Page 75 of Ravage
He moves finally, and we’re through the door to his car. He opens the passenger door and then sets me down on my feet. I’m thankful he keeps his hands on me as all the blood takes its time draining from my head, and I struggle to balance myself.
“Get in,” he barks, then moves around the car to his seat.
There’s a second of temptation to run.
Just a second, but I remember that I did promise to have fun with him tonight. They may be fine breaking promises, but I’ve never broken any of mine. And I won’t start now.
I take my seat and check around me for a seatbelt. “Of course not,” I mutter under my breath.
The door is barely closed before I fall back into my seat when Kellan takes off.
“That guy wants to fuck you,” he bites out like I’ve pissed in his cereal.
I shift myself more comfortably in the seat and cling to the door handle. “So? Maybe I want to fuck him.”
He rips his gaze from the road to look at me in a mixture of pain and anger. “Do you?”
My first instinct is to snap back ‘yes,’ whether I mean it or not just to piss him off. I’m still furious over Aiden’s accusations and him still not believing me after I’ve been honest with him every time he’s asked. But Kellan isn’t Aiden. That and the pain in his eyes stops me.
“Maybe. I don’t know. What does it matter?”
“What do you mean, ‘maybe’?”
“I mean, if I’m looking to have sex one night to feel good and forget about life for a while, then he’s on the table,” I snap, annoyed with him pushing this. What I’ve done, and still do, to cope with my past is none of their business anymore.
He turns back to the road before we rear-end a line of cars. He swiftly turns us down a side road and takes a winding path that quickly has me lost.
“I thought this was supposed to be a night of fun. If you can’t hold up your end of the deal, I’m out.”
His knuckles loosen on the wheel, and he tosses a quick glance my way, then sighs. “You’re right. Let’s go break some rules, like old times.” He cracks a smile, which is like a quarter of his usual grin, but it’s a start.
My eyes roll at the mention of our old shenanigans on the island. “I’d hardly compare something like this to the little pranks we did when we were younger.”
Kellan’s smile widens. “You’ve gotta up the stakes the older you get, or else it’s too easy and not fun anymore.”
“For you, maybe.” I look over at him. “Why not bring one of the others with you? Why me?”
“Aside from the obvious that you had always been my partner in crime before?” He shifts gears and we speed on to the highway. Weren’t we going to the airport for street racing?
“Aiden hates that I do any of this at all. He says we have enough people after us to then have to worry about cops and law enforcement up our asses if I ever get caught. Jackson isn’t into this sort of fun and though he might go along with it for me, he’d probably use his gift to cheat and make it end faster. And Dane, well, he can’t come down from his tower in case GE finds out where we’ve been hiding him from them.”
“Hiding him?”
Kellan raises an eyebrow and glances over at me. “You don’t know?”
I cross my arms and glare at him. “Why would I know anything? I haven’t seen or heard from you since you all left me on that island. Not until I came to this city, at least.”
“About that…I didn’t know you were still on the island. Aiden couldn’t find you and assumed you’d left when another boat was gone. For years after we got away, I thought that was exactly what you’d done.”
“Why would you think I’d actually leave all of you?”
He gives me an are you kidding me look and, yeah, okay. Good point.
“I hated you then. I thought you’d lied to us the entire time. You killing Vera and then leaving the island without us? It was all the proof I needed to see that everything we’d had together was a lie.”
I open my mouth to protest. “Let me finish,” he cuts in. “I was angry with everyone back then. I got into fights all the time, drank and smoked, and did a whole host of bad shit until Aiden finally reined me in. Even then, I didn’t slow down. I just got smarter with how I did it. Then, sometime after Jackson came back, he said something to me. He told me that he didn’t think you’d gotten off the island. You hadn’t left us behind. Because he’d searched the country for you, and he couldn’t find any sign you existed. None.
“Then I thought about what that might mean. That we may have left you behind and you might still be under their control. Or worse, dead. I was a miserable fuck after that. So, when you came back here…when I saw you again and knew you were alive, I was so fucking relieved. And angry. With myself for not trying to find you sooner. And also with you. Because you still owe us all an explanation for Vera. I was too emotional to listen to you then, but I’m ready now. I want—no, I need—to know why. Was any of it real?”
