“We’re on a forced vacation.” Henry’s voice broke. He was always so much weaker than Nolan, than Emery. The frail, dangling link that was likely to snap first.
“What’d you do?”
“None of your business,” Nolan snapped.
“What. Did. You. Do?” Bane’s tenor was chilling. A cold knife gliding down your skin, its edge poking your flesh. Roman Protsenko was highly connected in Todos Santos. Even I knew that. He was the kind of person you really didn’t want to mess with.
“Campus incident.” The words sounded like they wanted to be swallowed back into Nolan’s mouth. The three golden boys of All Saints High went to college together. East Coast. That was the deal their parents had made with Darren and Pam.
We want your kids as far away as possible from ours. Much good it had done me.
“Consisting of?”
“A girl…” Henry said through clenched teeth. My heart split into mosaic pieces. They’d assaulted someone else? “We didn’t do anything. That’s why it’s just a week. She was sauced as hell. Anyway, we only messed around with her. Shit was under investigation for like, a second, but we’re good to go back.”
Bane’s eyes sought mine under the sad artificial light. He was no less dangerous than they were. If anything, they were hyenas, and he was a lion, quiet and deadly. “What’re we gonna do with them, Jesse?”
“I don’t want them anywhere near me ever again. No talking, no touching, no breathing in my direction.” My teeth chattered, even though it wasn’t cold. I wasn’t proud of using Bane to make sure the boys were off my case, but the temptation was too much. Henry and Nolan were bullies. If they smelled weakness, they would strike. They’d continue to provoke me until the day I died if they didn’t have an incentive not to.
Bane said, “You heard her. Consider this her official restraining order against you.”
“I’m sorry, but who the hell are you to tell us what to do?” Nolan spat out. Bane released Henry from the chokehold, sauntering over to Nolan. The air was drenched with menace. The world seemed painfully mundane while wrapped up in Roman Protsenko’s exceptional orbit. Like he was bigger than the place he was born in. He captured Nolan’s throat in his palm and squeezed, still reeking of bored stoicism. “If you get anywhere near her again, I will personally make sure it will be the last time you step foot in this town. Your family will be driven out of here. Your college dream will be dead. I will unleash every ounce of power I have in this town to make sure your lives are a continuous, Freddie-Kruger-style nightmare. Fair warning: I’m very good at nightmares. I’ve lived a different life from yours, and know what you rich kids can survive…and what you cannot.”
I’d have paid good money to see Nolan’s face at that moment, but he had his back to me. What I did hear clearly was Henry choking on his own saliva. “Man, let’s get the hell out of here! Let’s go!” simultaneously with Wren, who wept out, “Nolan, don’t be an idiot!”
Nolan stood like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, askew and unsteady, realizing for the first time the lesson he had taught me—that we were all fragile and breakable. Bane unlocked his hand from Nolan’s neck and pushed him toward the car.
“You’re trying my patience,” the blond mammoth growled. “Under any other circumstance, you wouldn’t walk out of this park alive.”
Nolan tossed me a narrowed-eyed look. “Fine. You’re dead to us. Happy?”
Hardly. But I wanted them to finally let go of me, so maybe, one day, someday, I could let go of them.
“You’re a prick,” I hissed, nuzzling my face into Shadow’s fur.
“And you’re a slut. Just remember that when the town’s bully replaces your ass with someone who isn’t crammed with STDs.”
That awarded Nolan a punch to the face from Bane. It happened so fast, he staggered and fell down, his ass hitting the concrete. Bane kicked his face with the tip of his boot, and I heard something crack. I barked out a laugh, mainly from shock. Henry half-ran, half-stumbled to Nolan, picking him up by the collar of his shirt and galloping toward the Camaro. “Dude, we need to bail. Now!”
He shoved Nolan into the Camaro and bolted around to the driver’s seat, attempting to start the car a few times before the engine roared to life. He reversed with a screech, bumping into Bane’s truck slightly before fleeing the scene while peppering small bits of the car’s wrecked hood in his wake. My eyes followed the vehicle, dancing in their sockets. I was so entranced by what happened, I hadn’t even noticed Bane was standing right in front of me. But he was.
There, with his long, muscled body.
Green eyes like winter mint, dark and frighteningly alive.
Under the harsh light, I could see the holes where his past piercings must have been. Lower lip. Nose. Eyebrow. He was tall and smooth and youthful. Regal in his beauty. The only things staining his noble good looks were his tattoos and beard.
