My last connection to home.
Tess can call the hulking multimillion-dollar mansion whatever she wants, but home will always be twenty-two-hundred square feet of wide plank floors, funny little built-ins, and a kitchen that always smelled like Grandpa’s cooking.
This is not home, and it never will be.
I’m trying not to be a bitter pill though, so I force a smile as I open the door and step out onto the shiny epoxied floors. My stomach lurches with nerves as I haul my backpack up my shoulder and wish with all my heart that I was at home helping my best friends Sally and Nevaeh pick out their outfits for Ryan’s party on Friday. Ryan was the boy I had a crush on before I was dragged into this mess. Likely, I’ll never see him again.
“Right this way, sweetie,” Tess tells me, heading for a side door and opening it for me. She stands aside, waiting for me to step onto the white marble floors in my hand-me-down sneakers. They used to belong to my older sister, Maxine. Well, the girl I thought was my older sister anyway. Learning that I was kidnapped as a child by some crazy woman and given to her parents to raise meant that I wasn’t actually Maxine’s little sister. That’s the part of this whole thing that hurts the most.
I move into the house and stop short in the cavernous entryway. Everything in this house is white. I mean, truly. It’s white-on-white-on-white. Sterile. Empty. And almost everything is square and sharp. My stomach lodges in my throat as I look up at the only organic shape in the room: the curving staircase with its metal bars, like a jail cell. That’s what it feels like in here: a gilded cage.
“Who the fuck are you?” a voice asks, drawing my attention away from the staircase and over to the doorway across from me. It seems to lead into a kitchen/living room area of some sort, but it’s impossible to take note of any of that because there’s a shirtless guy standing in front of me, covered in tattoos, and holding a half-gallon of milk at his side. The carton has a picture of a teenager on the side with the words MISSING CHILD printed above her head. That’s what I am. Me. A ‘missing child’. “And what are you doing in my house?”
“Parrish,” Tess warns, her tone maternal and familiar but harsh at the same time. “Knock it off. This is your sister … Dakota.” She chokes on that last word a bit, but I guess I can’t blame her. It’s the name my kidnapper gave me, not the one she did.
Parrish—apparently this is the hot shirtless guy’s name—has an expression on his face that tells me he couldn’t give two craps less what Tess has just said. He knows exactly who I am and why I’m here. His words are meant to inflict pain: I know who you are, and I don’t care; I don’t want you here.
I just stare back at him.
His eyes are almond-shaped, the color of hazelnuts with a splash of honey, and his mouth is full and lush, if not a little sharp at the edges, like he practices speaking cruel things on a regular basis. His hair is thick and wavy, a feast of dark chocolate, with a few naturally sun-bleached bits that tangle around his forehead. He looks mussy and tired and pissed all the way off.
As I watch, he lifts the milk carton to his lips and chugs it while Tess sighs.
“We do own glasses, Parrish,” she says, her heels clacking across the floor as she moves past me toward the stairs. “Please pour the rest of that down the sink, and next time you get milk, use a cup like a civilized person.”
Parrish smiles prettily, but that edge is still there, making the expression more like a smirk. Also, he isn’t looking at Tess; he’s looking at me. Actually, assessing might be a better word.
Reflexively, I find myself putting my hand over my stomach. There’s an ember in there, something hot and crafted of refined, undiluted rage. Oh my god, I hate this fucking guy. Two seconds in and I’m staring at someone that makes my skin hot, my muscles tight, and who even manages to draw a few beads of sweat from my forehead. That’s how intense and immediate my reaction to my new ‘brother’ is.
This dude is a complete and utter tool, a tattooed Chad, a narrow-eyed, sulky, pouty, too-rich-for-his-own-good diva bastard. Great. Just fucking great. An Instagram model come to life with the personality of a pissed-off sloth. Slouchy, annoying, entitled.
I grit my teeth and force myself to exhale. Remaining calm is paramount; it’s essential. You can make it through this, Dakota. You’ve got this. And then, of course, Parrish speaks and has the audacity to wink at me which just enrages me even further. I’ve never had this reaction to another human being. Never. He’s got sketchy vibes for sure.
