Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Silas Montgomery had explicitly expressed that he wanted me alive. I was very uneasy upon realizing that this seemed to alarm Kain’s group of friends more than thinking Silas wanted me dead.
I’d just become the City of Miami’s most eligible kidnapping victim.
After hours of back-and-forth, all four of them had come to the conclusion that the best way to keep me safe was to never let my movements get predictable. I was also never going to be alone.
My home address was not on record so Kain said I would always be safe if I was home or leaving from home.
On days that I had class, I would take an Uber to school so that I would always show up in a different vehicle.
From there, I would keep Marlon, Amir, and Jay posted on all of my on-campus movements, and they would be silent observers in the background, watching anyone that might be watching me.
If I had a school club meeting to go to, I was to let them know.
Even if I wanted to have lunch at the Checker’s down the street, I was to let them know.
If I needed to go anywhere where there might be people, I was not advised to go alone.
I already felt like a fish in a fish bowl.
However, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel a little safer.
The group of friends had quite distinct differences. The wannabe-psychiatrist in me was classifying their personalities from the moment I’d met them. Each of them fit nicely into one of the twelve common archetypes.
Marlon—the oldest in the group, the responsible graduate student pursuing his Ph.D.
in Communications—he was clearly The Caregiver.
Jay—the nursing student who couldn’t be serious for a second—undeniably The Jester.
Amir—the one who observed more than he spoke, but made sure whatever he did say would be the smartest argument in the conversation—he was The Sage.
And then there was Kain. What with his unwavering desire to do what he knew was right, and the way his friends—either consciously or unconsciously—looked to him for the final decision. He was The Leader.
“I want you to hold on to this,” Kain said to me after leaving his friends behind to walk me to my car.
My eyes moved downward, following his hands as he placed a silver smartphone into mine.
It was a duplicate of the one I already owned, and I quickly snatched my gaze up, a new question in my eyes.
He explained, “I’m gonna call you every day around the same time.
And I figured your parents pay your cell phone bill. ”
I understood what he was getting at now, looking back down at the phone that was given to me. This was the phone he wanted me to contact him with, not the one my parents paid for.
“You don’t want your number to show up too often on my call records.” Kain was covering all his bases, thinking about things that would have probably never even crossed my mind.
“Also, in case of emergencies… I always have access to this phone’s location,” he added, drawing in a steady breath as he watched me carefully. “Is that alright with you?”
I pulled my lower lip in between my teeth, trying not to be mesmerized by the intensity of his honey brown gaze.
This man could get me to agree to anything if he just looked at me like that every time he asked.
I shook some sense into myself, shimmying as if to rid myself of his influence. This only made him smile.
Fish in a fish bowl.
“If you always have access to my location, then I want yours, too.”
His eyebrows climbed up his forehead questioningly before he said, “I’m not the one who needs protecting.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not comfortable with someone always knowing where I am unless I always know where they are, too.”
Kain opened his mouth to offer a rebuttal, but he stopped just short of the first word, pressing his lips together, relinquishing. “You know what? Fine.”
He pulled out his own cell phone, typing something in quickly. Within seconds, the new cellphone in my hand vibrated and I flipped it over on its screen to check the alert.
One (1) new notification from Kain Montgomery. 4:09 PM
“There it is.” If he was annoyed with me I couldn’t tell from the faint amusement in his eyes as he shook his head at all of this. “Now you can track my drive for the next seven hours.”
I frowned. “You mean…you’re going back upstate today?”
He confirmed my guess with a nod. I tried my best to not visibly react to this, but somehow I still got the sense that he could detect the distress that fell on me. I leaned backward on the driver’s side door of my car, uncomfortable that my disappointment had yet to subside.
Kain stepped forward, shrinking the already small space between us.
As if he’d been doing it his whole life, he slipped a finger under my chin, his thumb lightly resting along my cheek.
The simple touch could’ve been his way of claiming my undivided attention, it could’ve meant absolutely nothing to him.
But for me?
