Page 22 of Injustice and Absolution

Panting but trying to control my breathing, I answer, “Same.”

At last, he tears his intense stare from me, and I’m finally able to steady my racing heart. I need to get out of here.

“I’ll get out of your way.”

When I move to stand, Royce puts his hand out, halting me. I watch as he walks to the edge of the boulder and takes a seat. His body mimics mine, with his legs hanging over the edge.

“I didn’t mean anything. I was just surprised to see you since there aren’t any cars parked in the lot.”

Royce doesn't offer an explanation for anything he does. Why he’s giving me one is a mystery.

“I parked farther down the road. I wanted to walk through the battlefield a little.” I pause, looking behind us at the parking lot.

It’s then I see his bike. “I didn’t hear you pull up.”

“You should pay more attention to your surroundings, kitten. Especially in the middle of nowhere at this time of night,” he warns with a concerned expression.

Even after a year, hearing my nickname again riles up the same amount of longing within me. But I can’t allow it to build. The havoc his rejection caused is too painful to subject myself to again.

“Don’t call me that. And I was deep in thought. Didn’t hear you.”

Ignoring my response, he changes the subject. “You know, there are grown men who can’t hack it out here at night. Lots of people have claimed to hear strange noises... Claimed to have witnessed ghost sightings.”

I scoff at his presumption that I’d be too scared to come here at night by myself.

“Ghosts can’t hurt me,” I shrug, my voice dripping with vitriol. “Not like living, breathing people can.”

Flicking a small piece of gravel from between my parted legs, I take a shot at him and my father. Both of whom have caused me immense pain, though for drastically different reasons. But I feel horrible as soon as the words leave my mouth.

Royce should never be lumped in with the likes of people like my father. But that doesn’t tame the sting of his rejection.

“I figured you’d be hanging out with Maggie and Fernando, now that he’s back in town.”

He hates Fernando, so for Royce to bring him up, he must really be hurting for something to talk about. Why force conversation with me when he wouldn’t do it for anyone else?

“They’re … preoccupied with their reunion. They probably don’t even know I left.”

I watch his head bob slightly out of the corner of my eye.

“I suppose they have some catching up to do.”

His awkwardness and choice of subject matter infuriates me.

“Is thisreallywhat you want to talk about, Royce? Your daughter and her boyfriend—two people you regularly voice your dislike for—having reunion sex?”

“Hey now, Fernando can disappear into the ether for all I care, but I don’t dislike Maggie.”

I peg him with a sardonic grin.

“I don’t,” he insists, his hand flying to his chest. “We don’t see eye-to-eye, but she’s my daughter, and I care about her wellbeing.”

I don’t deny his statement, but all he’s getting from me in response is another eye roll.

“What do you want to talk about, then?” he asks.

It’s uncanny to me that he has no idea how to continue our conversation, yet if he wasn’t interested in talking with me, he would have let me leave when he got here.

He wants to know what I want to talk about? I have a chance to use this situation to my full advantage, and I’m taking it.

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