Lawless (King #3)(23)

“Nope, just a feeling,” I admitted. “She killed her mom, and if she really is an innocent then it only makes sense that the other body isn’t some random, so I figured it’s probably another member of her family.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but why do you care? You said yourself that you don’t even know the girl and that the ring and promise thing was a f*cking joke. Why do any of this?”

“I don’t care. Not about the girl. It’s not about her.” I hopped up into the truck and slammed the door. “But I told you already. The sooner I fix this, the sooner I can send her on her way and go back out on the road until I can figure out my next move. If I don’t do this she might cause problems, get loud, hang around longer than she’s welcome, which was already about the time I had to come riding back into town to see what the fuss was all about,” I said, not willing to admit that a little bit of my motivation was the evil five letter word that’s been haunting me for the past year.

GUILT.

“That makes a f*ck of a lot of no sense,” King said, lighting a joint and passing it to me, I took a hit and passed it back.

“Didn’t think it did, man,” I said, starting up the truck and easing it out of the garage. I turned us around once we were clear of the overhang and started down the narrow driveway.

I pulled out onto the main road and waited for the radar detector to chirp, and even though King said he was tight with the local cops I was still relieved when it remained silent.

“You know what?” King asked, picking a stray bit of weed off the tip of his tongue before taking another deep drag from the joint.

“Huh,” I said. He passed it back to me.

“You might not wear a cut anymore…but you’re still a f*cking bastard,” he said on an exhale, a deep burst of laughter exploding from his mouth in a puff of smoke.

“Haha, f*ck you,” I spat, as he continued to laugh.

There was a question I’d been wanting to ask him since I’d gotten back that popped back into my head. “Remember the night we were talking about hearing Preppy?” I asked.

King nodded. “Yeah, the night we lit up Eli and his crew.” The vein in his neck started to pulse as he recalled the night I was tortured.

The night he saved my life.

“Yeah, that would be it. I was just curious. Do you still hear him?” When King raised an eyebrow I clarified. “Prep. Does he still talk to you? Do you still hear him?”

“All the f*cking time man. He grew quiet there for a little while, but as we settled down with the kids it’s like he’s back with a vengeance. Sometimes when Max and Sammy are screaming at the top of their lungs, I think he’s even louder than them. Like a fourth kid who broke into a case of Mountain Dew at nine pm and instead of sleeping has decided to run laps around the living room.” King turned to me. “You?”

“Yeah. All the f*cking time. Especially when I’m f*cked up. Or f*cking up. Or when HE seems to think I’m f*cking up. You think that’s weird?” I asked, knowing damn f*cking well how weird it really was to live with a second voice in your head who chimed in when he saw fit.

You flatter me, Care Bear.

“You mean do I think it’s weird that we both hear the voice of our dead friend talking to us?” He smirked. “Naaaahhhh.”

“Well when you put it that way.” I hit the joint again, holding the smoke in my lungs until it burned.

I pressed down on the gas and sped down the road towards the rotting bodies of Thia Andrews parents.

But all the hurrying was pointless.

We were too late.

We were WAY too f*cking late.





CHAPTER ELEVEN




Thia


I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. I’d meant to LEAVE. But when I found out that yet another door had been locked, trapping me inside, I couldn’t help but to listen when I’d heard voices on the other side.

I don’t care about the girl.

When Bear said those words they shouldn’t have stung like a hornet to the heart. I already knew he didn’t care. It wasn’t until after they’d already pulled out that I remembered what Chop had said about the ring and about Bear’s making up the whole biker promise as a joke.

This was probably all still a joke to him. They probably weren’t going to Jessep. They were probably in the truck on their way to some sort of badass tattoo convention where Bear would tell everyone about the stupid trick he played on a kid who actually fell for his stupid lie and came back years later, still holding onto a ring that had meant everything to her growing up and nothing to him from the moment he’d placed it in my hand.

I knew he didn’t care about me. Not then.

Not now.

So why do I feel like someone punched me in the gut?

After my brother died, my dad always told me that under the weight of great tragedy, came great responsibility. I took this to heart and as the years went on I took on more and more responsibility at the grove so my dad could tend to my mother who was slipping further and further into her delirium. Before the Sunlandio Corporation cancelled our contract I was seventeen and running the grove full-time, often skipping school to meet with vendors or make sure that orders went out on time. One night during an extremely rare frost I rallied the workers and we spent all night hosing down the oranges so we wouldn’t lose them to the cold.