My gaze swept down to his knuckles. They were individually inked, carefully hiding every inch of skin.
My eyes halted on the dark stain between them. Nolan’s blood.
I looked up.
I didn’t know if it was the air that smelled of grass and adrenaline, or the allure of the night that promised to swallow what had passed between us into a secret, or the fact that he’d saved me, but I didn’t hate Bane like everyone else in that moment. My mouth opened of its own accord, and the words tumbled out. “Thank you.”
“What would it take for you to have coffee with me?” He breathed hard, picking up where we’d left off. Last time, I told him he’d need to save my life.
I guess he just had.
“For you to tell me why you want to do this.”
“I need to fix you,” he said, his greens on my blues.
To. Fix. You.
Shadow stirred in my arms, trying to sniff Bane from a distance. I was surprised he didn’t try to bite his head off like he normally would. He knew how weird I’d felt about men.
“I don’t mean to sound rude, but who the hell are you to fix me, and who said I’m in need of fixing?” I tilted my chin down, aware of the fact I hadn’t exchanged so many words with another man for years. I was on the verge of shoving him away. How dare he? But I was also on the verge of smashing my body against his, collapsing into a hug. How good was he? No one had ever tried to fix me. Even Darren and Pam merely wanted to get rid of me. Of course, I did neither. The Untouchable never touched anyone.
Bane took a step forward. I didn’t take a step back.
“I heard about your story. I heard about what Emery, Nolan, and Henry did to you. And let’s just say I have someone close to me who experienced something similar, so shit hit pretty close to home.” He pointed to the space where the Camaro was no longer parked. I thought about what I knew about him. About his bad reputation. But then I also remembered that he’d been the one to shut down the Defy game in All Saints High. That all he’d ever been to me was kind and helpful.
“I don’t think you understand, Snowflake. You don’t have any say in this shit. I’m going to help you whether you want my help or not. And I’m willing to punch every face in Todos Santos if it makes you feel safer, my own included. I don’t want to fuck you, Jesse.” He breathed hard, and in my mind, he was cupping my cheeks with his big, callused palms, and I didn’t even flinch.
In my mind, his cinnamon breath skimmed over my face warmly.
In my mind, we didn’t have all that dead space between us, and our voices didn’t echo against the nothingness of the empty night, because I wasn’t so broken and scared. “I want to fucking save you.”
“But—” I started.
He cut me off. “They called you a whore. What they did to you is inexcusable. You’re going to be saved, hear me? You’re going to be saved, because the other girl couldn’t be saved.”
I didn’t question it.
I didn’t doubt it.
I just accepted it, the way you do the sky above your head, knowing he was a stronger force than my resistance ever would be.
Bane had helped me. He’d protected me.
And, sadly, it was more than anyone else had done in my life.
All he wanted was coffee. Somewhere public. Once. I could survive this. I could.
I thought about the wilting Mrs. Belfort, and how loneliness drove me running from my memories and nightmares in the middle of the night, then nodded. He motioned for me to get into his truck, and I shook my head, lowering Shadow to the ground. We were going to walk. Bane threw his cell phone into my hands.
“Five, three, three, seven. Have 911 on speed dial. I’ll drive slowly. Keep the passenger door open just in case. But you’re not walking home with your feet looking like that.” He motioned down, and I followed his gaze, finding my ankles and Keds beaten almost to death, the little pocketknife nearly falling out of my blood-soaked sock. I nodded slowly, tucking it back in. I then dialed 911 and kept my thumb hovering on the green button, and got into his truck.
It was the shock that made me do it.
New Jesse never got into anyone’s vehicle.
“Just one question, Bane,” I said after giving him directions to my house. “What were you doing here tonight? It’s a gated community.”
He cut his engine, sank back into his seat, and rolled his head to look at me. “I have a hookup in El Dorado every Thursday. I have the electronic key.” He flashed the small black device between his fingers.
I swallowed hard as I tumbled out of the passenger’s seat with Shadow in front of my house.
My ankle dragged, leaving a bloodstain on his old leather seat.
And I thought it to be ironic.
How he was the most powerful man I knew, and yet, I was the one to mark him before he marked me.
THE MINUTE DARREN TEXTED ME that Jesse went to the track for a jog, I was out of bed and in my truck, speeding in its direction.
Fine. I’ll rephrase: I was out of Samantha’s bed—an El Dorado local lay and a lawyer who gave me legal advice—and heading toward the track.