Grace
Eakly, Oklahoma
I often found Cyrus’s behavior weird, because I know what it’s like to keep horrible secrets. Dirty secrets that would make everything between us dirty. And I am the crazy one out of the two of us. Because I am the one driving across Oklahoma with a murderer.
I will never be angry with Cyrus for not telling me who he was working for in secret.
He must have been ashamed to do what he was forced to do.
Because he is a good man and a good cop.
We both held our cards close. We both played dirty.
But this doesn’t absolve me from the fact that I kissed Chase.
And it would be unfair to bring Cyrus’s one-night stand into this.
But I think the circle is almost complete—it has almost reached its starting point.
I’ve been awake for a while now, but I don’t want to open my eyes.
But when the suffocating smoke of burning paper replaces the smell of sunshine and the familiar scent of the old car, my eyes fly open.
Chase is holding my letter in his hand, watching as Cyrus’s words are devoured by the flames.
My mouth and throat are dry like a desert.
I watch with wide eyes and a racing heart as white ash drifts down onto his worn jeans.
The last flames lick at his fingertips. He doesn’t react. Then he turns to me. Words scorch my throat, but fear twists my stomach into a knot. He had no right to do this. Still, I can’t say a thing in protest.
“Do you love him?”
“I had sex with him.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.” He gets out of the car. I slam the door of the black 1990 Chevrolet and storm after him.
“Doesn’t mean anything?” I shout after him.
He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t turn back. He walks to the gas pump.
When he pulls the nozzle out, I catch up with him and start pounding on his chest with both fists.
He rocks back a little. He lowers his eyelids, stoic, and lets out a sigh like he’s bored with this one-sided conversation.
“Fuck you, Chase!” I hiss, shaking. “It did mean a lot to me. After everything that’s happened to me…
I came, but I didn’t enjoy it. Not really.
I cried afterward every time, but that isn’t Cyrus’s fault.
He wanted what was best for me. It was you guys who did this to me.
But I… I needed that, even if I had to close my eyes and clamp my mouth shut.
Even if I wanted to run. I had to do it—for myself.
I slam my fist against my own chest so hard the air catches in my lungs. My eyes fill with tears, burning with fury. He looks at me.
His face darkens, then goes blank. He fixes me with a stern, cold stare—hard, frightening. I don’t see even a flicker of empathy in his dark eyes.
I fold my arms across my chest and wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my denim shirt. I won’t look weak in front of him out here, in the open. I’m not locked in that small room anymore.
He puts the gas nozzle back. He could reach me in three steps if I let him, so I retreat a few quick paces.
My heel catches on a jutting piece of concrete.
I windmill my arms, fighting for balance.
He’s beside me in the blink of an eye, and his arm bands around my waist. He pulls me so close not even the wind can slip between us.
The tip of his nose brushes mine. His breath caresses my lips.
He looks deep into my eyes. The sexual tension in the air vibrates—because my mind remembers.
It remembers his scent, the taste of his kiss, his touch, and the words he whispered in my ear.
This vibration is alive—it has a taste and a color. It’s like dawn, when the sun has just crested the horizon, when the air is cool but the sky is blooming with gorgeous colors: purple, pink, and blue. The taste in my mouth is like burnt sugar.
His face is stern—strong and cold. He feigns indifference.
But his eyes… they give away the battle raging in his soul.
I jut my chin and stare back, defiant, into the hard eyes that burn my skin.
A wave of warmth shudders through me, and rotten butterflies flap their torn wings in my stomach.
Chase has always had an effect on me. All it takes is one look from him, and the world disappears—along with all the horrors weighing me down.
His thumb traces my jawline and my dry lips.
His charming, dark gaze almost feels like a caress.
There’s a burning desire in his brown eyes.
His embrace tightens. His lips part—slowly, deliberately.
A growl rises in me from deep down, bringing a dark smile to his face.
That lopsided smile that can make me lose my mind…
When his fingers disappear into my long, unbound hair, I melt in his arms and give in to temptation.
He lifts me with one arm, making my spine crack.
My legs wrap around his waist, my hands loop around his neck, and I lose myself in this sinful kiss.
