Page 17 of Crow

I stare him down. He stares back. We could do this all night, but he needs to get to a real doctor, and I need to- to go home and start the rest of my life on my own terms. “I think you’re a nice guy under all those layers of absolute menace to society.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a terrible judge of character?”

“No. Of all the things that I’m terrible at, that was never one of my failings.”

I don’t let him have the last word. I unlock the car and slide behind the wheel. For the last time? Will I be spending the last night at my parents’ house? Can I even find a place to rent that fast? Does any of that really matter? I said I wanted to do this. It’s like I gave the command tobothof us.

I pull out of the parking lot and onto the road that leads back into Hart, Crow’s dark, solitary figure little more than a shadow in the dark that eventually swallows him whole.

He’s not going to let me turn back, even though this is crazy.

Maybe, that’s what Ineedright now. It’s probably what I’ve needed all along.

Chapter 6

Tarynn

By the early light of day, I realize just how much everything looks like a clusterfuck. Whoever said that shining light on a situation would provide illumination, clearly has never just about ripped a man’s face clean off after asking him for a favor, then spent the entire night dreading that he might actually make good on a wild proposition.

I couldn’t sleep, no matter how much melatonin I took, or how far I got down my ambient music playlist. When the sunrise streaked across the sky, I threw back my twisted covers and paced my room, silent as a ghost, packing the few things that I considered to be truly mine.

Around five-thirty, with a backpack and two duffel bags filled, the panic sets in so badly that I have to drop down to the edge of my bed, lean forward with my head in my hands, and breathe deeply and evenly to avoid a full scale panic attack. I’ve never had one before, but my churning stomach, sweat slicked skin, racing pulse, and closed throat all are warnings that I might be about to experience my first.

What kind of nonsense was I talking last night? The bike lessons are one thing. How did I get from there to basically letting Crow talk me into moving out? I have nowhere lined up. It’s just after the middle of June. Hart isn’t a huge city by any stretch of the imagination and it’s not like there are rentals galore. Sure, college might be out, but it’s also not like people flock here to go to the small community schools, vacating whenthe year is over. It’s the other way around. People from Hart head off for big cities like Seattle. They’re coming back now, although I can’t say they’d be taking rentals and not staying with family. Maybe? God, like I’d know.

I don’t know why my brain vacated my body last night. Apparently, it went clean on hiatus. Not only should Crow not show up here because I have no place to go if I leave, but he doesn’t need help. I can carry out my whole life thus far with me. Everything else in this house belongs to my parents. There’s no way I’m going to take something that I didn’t earn or wasn’t given as a gift. The irony in defying them to be independent by still relying on them that way would chew me up inside.

The best thing to do would be to try and contact Crow, but I don’t know how to do that. I don’t have his number. I could call his clubhouse. He may or may not be there. I have no idea how that works. Does he live there, or does he have a home somewhere in Hart? What about the other bikers? Would anyone be there at this hour?

Only if they haven’t gone to bed yet.

I huff at the thought. It’s probably true, but it’s not like they’d list the darned number if I looked it up online. Or would they?

I could call Patti for it, but she’s very likely still in bed, especially after I delayed her last night. She has staff who open the diner in the mornings during the week. She doesn’t head in until after her kids are off to school, but even so, she works late. She might appear to be superhuman, but I know she’s not. I don’t feel right about calling her and wrecking her day of solitude.

Clusterfuck number two.

I have to figure out a way to get out of going to church. It would be so much easier if Crow could just show up—if he’s going to show at all—while my parents are out and I’m here. It might be the coward’s way, but I could write them a note and leave it behind.

Chicken shit, sure, but it isn’t like they’d listen to anything I would have to say anyway. They’d be too stunned and too angry. They’ve tried to mold me and shape me into the perfect daughter. They don’t want to accept that I’d ever want more than the prescribed path.

Stuffing my bags into my small closet, I make sure they’re well out of sight. My room doesn’t appear to be changed. For the most part, it isn’t. Unless my mom opened my closet or went through my drawers, she wouldn’t notice anything missing. I usually have my laptop set up on my desk. It’s packed away in my backpack.

I keep my room perfectly clean. My twin bed is made up with military precision, the purple bedspread pulled tight. My dresser is always spotless, and the little desk is generally empty, save for my laptop or a book. I have one bookcase at the far end of the room. It doesn’t match the set, but my parents ordered it in white for continuity’s sake. I packed only a single book, a large, ornate tome of Dickenswith a green leatherbound cover, embossed in gold, that I purchased four years ago. It’s the only book in the house that is what my father would term unchristian.

I’m wearing a pair of leggings and a lightweight sweater with a tank top underneath, but almost all my other clothes are packed.

As soon as I hear my mom in the kitchen, getting ready for the oatmeal, orange juice, egg and toast routine breakfast, I get set to put on the performance of a lifetime.

I creep into the kitchen and sit down at the table. My mom notices me a minute later, when she turns around from her spot beside the sink where she’s pulverizing oranges on one of those handheld juicers.

“Hey.” I don’t have to feign my scratchy throat or the nerves churning my stomach into a nasty mess. It feels like I could literally throw up at any second. “I’m not feeling well this morning.”

Mom’s eyes narrow as she gives me a near scathing once over. “It’s that job. It keeps you up all hours of the night, wearing your immune system down. No doubt you’ve caught some vile bug from having to be around allthosepeople.”

I try to appear contrite, bowing my head to hide the rage she’s ignited in the pit of me.

“This is what comes of disobeying your father.”

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