13. Margo
Chapter 13
Margo
I dream of running down the street, chasing some ghost just out of my line of sight. The franticness is real, though. My heart might burst trying to catch up.
Something rises out of the asphalt and catches my ankles. I scream as I fall forward, but I don’t hit the ground. I go through it, tumbling across the open sky. It’s brilliant blue all around me, and a bed of flowers catches me.
I slowly push myself up on my hands and knees. Long-stemmed flowers wave in the gentle breeze around me. My hair is caught up in the wind, too. I stand and come face-to-face with Caleb.
He smirks at me.
Something brushes between my legs.
“Are you doing that?” I ask him.
His smile widens. “Are you dreaming about me, baby?”
My stance shifts, and I glance down between my legs. There’s nothing there, but?—
Oh God.
“What are you doing?”
“Eating you out,” he replies. “You taste like my new favorite meal.”
The dream burns out around me, and suddenly I’m gasping awake in the darkness. My heart pounds, and there’s a rushing noise in my ears. It takes a minute for the room to come into focus, and?—
Oh God . Again. Except I’m awake.
I rise on my elbows and lock eyes with Caleb.
Maybe I’m still dreaming? Because he’s between my legs… and then his tongue moves again, and I whimper. He doesn’t say anything, even when I reach out and run my fingers through his hair.
What the hell is happening?
I collapse back, unable to look at him. I grip the bedsheets, and when he sucks on my clit, my hips automatically move. He focuses on that one little spot, alternating between sucking and licking, even scraping his teeth along it.
It shoves me over the edge.
I arch and twist, the brilliant pleasure whiting out my vision for a moment. My legs tense, squeezing his head, and it’s only when I sag, the energy flooding out of me, that he lifts his head.
“Delicious,” he murmurs. “Did you dream of me?”
I force my eyes to open. “What?”
“You moaned before you woke up.”
My face heats. I should be madder than I am, but the overwhelming feeling is disorientation.
I’m still not convinced I’m awake.
He moves backwards, then stands and circles the bed. He takes my wrists and pulls, lifting me into a sitting position. His hands go to my ankles, swinging them over the edge of the bed.
And in a matter of seconds, I’m standing in front of him. With no panties or shorts on… just a t-shirt I’ve had for a long time. He’s blocking the path to my closet. Unsure, I cover my chest with one arm.
My outfit isn’t the only embarrassing thing. There are clothes on my floor, my hair is probably a wild mess?—
I tuck my hair behind my ear to minimize the damage. “What are you doing here?”
He raises a shoulder.
Great non-answer. Maybe he just wants sexual things? I exhale.
“We’re sneaking out,” he declares in a low voice.
Excuse me?
His gaze goes to the window, then back to me. His lips curve into a sneer. “Unless you’re afraid.”
I am afraid—but I also don’t want to admit that.
Can’t.
So that’s how I find myself dressed in sweatpants and an oversized hoodie he tossed at me, climbing down the trellis after him. It was a stretch to even reach it in the first place. It involved reaching my leg out of the window and feeling for it with my toe. Then repeating with my hand, then my other leg.
Caleb jumps to the ground below me. I move faster, the fear of being left behind striking through me.
I don’t know what happens.
One minute I’m lowering myself down, the next, my grip has slipped and I’m falling.
“ Oof .”
I don’t hit the grass?—
Caleb catches me.
He looks down at me, his brows furrowing, then shakes his head.
“You should be more careful.” He sounds cross .
“You should come up with less dangerous activities.”
His expression lights up. “But those are the only ones worth doing.”
Abruptly, he drops my feet to the ground. I stumble away from him, straightening the sweatshirt. Belatedly, it occurs to me that this is his sweatshirt.
It even smells faintly of him.
Not that I remember what he smells like…
“Come on.” He heads toward his car. With his hand on the passenger door handle, he asks, “Want to drive?”
I purse my lips. “No.”
“Why not? Afraid you wouldn’t be able to handle her?”
“It’s not that.” I narrow my eyes when he doesn’t move.
He rolls his and opens the door for me. He circles around and starts the car with a press of a button. In no time, we’re zipping down the street.
“Tell me.” His palm lands on my thigh. He finger-walks his hand higher, a devilish smile on his face.
“Stop.” The coiling heat in my stomach shifts lower.
“Do you mean that?”
I shiver.
“Are you suddenly shy, baby? I just had my face buried between your legs, and you’re scared of my fingers?”
