Chapter 228 Chapter 228
Chapter 228 Chapter 228
Kyra POV
“I’m still close to Toren. He’s going to be mad if he finds out about this.”
He lets out a maniacal laugh.
“I’m not afraid of Tor. Sorry.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ve been waiting to get you alone for a while. You leave gifts for me. Why?”
I gulp some air.
“I don’t know… to be nice. I thought it would make you smile.”
Another crazy hyena laugh erupts from him.
“You think I need to smile?”
“Yes,” I reply simply, because I believe it.
“You feel fuckin’ sorry for me?”
I shake my head, my cheek pressing into the dirt.
“No. I don’t. I just think everyone deserves to have someone treat them nice.”
“Even a monster like me?”
“Even you.”
“I didn’t take that girl,” he says, his voice softening just a little. “And I didn’t hurt her.”
“I know that.”
And I did know that. When Tyler was found with a local girl who had been kidnapped years ago, everyone in this small town assumed he was the one who had held her captive all that time. He was found standing over the body of a man dressed in an oxford shirt, with dark slacks and loafers—who appeared to be a nice, normal man—while the girl stood by and wept, not saying a word.
And there was Tyler, with wild long dirty blonde hair, tattoos covering most of his body which were actually hiding scars from years before, wearing old dirty motorcycle boots, ripped-up jeans, and a faded T-shirt stretched over muscles that had just been used as a weapon to take a life.
But in fact, Ty was the hero who saved her. He killed her real captor with his bare hands after the man attacked him for accidentally stumbling upon the kidnapped girl hidden in a hole deep in the woods.
Sadly, the press had already had their field day with the story before they knew the facts, and Tyler was crucified, pushing him even further into seclusion.
Leaning down close to my face, he pushes my hair to the side and presses his lips against the spot just behind my ear, whispering in an evil, suggestive tone.
“It does make me smile.”
He lifts himself off my back and pulls me up so we’re both sitting in the dirt driveway.
“You hurt?” he asks.
I brush my clothes off and shake my head.
“No, I’m fine.”
“You shouldn’t have run. And you shouldn’t be out here in the fuckin’ dark either. You got any brains in that pretty head of yours?”
“My car died and my phone doesn’t work. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Evil lurks in the dark, waiting for girls like you. I could have just raped the shit out of you. Or worse. Don’t think it didn’t fuckin’ cross my mind.”
I blink at him, frozen with fear. I’m alone in the dark with a lunatic who just admitted he thought about raping me.
“You should’ve stayed in your car.”
“You’re right.” I peek over at him in the dark, grateful the moon is bright enough to throw off enough light for me to be able to see him and attempt to gauge his actions.
“I thought you didn’t talk anymore.” On television, the victims try to make small talk to calm the psycho down, so maybe I should try that too.
He turns to face me, and I catch a hint of his blue eyes under the moonlight and the jagged scars that run down the side of his face.
“I don’t.”
“Then why are you talking to me?”
“I guess I’m feelin’ fuckin’ chatty.”
He stands and tugs me up with him, pulling my arm so hard I’m afraid it will snap.
“Now you’re going to get on the back of my fuckin’ bike like I asked and we’re going to get a container of gas. You think you can hold it without falling the hell off?”
I nod my head.
“Yeah.”
“Or if you really want to put a smile on my face, you could come home with me and let me slam you into my headboard for a few hours,” he suggests, his eyes roving over my body in a way that makes me feel extremely vulnerable and dirty.
“Ty… I’m in love with your brother.”
He nods and makes a clicking noise with his tongue.
“Figures.”
He starts to walk back toward his bike.
“Move your ass, Sugar. Consider this repayment for all the fuckin’ smiles.”
\---
I finally get home at one a.m. and breathe a massive sigh of relief when I get into the sanctuary and safety of my own bedroom. This has been the strangest night of my life. While I’m glad that Tyler came along to help me get gas, the altercation with him was bizarre and frightening. I feel like I should tell Tor about it even though Tyler asked me (more like told me) not to. His elevator is definitely not going to the top floor and he probably needs to be on some meds if he isn’t already.
After changing out of my clothes and into yoga pants, I walk down the hallway to my father’s room. I’m glad to see he’s not home as I slip inside and go straight to my mother’s night table, which hasn’t been touched since the accident.
Opening the wooden door at the front, I grab the journal on top of the stack of about ten handmade journals my father has made for my mom over the years that she religiously wrote in.
The leather journal has a lock, and the key is around my dad’s neck, so I take it over to her jewelry armoire and use an earring hook to pick the tiny lock. I’m hoping there will be some clues in here as to what they were talking about the morning of the accident and if she had feelings for Tor that went beyond friendship. If she did, I have no idea how I’m going to deal with that, but it’s definitely going to make me feel odd in a lot of ways.
“What are you doing?”
His deep voice exploding into the silence makes me jump and I drop the journal. He crosses the room swiftly and picks it up before I have a chance to react.
“You picked the lock? Jesus, Kyra.”
He gently closes the journal and puts it back where it was in the night table, then turns to stare at me in disbelief.
“I just wanted to read some of it,” I say.
“Those are private. I don’t even read those. You don’t think I want to? You don’t think maybe it would help me feel closer to her in so many ways? But I can’t, because it’s wrong. These aren’t our words to read, Kyra. They’re hers.”
I stare up at him, feeling guilty because I know what he’s saying is true.
“I don’t know how you do it, Dad. How do you keep your sanity with all of this?”