Page 101 of Twisted Ties
I open my eyes and stare up into his. “My mom.”
It’s fleeting. But it’s there. A flicker of something. Alarm? I wait. Will he lie again? Claim he doesn’t know what I’m talking about? Is he going to hurt me even more?
“Let me take you home and we’ll talk.”
I consider his offer and nod.
I saymy goodbyes to Winnie and Rosa, and scoop Pip off the floor where he’s curled up with the yappy dog, looking far too comfortable. Rosa insists she’s taking Winnie back to Arrow Hart herself.
“I’m going to cover for her,” she tells me. “Come up with some excuse about how I was seriously unwell and needed her presence immediately.” She eyes the man in black with interest. “Want me to cover for you too?”
“No, we’ll work something out,” I mumble, letting Azlan lead me over to his bike.
Pip looks longingly at the pup by Rosa’s feet as I lower him into the box on Azlan’s bike but he doesn’t make a fuss. Then the two of us are climbing back on his bike, my arms wrapped tightly around his waist and my bond humming all the way up to my chest.
It’s easier when it’s all physical, when we don’t have to talk about the complexities of our feelings, about all the obstacles in our paths, when we can just be, just feel, like now.
It’s the early hours of the morning when we pull up outside his house, but I’m not sleepy. I’m wide awake.
“Do you want to head to bed? Talk about this in the morning?” he asks, lifting his helmet from my head and stroking loose strands of my hair from my face, his fingertips tender against my skin.
“No, I want to talk,” I tell him.
“Me too,” he says resolutely, and I follow him into the dark house, setting Pip down on the floor. Perhaps my little friend senses the tension in the air, or maybe he just doesn’t want to witness any banging, because he makes a swift exit out of the room.
“Do you want something to eat? Drink?” Azlan asks me.
I have hardly eaten all day, bar the one cookie at Winnie’s grandma’s house. I’m light-headed and my stomach aches. But I shake my head. “I want answers, Azlan.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I heard you talking to Stone. Last night. I heard you talking about my mom.”
He walks to the window and stares out at the darkness, no sign of the dawn yet. “Is that why you ran away?”
“I didn’t run away. I went back home. To find my own answers, seeing as no one will give them to me.”
“And?” he says, peering over his shoulder.
“How about you answer my questions first? What do you know about my mom?”
“Not a lot.”
I huff in irritation and he spins away from the window to face me.
“I’ve been searching for answers about you since I met you, Rhianna.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” I shrug stubbornly. “Because I felt the connection between us and I wanted to know who thehell you were. Why your aunt had kept you hidden all those years. How the hell she’d managed to do it. You know, there were rumors of a girl. An unregistered girl. I followed them up once or twice. It was like chasing wind. I thought they were false. And then I found you and …”
“You were looking for us?”
“Yes.”
“I think I knew it,” I say.
He stares at me and the bond between us crackles, begging for us to close the distance between us. But I can’t, not until I know everything.
“What did you find out about me?”
“Nothing.” I frown. “Honestly, Rhi. There is nothing.”