His eyes are dark. They always seem to be dark when he does wicked things to me. My abdomen is tense, my stomach knotting. I cover his hand with mine, not to be nice—just to get his wandering to halt.
“I can’t drive,” I blurt out.
He pauses. “Really.”
“What, do you think a foster parent would’ve taught me?”
He withdraws with a scowl.
Slowly, I relax into the leather seat. His expression is contemplative. Maybe he’s going to ask—sooner or later, everyone asks.
What’s it like?
Don’t people want you?
Why hasn’t someone adopted you?
So caught up in past questions, I fail to notice where he’s taking me.
Honestly, I kind of assumed we were going back to his house. His empty, abandoned house… in the middle of the night…
But we’re far from there. The sign at the entrance of a park has been updated, but the name carries a flash of recognition.
It’s the same one my parents used to take me to for picnics. It’s also…
I close my eyes, fighting the roll of my stomach. He would absolutely leave me here if I puked in his car.
It’s where Dad was arrested.
“Why?”
He shuts off the car. “To relive the past.”
“But not all of it. Just the hard parts.”
“Yes.” He gets out and circles around, opening my door.
He’s smart: I would’ve just stayed here.
He grabs my hands and takes me out by force. “Show me. Walk me through it, because no one else has been able to. And I wasn’t here, after all.”
I shudder.
“You weren’t,” I agree. “It was…”
The worst day of my life.
Mom was already gone, and Dad must’ve wanted peace and quiet before the next step. Before the other shoe dropped on our family.
I stride forward, and Caleb’s hand slides from my arm. It’s like there’s a ten-year-old Margo guiding me to the exact spot. We were sitting on a bench overlooking the pond. The running path was behind us. The sound of footsteps hitting the dirt wasn’t out of place in my memory.
Even in the dark, with Caleb’s phone’s flashlight bobbing behind me, there’s no way I could get lost.
I sit on the bench. The pond has shriveled since the last time I saw it. The soft sound of crickets fills the air, along with an occasional frog. The wind rustles the dying fronds at the edges of the small pond.
Caleb sits next to me, his hands in his pockets.
Watching me. Examining me.
I haven’t been here since that day, and if I let down my guard, echoes of the past surround us. I can almost hear my dad again. I haven’t heard his voice in six years.
“Speak,” Caleb finally orders. “You were here?”
I take a deep breath. “We didn’t notice the detective.”
He nods, an encouragement to keep going.
“She came around from his side—where you’re sitting. She said…” I don’t know what she told us. I shake my head and backtrack. “Dad gave me a handful of seeds for the ducks, and they talked while I was throwing them at the water.”
“How kind,” he says. His tone is sarcastic.
He doesn’t like my father.
I don’t know that I like him much either. But at the time, I loved him with my whole heart. How could I not have? He was my dad .
I continue. “When I was done, I turned around and he was in handcuffs. He didn’t struggle until that lady motioned for him to be taken away. As soon as they tried to separate us, he fought. It took two… maybe three officers to force him to go.”
That was horrible. I stood frozen, the empty paper cup in my hands. I wanted to scream and chase after him, but I was stuck. Every muscle locked up.
Someone else approached me. A woman. Not the first lady—this one had kinder eyes. She squatted next to me and introduced herself. When she offered her hand, I took it. And that, really, was the beginning of the end.
She was the emergency social worker brought on scene to take custody of me. From there, I was transferred into Ms. McCaw’s caseload.
“Why’d he bring you here of all places?”
“It was our spot.” There are no fowl in the mostly dead pond now. No ducks to scare away. Frogs, sure. They keep croaking and making themselves known. I pick up a rock and lob it at the water, and everything goes silent.
Caleb frowns. “Your home was?—”
“No,” I interrupt. “That house was never our home . It was yours. Always.”
He lifts one eyebrow.
“Every inch of that property was yours.” I stare out at the water. It’s different but the same—kind of like us. Or maybe just me. I’ve been wilting and dying with neglect for years with no recourse. “We vanished like smoke. Did you even realize we were gone?”
“Did I realize ?” His jaw tics. “How could I not realize, Margo? You ruined my life.”
I jump to my feet, fighting against a cringe. Fighting against guilt . He thinks I hurt his life so badly? He got to stay here?—
“Run and hide like you always do,” he bites out.
Running sounds like a great plan. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I can’t stand here and take his beratement. I pivot and burst into a sprint, running back over the hill toward where Caleb parked his car.