My pulse quickened just a little bit more, and my skin burned where his hand rested.
It wasn’t a painful burn. It was a subdued heat that started at the point of contact, but soon spread throughout the rest of my body.
Just warm enough for me to know his touch meant something. Unconsciously, I leaned into him.
“You’re gonna be fine,” he promised me. “The guys—they’ll take good care of you. You’re safe.” His words must not have made me any less tense, because Kain sighed and added, “Weekends.”
“Huh?”
“You survive Monday through Friday afternoons, and then you got me through Sunday. I’ll keep you safe myself. Every weekend until the end of the Spring semester—six weeks. And then you’ve got me every day of the summer until your dad loses the trial.”
“Well, what if my father doesn’t lose the trial?” I raised an annoyed eyebrow.
“Then Silas goes to prison for life and I gotta live the rest of my life knowing I helped put him there.” Kain gave a low chuckle. “But none of that will matter because we’re gonna be too busy tryna figure out how to solve the flying pig problem.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “You’re not funny.”
“So why are you laughing?”
I took his suggestion that Dad could only win the Silas Montgomery case when pigs fly as a kind of challenge. With a cross of my arms, I declared, “I think my dad has a winning case.”
Kain sounded bored when he said, “I’m sure you do. What kind of daughter would you be if you didn’t?”
“Silas must think so too since he’s willing to drag me into this.”
“Surest way to ensure a dead trial is to secure a dead—or distracted—prosecutor. We all sleep a little easier with guarantees. Silas just doesn’t like to cut corners,” Kain assured. “He’s an overachiever.”
I narrowed my eyes a little. “Sounds like you’re proud of him.”
“I’m not,” Kain replied, seemingly before he had a chance to think about it.
The words just came out of him, and once they were out, we stood there for a moment, a quiet falling around us.
Kain cleared his throat after a minute or so, breaking up the awkward silence before it could settle.
“I’ll see you this Friday, Lauren. Take care of yourself. Don’t do anything stupid.”
His delivery was harsh, but I couldn’t be offended by it. Beneath the surface of his words, there was something more meaningful in his intentions. Kain wasn’t telling me to stay safe because of some need to absolve himself of any blame should anything happen to me.
He was worried about me.
Naturally, it should alarm anyone when the person you’ve entrusted to keep you alive is worried, but my attention was focused on something else entirely.
Kain cared.
Somewhere between meeting Kain at that party to now, he’d developed a soft spot for me.
I could see it now, clear as day. Meeting Marlon, Jay, and Amir today didn’t make me feel totally safe.
Kain giving me a tracking device cell phone didn’t make me feel totally safe.
When Kain promised to come down on weekends, I still didn’t feel totally safe.
However, as Kain looked down at me now, eyes flaring with genuine concern for my wellbeing… I could see that this was a person who was about to pull out all the stops to ensure I remained unharmed.
I felt safe.
“I’ll see you this Friday, Kain.”
***
Kain kept his word about coming south to Miami every weekend.
Every week, for the past month, after finishing up his last class on Friday, he would catch a flight from Tallahassee to Miami to spare himself the trouble of a seven-hour drive.
If I forgot for one second which tax bracket Kain was living in, the fact that he could justify weekly airport visits to travel within the same state was enough of a reminder.
“I don’t think you should come down next week,” I suggested as Kain loaded his weekend bag into the trunk of my car.
Before he could ask me if something was wrong, I explained.
“It’s two weeks till summer. Final exams are coming up.
I don’t think it’s fair to you to have to put time aside for the back and forth between cities. ”
The arrivals area of the airport was a setting I was getting accustomed to being in. My Fridays usually followed the same routine. I’d pick Kain up at his gate usually around five to six in the afternoon, we’d have a quick bite to eat, and fill each other in on the events of that week.
After a month of Fridays, it would have been only natural for some of the novelty to run out.
Except that hadn’t happened. Kain was that gift you still managed to have fun with months after Christmas, while every other present had been lost or tossed aside.
Every look, every touch, every kiss… still just as novel as the first.