“Well?” she repeats as I stand there reeling in the rain, my tears replaced with water as confusion swaps places with sadness. “Tess Vanguard doesn’t care about you, Dakota. Only I do. I’m your real mother.” Saffron points at herself, dark circles under her eyes and wrinkles in her forehead that Tess doesn’t have. They’re nearly the same age, but they look so different; they’ve lived such different lives.
“Is that so?” a cold voice asks from my left.
An icy terror filters through me as I turn to the side to see Tess, poised on the other side of the metal railing that separates the patio from the sidewalk. She holds out her hand, the other wrapped so tightly around her coffee cup that her fingers are leaving indents.
Her expression is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen in my life.
No. No, no, no. What the fuck have I done?! I wasn’t careful enough.
“Give me the phone. Now.”
I’m left with little choice but to comply. The situation is already bad enough.
I had my sister’s phone over to Tess and watch as the women in my life who could claim the title of mother—for very different reasons—stare at each other.
“Haven’t you done enough?” Tess breathes, her shoulders stiff, and her expression murderous. “I took pity on you because you’re obviously a very sick woman, but if I find out you’ve contacted my daughter again, I will destroy you. Don’t believe me? I have the resources to bury you.”
Bury you. I see where Parrish gets his attitude from. Nurture won out over nature in that case.
“Dakota deserves the truth,” Saffron replies, her voice like a whisper in comparison to Tess’ steely tones. “She has a right to know. I protected her. Me, and only me. I was the only one that cared.”
“Contact my daughter again, and you’ll be spending the next two decades in federal prison.”
Tess hangs up the phone and then studies it in her palm.
“Whose phone is this?” she asks me, just before Maxine pops out the back door of the café with an oblivious smile.
“Did you get a chance to talk—” Maxie starts, and then she goes completely still, the color draining from her face as Tess looks up and their eyes meet. Uh-oh.
“What the fuck are you two doing out here?” Parrish demands, slipping out the door behind my sister. It takes him about half a second to notice Tess standing on the other side of the railing. “Shit.”
“Shit is right,” Tess says, stepping a bit closer to the railing and holding Maxine’s phone out to her. “I want the two of you out front—now.”
My knuckles rap against the doorjamb outside of Parrish’s room. Neither of us has a door anymore: Tess and Paul removed them both and left the two of us without a shred of privacy.
“Hey.” The sound is soft, almost inaudible. “Can I come in for a second?”
Parrish ignores me, shoving clothes into a duffel bag to prepare for the trip tomorrow. We’re driving six hours south to stay at Paul’s mother’s vacation home. Should be a fun drive, considering Tess wants to murder us both. I could barely sleep last night. One, because not having a door is an oddly traumatizing experience. Two, because every time I closed my eyes, I could see Tess’ dark expression in my mind.
“Might as well. You’re my only companion for the next few weeks.” He yanks the zipper on his bag before turning a surprisingly mild expression my way. I’ve been avoiding him since yesterday’s incident. The risks were mine to take, but I feel bad for dragging Parrish into it. Even Chasm is banned from the house for two weeks.
Grounded. Again. I can barely go a day before receiving another sentence.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, choking back the pain. I have no idea what’s going to happen to Maxine or Saffron or my grandparents. Tess really does have the power to make all of their lives miserable. She’s taken all of Parrish’s electronics, too. The only thing she doesn’t know about is my second phone, but I haven’t even turned it on since yesterday; I’m afraid to see what might happen if she finds out that I have it. “For dragging you into this, I mean. You were trying to save my ass and instead, I insulted you at the café …”
Parrish pauses for a moment, hands on his duffel bag, and turns to look at me. He’s much less angry than I expected, and I’m not sure what to make of that. Also, his hair is delightfully mussy and falling across his forehead in a glorious fop. I want to tousle it, and then kiss him, and then … shit, I don’t know.
“Don’t apologize for other peoples’ decisions,” he snaps, and then closes his eyes in frustration. “I’m not here to tell you how to live, Dakota, but I will say this: it gets exhausting after a while.”
