Chapter 7 Cole
SEVEN
COLE
You could’ve killed us.
Sophie’s words have burned themselves in my head as if she’d rammed a red-hot piece of iron into my skull.
Everything inside me is raging. Not because of the adrenaline or the words themselves, but because all at once I was hurled into the past. To the night three years ago that changed my life. The night I messed everything up and lost Milena.
Shaking my head, I look at Sophie. Her body is slumped against the passenger door while her steady breathing fogs up the window. She’s sleeping.
"For fuck’s sake," I mutter softly.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
We almost got caught by the cops. And I’m pretty sure they would have found a reason to lock me up.
I may not have kidnapped Sophie, but if there’s something these bastards don’t like, it’s young guys with guns and a criminal record longer than a couponing queen’s receipt.
When we finally arrive at my place—an old warehouse in an abandoned industrial area on the outskirts of some small town in the middle of nowhere—I’m relieved as fuck we didn’t run into any more patrol cars.
I have no idea how I’m going to hide Sophie from the eyes of the law, but I can’t and won’t worry about that right now.
Instead, I drive to the back entrance of the building and kill the engine.
Then I take my cell phone out of my jeans pocket and send Jules a message.
It’s only one word and it’s pretty stupid, but it became our code word for come here ASAP a few years ago.
Groper
OMW
Be quiet
I put the smartphone away and look at Sophie again.
She’s fast asleep, which I can’t blame her for.
If my assumptions are right and her life has really only taken place in that tiny house—which I assume is the case since the world seems so damn foreign to her—what she experienced tonight must have taken quite a toll on her.
Sighing, I get out of my truck and close the door as quietly as possible.
When I open the passenger door, Sophie’s body sags toward me.
I put an arm around her, unbuckle her, and lift her out of the truck.
She weighs next to nothing, and her head sinks against my shoulder as I shut the door.
In her right hand, she’s still holding the dollar bills I gave her what feels like ages ago.
I suppress another sigh before entering the warehouse and carrying her upstairs to the finished part of the upper floor.
Once there, I lay her down on my bed, since Jules’s isn’t made anymore.
Sophie instantly snuggles into the pillow without waking up.
After pulling the bills from her grip and pocketing them, I head for the open kitchen to pour myself a glass of Jack Daniel’s and toss it back in one go.
Fuck. That’s what I needed two hours ago.
After lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag, I pour myself another Jack. My gaze is fixed thoughtlessly on the girl lying in my bed until I hear footsteps on the stairs and avert it.
Jules looks at me worried as she climbs the last steps before scanning me from head to toe, just like she’s done countless times before. "What happened?"
I lay my finger against my lips while I nod in Sophie’s direction.
"Who’s this?"
"Let’s go downstairs," I murmur and follow her to the first floor. The yellowish light of a streetlamp shines through the dull glass of the old, paned floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s not bright, but enough to make out Jules’s furrowed brows and her questioning look.
"I hope you have a damn good explanation for the fact that there’s a sleeping girl in your bed and you look like you’ve been chased by the devil.
" At her words, she raises an eyebrow and tilts her head. If she’d put her fists on her hips, she could pass for the mother I never had even though she’s younger than me.
I run my hand through my hair and take a deep breath. "It’s not good, but it’s the truth," I reply. "She… came to me, I guess."
Jules tilts her head even further, making her purple ponytail fall to the side. "Came to you? Like a cat?"
Yes, she came to me. But like a cat?
"No, goddamn. More like… you." I shake my head before I explain what happened after I left the vet clinic.
Jules’s expression shifts from confusion to disbelief and finally to concern. When I finish speaking, she takes an audible breath before looking at me skeptically. "So what are you going to do now? I mean… are you just going to keep her here? This thing with her mother doesn’t sound good at all."
Yeah. That’s the million-dollar question. What am I going to do with her?
"I don’t know," I confess. "For now, I’ll let her sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll try to get more out of her. Then I’ll figure it out."
Jules looks at me silently for a while, then nods before chewing on her lower lip for a moment. "Cole, I know this is really shitty of me because you don’t want to talk about it, but this is not her. You know that, right?" Her voice is almost cautious, but it still feels like a dagger in my heart.
I avert my gaze.
Since the moment Sophie got into my pickup at that fucking traffic light, the thought has been pounding in the back of my head.
I’ve been semi-successful in ignoring it, but I can’t keep doing that anymore.
Sophie looks so much like her. The long blond hair, the soft features with those full lips, the amber eyes…
She looks just like Milena. Milena, who had been everything to me.
Who had made me the happiest person on this godforsaken planet. And who I killed three years ago.