There, at a filthy gas station hardly anyone ever visits, in the middle of nowhere on a barren wasteland, I experience with him everything he took from me—everything I’ve been mourning, everything I’ve been missing.
I am young.
I am happy.
I am free.
I am alive.
And it feels horrible that I need him to feel this.
We don’t break the moment even after the kiss ends. I brush that annoying dark tuft of hair out of his eyes and curl up against him.
My heart almost explodes with emotion—it pounds as if someone was chasing me. Joy, passion, happiness, and love course through my veins.
He slowly sets me down, walks back to the car, and finishes pumping gas. My eyes follow him without shame. I watch his arms and his back. His white T-shirt doesn’t hide his muscles. My gaze drifts lower, and I catch myself staring at the worn jeans hugging his ass.
I slide the denim shirt off and toss it into the car through the rolled-down window. I stare far into the distance. Heat shimmers over the flat land, and the warm wind blows dust and sand into my face. I can see where the wind has shaped a few sand dunes in the barren wasteland.
“Where are we?”
“Near Eakly.”
“The ghost towns,” I whisper.
One of Chase’s eyebrows lifts. He puts the nozzle back. “Ghost towns?”
“People talk… And if you think about how Eakly only has 338 residents…”
“May has only fifty. But this is just superstition—nothing to do with anything paranormal. All that happened is nobody gave a shit about those towns, so they never developed and people left. Only idiots stayed. Let’s pay and get moving.”
The gas station is outdated and run-down.
Its heavy door sticks against the warped, uneven linoleum.
Two white shelves sit in the middle—one stacked with car and motorcycle magazines, the other holding a few bottles of mineral water and some snacks.
A few metal rotating racks display sunglasses, cheap little souvenirs, and baseball caps, all filmed with dust. Chase takes off a baseball cap and tucks my hair beneath it.
“Why do I need this?”
“You’re pretty hard to miss,” he says, pushing the last stray tuft of hair under the cap.
“Why?” I didn’t dress up, but I didn’t show up in rags either.
I’m wearing what Cyrus bought me: worn jeans that fit me perfectly, a snug white T-shirt, and white canvas shoes.
Chase looks me up and down. His gaze makes me feel like the air itself is catching fire.
He leans in without shame—brazenly close.
My jeans sit low on my waist. My T-shirt is a little short, leaving a thin strip of my belly exposed. He touches my skin with the tip of his index finger and slowly traces the bare space between my clothes.
“I’m mad at you,” I whisper. He smiles at me. “And I hate you, too.”
His smile widens even more. He tilts his head slightly, his lips part, then press to mine—he kisses me gently. My eyelids grow heavy and flutter shut, and my body trembles with the sweetness.
“I love deep emotions,” he whispers against my mouth. I look into the darkness of his deep brown eyes, intoxicated. “And I love stealing kisses from you. I love taking pleasure in you.”
“That’s what you used to do.”
“What?” he asks in his deep, resonant voice.
“You’d sit in the room and just watch me for hours.” The memory should fill me with horror, but it doesn’t.
“Because I can’t get enough of you.” His hand glides over my face.
I can’t get enough of you, either.
But I don’t voice the thought. I bite my lower lip instead and step away from him. If he said even one more word, he’d set me on fire, and the heat would make that even easier. The humid, heavy air is suffocating.
Chase takes two bags of chips and two bottles of still water from the shelf.
I shouldn’t be watching him, but I can’t stop.
Chase is hard to miss, too. He’s handsome.
Even men can’t take their eyes off him—though it’s the dangerous, mysterious edge that hooks them.
When I’m close to him, I’m like a homeless man nursing a bottle in a brown paper bag all day, taking only small sips—yet by evening it’s empty.
And he still doesn’t notice how drunk he’s getting.
Chase Baker is like that. He makes me drunk and dazed.
He seeps into the deepest corners of my mind and makes me obsessed.
He stalks me like a quiet predator, unseen, and the next thing I know I’m in serious trouble.
Since he told me he only hurt me because his brother had ordered it, I see everything differently. I see myself differently.
Chase’s muscular, sun-tanned arm moves as he grabs a jar of peanut butter I have been staring at for a long time—the movement yanks me out of my daydreaming.