Page 110 of Killer Kiss

You’re the whole reason she’s there in the first place. Wasn’t it you she was trying to get away from when she left us?

I bit my lip, trying to fight the demons inside me, trying to argue back with logic.

But it was like a mouse trying to slay a dragon.

My mother’s voice overruled everything else, and every word accused me of being the reason Fawn was dead in some basement.

In my rearview mirror, a set of headlights flashed.

I ignored them, barely able to keep myself on the twisting road that ran the length of both Providence and Saint View, the beach to one side and the bluffs rising ahead. Up there, high above this godforsaken town, maybe I could breathe again.

I just had to get there.

The car reared up behind me again, its lights too close to my bumper once more. “Fuck off!” I screamed into the emptiness of the car. But there was no anger in the cry, and it broke off in a desperate sob as another round of tears racked my body. I slammed my hand down on the steering wheel and cried. “Just leave me alone.”

I couldn’t stop. The tears came from some untapped place inside me that had stored them up for weeks or maybe months.

Maybe even my entire life.

My mother had hit us every time she’d seen so much as a glimpse of weakness, and so I’d learned to hold back any sort of emotion that would set her off.

But now I couldn’t stop. I gulped, trying to get myself under control, trying to pay attention to the danger warning going off inside me every time that car behind me got too close.

But my sister was dead.

And it was entirely my fault.

I’d done this. I was the one who’d gone to that club and stuck my nose where it didn’t belong. That message had come from Zane’s number. I’d pushed him, or Eddie, or both of them into doing this.

If I’d just stayed away. If I’d just never come home…

The road twisted and turned ahead of me, and the danger warning inside me increased from a squeak to a blaring siren.

My brother had once wrecked his car on this road.

And now there was someone behind me who seemed hell-bent on making me do the same.

The car’s horn sounded, two short bleeps and then a long blare that cut through the roar of my engine and the sounds from the rough and windy sea below.

Oh, this guy was pissing me off.

I wasn’t driving any faster. It was one lane each way, but fuck this guy, if he was so impatient, he could go around me on the wrong side.

I stuck my arm out the window and waved him on, refusing to increase my speed on such a dangerous stretch of road.

The car pulled out, zooming up the left-hand side.

I stuck my middle finger up as he drew level with my vehicle.

Riddick stared back at me, his eyes dark as night, not a hint of a smile on his ugly face. He swerved the car an inch in my direction, herding me toward the guardrail that was the only thing separating me from the rocky cliff face and the ocean hundreds of feet below.

My tears dried up in an instant.

My heart slammed against my chest, but instead of creating panic inside me, it cleared my mind.

I slammed on the brakes.

Spun the wheel.

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