"I know."
"Okay," Jules says softly, taking a step toward me. Then she wraps her arms around my waist and rests her head against my chest. "I’m just worried about you. I don’t want you to have another—"
"It’s okay." I hug her tightly. "I’m fine."
We both know that I’m absolutely not fine, but Jules nods anyway.
She’s well aware of how pointless it is to try to pull me out of this fucking hole I fell into when I lost the girl I loved.
She witnessed firsthand what it did to me.
What it made out of me. Even in the early days, when I pushed everything and everyone away, she stood by my side and didn’t give up on me.
A mean, self-destructive part of me wants to believe she did that so we’d be even.
But deep down, I know she really cares about me.
And even though I never said it out loud, I’m more than grateful to her for always staying by my side, no matter how obnoxious I was.
After I let go of her, she looks at me with a faint smile. "Go to sleep. And please try not to drink too much." Her gentle yet firm tone makes me smile.
"I’ll be back tomorrow morning. You don’t have to figure this out alone, okay?"
I nod before changing the subject. "What’s it like at your place?"
"Miss me already?" The grin she puts on is teasing, but I love her way too much to be mad at her.
Chuckling, I drape an arm around her shoulder. "Me? Missing you? Your mess was almost unbearable. I’m glad to finally be rid of you," I tease her back as we walk toward the old steel door. "I’m still finding your underwear in the most impossible places."
"Did you, by any chance, see that black bra with the blue gemstones? I’ve been looking for that for a while now. Oh! And that eyeshadow palette I—"
"Jesus Christ, Jules. Get the hell out of here." At that, I push her off me slightly, but I can’t deny that I’d love to have her back here with me. "Do you want me to drive you? It’s getting late."
Jules shakes her head while rolling her eyes. "It’s not even a mile. You don’t have to watch me anymore. I’m a big girl now, you know?"
I pull at her ponytail, and she swats my hand away, but can’t hide her smile.
"You’ll forever be my little Jules, always getting into trouble and needing a babysitter."
The evil look I receive in response makes me laugh.
"See you tomorrow." She stands on her tiptoes and presses a kiss to my cheek before disappearing.
Even though Jules moved out a month ago, it’s still weird not having her around at all times anymore.
So yeah, I do fucking miss her. And yes, even her mess.
But I couldn’t stop her from renting her own place after she found a job at a hair salon.
And since I’m not her boyfriend, her brother, or—heaven forbid—her dad, there wasn’t much I could say about it.
I can only ask her to send a text each evening in which she has to assure me that she’s fine.
Today, too, she’ll send me another one. I need that last spark of control.
She’s like a little sister to me, and I just have to know that she’s safe and sound.
When I re-enter the upper floor and look toward the bed, Sophie’s still lying there, quietly asleep.
I decide to honor Jules’s request and limit myself to just one more glass of whiskey before bed.
The alcohol tastes bittersweet on my tongue and calms me down a little.
After putting down the tumbler, I walk over to the bed.
It’s a king-sized one because Jules used to climb in next to me whenever she couldn’t sleep.
Sophie’s tiny frame looks almost lost in it.
I reach for the blanket and carefully pull it over her body.
As my phone announces Jules’s text with a quiet bing, Sophie snuggles even deeper in my pillow and sighs softly while I stare at her like a fool.
Goddamn. The resemblance to Milena is so strong, it almost hurts to look at her.
Just as I’m about to turn away, I hear a murmur and freeze.
"Cole?"
"Yeah?"
"There’s no such thing as magic lemonade, is there?"
I have no fucking clue what she’s talking about. Maybe she doesn’t even know that herself because she doesn’t really seem awake. "No, darling. There’s not."
When she doesn’t say anything else, I turn away, go to the couch, and pull the Desert Eagle out of my waistband to put it down on the side table. Then I take my cigarettes out of my pocket, light one, and stare aimlessly into the nothingness.
Maybe I should’ve just handed Sophie over to the authorities. What was I even thinking by taking her with me? I’m pretty much the last person who should be looking after her. Still, I just can’t stop feeling responsible for her.
Without me being able to control it, my gaze has slid back to her again.
In the dim light of the streetlamp shining through the old windows, I can make out the contours of her body under the blanket.
In my helplessness, I want to down the rest of the fucking bottle of Jack, but I stop myself for Jules’s sake.
And because I need a clear mind tomorrow when Sophie wakes up.
I need to know why she wanted to get away from her mother so badly, and then figure out what to do with her.
With a sigh, I stub out the cigarette and rub my hands over my face one last time before lying down on the couch to try to get some sleep.