do—but I can't move.
"Now, you're afraid of me, aren't you?" he asks. "I can feel your pulse right here—did you know that? Your heart is racing."
I swallow hard. "I—"
"Relax," he says, removing his fingers from inside my shorts. "I'm not going to hurt you; I could, though, Saige, so you really shouldn't do things like this. It's really poor judgment on your part."
After exhaling a shaky breath, I say, "Yeah, I'm starting to gather that."
"But if you want me to fuck you, that's something different entirely.
I'll fuck you so good, you'll forget all about whoever you were crying about in the car…
so hard, I'll add some more tear streaks to those cheeks.
My dick's as big as you'd think it'd be, and you look like you'd scream.
I bet you like to be put on your knees and have a thick cock shoved down your throat, too. Girls like you always do."
He shouldn't be speaking to me like this; his words shouldn't make me even wetter, either, but they do, and the pulse between my legs begs for attention. Because he's right, and getting fucked into forgetting does sound pretty good right now.
But I'm going to have to see this person at school on Monday.
I don't think I want to be the girl who fucked the big, scary hockey player in the woods.
He's not my usual type, and with my septum ring and pink-streaked brown hair, I doubt I'm his, no matter what he says about wanting me to run him over.
I've always had friends, but I've never been popular.
I don't play any sports or wear designer clothes; I don't run with the jocks or the cool kids.
"What do you think, Saige?" he asks, still tracing the inside of my thigh with his fingertips. "Do you want to fuck?"
I swallow hard and shake my head. "No."
"Damn it," he sighs, using his good arm to pull himself back into a seated position before taking another swig from his flask. "I thought my pitch was pretty solid, eh?"
"It wasn't terrible," I admit.
"Probably for the best, though," he says, looking down at me. "I don't do relationships—never have. And it feels like you'd be a problem for me."
"How so?"
Elias moves until he's kneeling between my legs. I almost sit up, but a hand on my shoulder pins me in place.
He said he wouldn't hurt me.
But the way he's looking at me now…I'm not so sure. When he finally speaks, he doesn't answer the question.
"Love's not real, Saige. You're only as good to people as what you can do for them. Don't cry about guys anymore; none of us mean the things we say."
"I don't know if it's that bad," I say, feigning a laugh. I think back on the best parts, and I certainly don't want it to be true.
"It is. And if the things that they said or did in front of your face hurt that much, think about how bad it must be behind your back."
I dodge his deprecatory glare, turning my attention back to that empty space where the ceiling should be, gazing up at the stars again.
"So how bad was it?" he asks.
"I think…" I can barely get the words out. "I think he might have been cheating on me with my best friend."
"He probably was. I told you—people are terrible. You should stop caring. You can't beat us, so you might as well join us." He surprises me when he lies down on top of me, resting his head on my chest.
"I should probably go…my mom—"
"I fucking love your thighs. Will you wrap them around me?"
"Um…no?"
"I ruined my life," he says. "It wasn't my fault, but I did, and I'm so fucking sad, Saige. I'd never admit it to anyone else, but…who are you going to tell?"
"I won't tell anyone," I say softly.
"My dad is a piece of shit. He couldn't handle my mom's depression—it was bad for his ego, I guess—so he decided to be a fucking cliché and start sleeping with his secretary.
When he told her there was someone else, she killed herself.
I found her in the garage. She fed a hose from the exhaust into the car, you know?
And, um, she didn't leave me a note." There's an inflection on the word 'note,' as if it were a question; like he's confused, and then he pauses, and I can tell he's trying not to cry.
"I don't blame her, but it would have been nice to get a note.
I guess she was just too sad at that point. "