14. Cassidy
FOURTEEN
CASSIDY
It’s hot as shit today. My shirt is stuck to my back, sweat dripping from my temples, causing my hair to stick to my forehead. I’ve got three dollars jammed in my pocket and a singular mission: a cold-ass soda and maybe, if I’m lucky, one of those corner-store burritos.
I pedal down the street, zoning out, trying to sing a song in my head since I don’t have a phone or a pair of headphones.
“Touch me again, and I’ll snap your fucking fingers off, you little shit.”
Who has that sharp, fire-laced tone?
. . . Fucking Binx.
Instantly, I drop a foot to the ground and yank my handlebars to the side, my front tire skipping against the cracked pavement. I see her near the stoop of that busted-ass duplex, her red hair like a signal flare, face twisted with that don’t-fuck-with-me snarl I know too well.
There’s a kid in front of her—some scrawny punk. He’s maybe a year or two younger than me, but he’s got his hand wrapped around Bindi’s wrist.
And that?
That’s not allowed.
My vision goes red. I don’t even remember dropping my bike. One second, I’m straddling it, and the next, I’m sprinting full speed, straight at this motherfucker.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?
” I slam my palm into his chest so hard he stumbles backward into the brick wall behind him, arms flailing like a bug about to get stomped.
He tries to shove me back, but it doesn’t work.
I’m fucking pissed, everything in me narrowing down into a rage that pounds inside of my throat.
“You don’t touch her. Ever. She’s my fucking sister.” I spit at his shoe.
“She’s not even your real sister?—”
With zero hesitation, I hit him, right in the mouth, so hard his head whips sideways and he staggers, his lip splitting.
I grab him by his collar, his eyes wide with panic as I slam him back into the wall again, now with my teeth bared.
“Touch her, look at her wrong, and I’ll snap every bone in your hand, and I won’t stop there. Got it?”
Behind me, Bindi mutters, “Uh, Cass?—”
The screen door bangs open beside us. His mom, with big-ass rollers in her hair and a cigarette in one hand looks at me with her crooked lips. “What the fuck is going on out here?! Jason?—”
Oh shit.
I grab Bindi’s wrist and yank her toward the sidewalk where my bike’s still lying half in the grass.
“Get on!”
“Cass, what the hell?”
The mom is yelling at us now as she holds her son’s bloodied nose with her hand, screaming something about the cops, but I don’t give a shit .
“Pegs. Now.”
She nods, hopping on. I take off before her hands have a chance to steady themselves on my shoulders as she stands on the pegs on the back of my mongoose bike. I kick off the pavement, pedaling as fast as I can away from Jason and his bitch of a mother.
“You’re out of your goddamn mind, Cass,” she says.
“Yeah,” I huff. “And you’re mine.” I throw a grin over my shoulder.
That shuts her up. We don’t talk the rest of the way—not until we coast up in front of the shitty house we both hate but make the best of.
She hops off the bike before it fully halts, landing on the sidewalk.
She turns to look at me, hands on her hips, red hair sticking to her sweaty forehead, her cheeks pinkened from the sun.
“That kid only grabbed me.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t have to hit him that hard.”
I shrug. “Yeah, I did.”
Her mouth pulls tight. “You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Act like it’s nothing—like you’re chill and don’t give a shit. But the second someone even thinks about crossing me, you lose your shit.”
I grin, dark and proud. “That’s because you’re my sister.”
“I’m not your sister,” she mutters, frowning.
“Sure you are. Just not the kind I’d let date other people. Or let assholes like Jason Walker put his hands on.”
“You’re insane.”
“Yeah? Maybe. But you jumped on the back of my bike. So that makes you my little accomplice, Binx.”
She doesn’t dignify that with a comeback, just gives me a glare sharp enough to peel paint and spins on her heel, heading back inside the house, leaving me to stand here like an idiot, grinning as I watch her disappear through the doorway.
She thinks that fight was about some sort of sibling protection, thinking I just see her as something innocent—off limits. But I didn’t hit that kid for grabbing her. I hit him because he laid hands on what’s mine.
She may not see it yet.
But she will.
One day.