He catches me like he always does. His arms bind around my chest, and he stops short of flinging me to the grass. As soon as his arms drop, I put space between us.
This is crazy.
Why the fuck did I get in his car?
“You cannot run from me.” He points in my face. “You can’t hide. And you will fucking pay for what you’ve done.”
My lip trembles. How do I focus on the hate when the most prominent feeling is terror?
“I don’t know what I did,” I tell him. “How am I supposed to make that right? If I don’t know ?—”
One hand covers my mouth, the other lands on my shoulder. His gaze is wilder than I’ve ever seen it. “Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up, you lying whore.” He shakes me for good measure, a jostle of my body against his.
Shut up, you lying whore . Those words—I’ve heard them, but not at me. And not out of Caleb’s mouth.
“Like father, like son?” I say against his palm.
He glowers. “Don’t you dare speak about my father.”
I won’t speak at all with the way he’s gripping my face.
“I was almost starting to like you again,” he mutters. “And then—” There’s an awful glint in his eyes. He’s dangerous. Based on past behaviors, maybe worse than a demon.
He’s the fucking Devil.
Shoving him away, I sprint up the running path. I don’t have a phone, and the moon is covered in clouds. I’m flying blind, but I trust my memory. I make it to the curve in the path. My tennis shoes slide a bit, but I push onward.
Fear holds my body in a vise: squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.
His footsteps pound the ground behind me.
He’s taller than me, he’s in shape. It comes as no surprise when his fingers catch my hair. I ignore it and pour on another dose of speed, but it’s too late. He tackles me from behind.
He doesn’t cushion our landing either. I don’t have time to protect myself, except to bring my arms in like tucked wings. We hit the ground hard on our shoulders, sliding and rolling down an embankment, and I immediately propel us sideways. We’re a wild tangle of limbs, but every instinct in me screams to fight .
Fight, flight, or freeze?
Right now, I’m choosing the first. I flail and catch him in the mouth. My knee lands dangerously close to his groin. He grunts in my ear.
One of his legs pins mine. I drag my nails down his throat, and his wild gaze crashes into mine. He catches my wrists and pins them above my head. Fury burns through me. A wild banshee screech leaves my lips, surprising both of us.
But I’m immobile—and as soon as that’s confirmed, triumph glints in his gaze.
The last thing I expect him to do is kiss me.
But he does. Hard.
Another mind game.
Second kiss ever, and I want to scream into his mouth.
His lips slide across mine, rough and insistent. Our lips part, our teeth clash. Doesn’t matter. Fuck, I’m kissing him back . But he still doesn’t stop. That’s not losing the game, I suppose. It’s some other sacrifice I’d have to make.
I bite his lower lip. The sharp metallic flavor of blood touches my tongue, but he doesn’t stop. His tongue surges into my mouth, easily claiming all of my space. All of my oxygen.
I hate you , I say on repeat in my mind, if only to try to remind myself that I’m not this person. I’m not the person who falls for the bully. I’m not the girl who falls to her knees when the handsome boy pays attention to her.
If I want to win his games, I need to remember that.
If I lose, I could lose myself, too.
“Kiss me,” he growls against my lips.
It’s my only reprieve, then he’s back on me.
Damn it, the kiss brings out feelings my body doesn’t know how to handle. His hand slides down my side, into my sweatpants. His fingers follow the same path his tongue did earlier, stroking in just the right places. I want to curse him out, but my mouth is a little busy at the moment.
His lips leave mine and drag down my throat. “I used to dream of this.”
Neck kisses? A whole new deal.
I moan. It’s surreal, and for a moment I’ve left my body, watching us on the damp grass.
Who is that on the ground, making sounds she’s only heard in movies? Feeling things she doesn’t have a right to feel?
A burning ache spreads through me, chased by a spark of something extraordinary. I shift. I curl my fingers into fists. His pace between my legs slows, his fingers inching along my throbbing skin.
“Should I leave you like this?” he asks. “Spread out, begging for me?”
He rises on his elbow, staring down at me while his fingers move on the most sensitive part of me.
How did I go from sleeping in my own bed, alone , to this?
“Finish the job or bring me home,” I say on an exhale.
He pouts, and his finger dips back into me. Inside me, where it has no business being. And yet my muscles clench at his digit on their own, and his knowing smile fucks me up.
Not in a good way.
“I guess I’ll take you home, then, little lamb.”